Humanity can’t be fixed, will always be selfish, greedy, discriminating against other people who differ enough, since a bunch of these things are pretty much hard coded.
According to recent archeological evidence, the style of humanity that gives you that impression is actually quite a recent phenomenon in our species. This is explored quite thoroughly in David Wengrow’s and David Graeber’s book The Dawn of Everything, which gives very strong evidence that for most of human history, human societies were egalitarian as the norm, where as only about 8,000 years ago did we seem to get into the hierarchical exploitative rut that we’re still in today.
However, it appears to be quite possible to reawaken that old egalitarian impulse that has been suppressed in us for so many thousands of years, as demonstrated by the egalitarian mutual-aid focused society formed in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, of which tens of thousands participated in.
Oh, hierarchy as a concept is a whole can of worms on its own, but the kind of xenophobia I was describing seemed to be independent from the concept of hierarchy: at least by my observation, it’s more like a “them”/“us” divide, but indeed with an asymmetric aspect in mind.
Hierarchy being a “recent” thing (and the potential to leave it behind) sounds hopeful, but while us fucking up the planet is even more recent, we might be able to finish that before even thinking about changing anything.
According to recent archeological evidence, the style of humanity that gives you that impression is actually quite a recent phenomenon in our species. This is explored quite thoroughly in David Wengrow’s and David Graeber’s book The Dawn of Everything, which gives very strong evidence that for most of human history, human societies were egalitarian as the norm, where as only about 8,000 years ago did we seem to get into the hierarchical exploitative rut that we’re still in today.
However, it appears to be quite possible to reawaken that old egalitarian impulse that has been suppressed in us for so many thousands of years, as demonstrated by the egalitarian mutual-aid focused society formed in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, of which tens of thousands participated in.
Oh, hierarchy as a concept is a whole can of worms on its own, but the kind of xenophobia I was describing seemed to be independent from the concept of hierarchy: at least by my observation, it’s more like a “them”/“us” divide, but indeed with an asymmetric aspect in mind.
Hierarchy being a “recent” thing (and the potential to leave it behind) sounds hopeful, but while us fucking up the planet is even more recent, we might be able to finish that before even thinking about changing anything.