Kindness and Activism

Eventually, Homo sapiens must embrace a single, overarching goal: the creation of a global community grounded in the quality that makes us happiest and strongest—kindness. More on this in a moment.

Many people, appalled by current political trends, feel hopeless. The Democratic Party often appears passive and weak—merely the “good cop” of oligarchy. But it does not have to remain this way.

Why not build a Democratic Party that actively pursues its stated goals? A party firmly committed to taxing extreme wealth, establishing universal healthcare, and enforcing color-blind social justice. Such a platform is concrete, easy to understand, and broad enough to unite people who reject authoritarianism, even if they disagree on other issues. That is most of the population.

Such a project would provoke enormous resistance. Only a movement stronger than any in our history could withstand it. To succeed, it would need to embrace five essential principles, it seems to me.

First, its members must learn real history, as Noam Chomsky has argued for decades. People must learn to distinguish actual patterns of power from mythological ones, empirical evidence from propaganda, genuine activism from performance, and root causes of social problems from their symptoms. As the saying goes in the Middle East, “The fish stinks from the head.” Attacking symptoms while ignoring underlying causes is a debilitating waste of time and energy.

Second, members must view political candidates not as independent saviors but as functionaries of the movement itself. When candidates win office, the movement—not merely the individual—takes power. Elected officials must receive sustained, organized support while also being held accountable day by day, year by year, decade by decade. Only such disciplined involvement can counterbalance the enormous influence of concentrated wealth.

Third, members must confront a troubling reality: we live in a global culture where social disconnection often correlates more strongly with success than human bonding does. People’s basic decency is forced to compete with their need to survive and advance. Empathy is treated as a weakness when it interferes with acquisition. Ruthlessness is praised as strength.

Is this simply human nature?

A growing body of evidence suggests otherwise. (My Substack series Who Are We? develops this argument in greater detail.)

What made humans the most adaptive of all mammals was our extraordinary capacity for collaboration. Beginning roughly one hundred thousand years ago, some human groups organized themselves not around an alpha ruler or elite, as other apes did, but around the collective participation of the entire adult community. Through discussion, debate, and sometimes even violent disagreement, they made social decisions collectively. Every adult possessed meaningful agency. Kindness and compassion—never easy to practice consistently—became the glue that held these communities together.

Their chimpanzee cousins, other apes, and most human communities maintained order through fear. An alpha individual or elite group, usually male, made important decisions and enforced compliance ruthlessly when necessary. But fear-based compliance came at a cost. The aggressive troublemaker might also be the best hunter, the most effective military strategist, or the most skilled negotiator. Rule through intimidation suppressed not only dissent but also the intelligence and creativity of the community itself.

Egalitarian collaboration, it turned out, produced more effective strategies for obtaining food, managing internal conflicts, and waging war. Over time, groups that practiced it displaced or annihilated their rivals. Initially, however, their kindness extended only within the boundaries of their own small communities. Anthropologists labeled these humans Modern Humans.

These were our ancestors.

Eventually, warfare among themselves declined—not because they embraced universal kindness, but because conflict between equally capable opponents became increasingly costly. Rival bands sometimes joined forces to hunt or confront common enemies. Cooperation expanded, and with it, the boundaries of kindness.

Modern humans proved capable of extending their sense of belonging beyond family, then beyond tribe, and later beyond culture itself. We appear capable, at least potentially, of including all humanity within a global circle of kindness.

We also possess the capacity to do the opposite.

Patriarchal authoritarianism—alphaism—was apparently always present alongside egalitarianism within human nature. About seven and a half thousand years ago, however, it came to dominate modern human social organization. Why this occurred, how it happened, and why there is good reason to view this development as impermanent are subjects I explore in my Who Are We? essays.

The central conclusion is straightforward:

Kindness maximizes collective intelligence, and collective intelligence consistently surpasses the wisdom of any individual ruler or elite. Kindness strengthens our species’ ability to make adaptive, functional decisions.

Fourth, the lifestyle changes required to build and sustain a movement capable of transforming a political party will be difficult for most people and frightening for many. The movement’s first practical goal must therefore be to ensure that every member has access to adequate healthcare, income, and social support. Before it can become a political force, the movement must become a family.

Fifth, the movement must reject the practice of defining people as inherently bad or evil. Systems can reasonably be described as evil when they undermine empathy and decency, but not the people who depend upon them and must cope with this toxicity. live Even those who actively reinforce harmful systems are often driven by fear, dependency, or social pressure.

Many people construct irrational beliefs to ease the pain of conformity when they are afraid to rebel. Such beliefs rationalize the deeper fears and needs that actually drive their behavior. A police officer who enforces policies that make him feel queasy convinces himself that his victims deserve their treatment. Rejecting those policies could threaten not only his job but also his family’s security and his place in society.

But what about those who appear to thrive on hatred and cruelty? Sadistic prison guards? Figures such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin? And what about the populations that enable them? Are they simply evil?

Evil systems, in my estimation, cannot be healed; they must be dismantled. Human beings, however, can often be treated and rehabilitated.

Where rehabilitation proves impossible, dangerous individuals must be restrained, but not dehumanized or abused. They remain human beings. Outrage is sometimes justified, but unmanaged outrage impairs rational judgment and weakens our ability to build a functional global community.

Kindness is not passive niceness. It is the primary source of our strength. It enables us to manage powerful emotions, think clearly, and act collectively with wisdom. As the foundation of morality, kindness is practical in the most fundamental way: our thriving depends upon it.

People must actively fight to institutionalize kindness.

If that sounds like an oxymoron, so be it.