We are all in this together – Red Green

This has been my mantra for some time.  It’s a phrase that the great Canadian philosopher Red Green used on his show.  The basic idea is that human kind is a social animal, and we are all living in one social, economic and environmental reality.  Whatever happens to one of us, affects all of us.  The Christians among us made this a kind of dogma – “we are all God’s children”, or the “mystical body of Christ”, and stuff like that.  The ties between us are sometimes remote and tenuous, but they are real.  When a crime is committed in Minneapolis, or Chicago, or New York, it affects my quality of life – just a bit.  When a kid grows up in Tanzania without an opportunity for education, we all lose that person’s potential contribution – and it could have been amazing!  They might have come up with the cure for cancer much sooner.  My buddy Ned once had the brightest kid in Tanzania at his door, because he could not afford to go to school.  Ned helped with his books, and made an huge investment for the rest of us.

That is also a small part of why I am messing around with Nicaragua in various ways.  It is the nearest, poorest place, where we have an opportunity to really change things.  We could all reap large returns from their contributions to our social and economic fabric of life.

Well, now there’s proof!  Really!  Scientific proof that we are all in this together!  It is explained in this recent blog entry by Jared Bernstein.  He points to evidence in psychological and economic and environmental studies that it actually does work that way.  It’s a pretty easy read.  Here’s a quote:

“So, yeah, I think there’s an argument here for economic “altruism” by which I mean we all ultimately do better when we engage in social and political behavior that looks beyond short-term, narrowly concentrated profit maximization based on supply-side tax cuts, offshoring, deregulating markets, hacking away at gov’t spending, public goods, the safety net.”

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-science-behind-were-in-this-together/

All right, it’s no rigorous scientific study that will persuade our politicians and economists.  And it is a long way from a fundamental cultural value that shapes all of our decisions. 

But that type of cultural value seems to be in the heads and hearts of most Scandinavians, as they generally seem to pursue this approach to life more than the rest of us.  My theory is that it comes from centuries of surviving in the climate where they live, learning to depend on each other. And they had the distinct advantage of never being part of the Roman Empire – or the Holy Roman Empire.  They don’t have this hierarchical mindset that sees the leader, the deity, or the king in charge.

I think Minnesota used to be a leader in the nation in this regard, precisely because so many of those Scandinavians migrated here.  Hey, it’s rocky and cold – it looks just like home!  Definitely WITT and not YOYO.  (Look it up!)