In opening the Peace Speech, he called peace “the most important topic on earth.”
Yet he noted that “the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears.” Here is a dismaying truth: the most important topic on earth may fall on deaf ears! We are hardwired for drama, for competition, for the struggle to survive. Even when we cooperate, we often do it for the benefit of our own group—so our group can be stronger than the others. Kennedy himself took advantage of this inclination: when he called space the ultimate frontier, an adventure for all humanity, he motivated Americans in part by declaring that America would be first in space, thus appealing to our competitive nature. Global cooperation is more elusive than cooperation within clans, families, tribes, and nations. How do we mobilize attention to and efforts at cooperation on a global scale, when the challenge is not “us” versus “them”? Kennedy made progress in this direction, by emphasizing our common humanity and the mutual benefits of cooperation. We can use his example, his ideas, and his oratory as we struggle to achieve global cooperation in our time.
Sachs, Jeffrey. To Move The World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (p. 179). Random House. Kindle Edition.
I’ve ben thinking about this passage, on and off, for much of this year. If you think about it, this is at once an uplifting and a depressing passage.
Why uplifting? Because it talks about “the most important topic on earth”: peace.
Why depressing? Not just because the words of the pursuers of peace fall on deaf ears. But because we are able to understand, upon reflection, that we are hardwired for drama, for competition, and for the struggle to survive. Of which the first (drama) is an advantage when harnessed well, and the second (competition) is a feature and not a bug. These days we call it gamification and write papers about it.
But politicians the world over, and of all hues, tend to use the last of these to further their own ends. And in the long run, it is usually at great cost to society. I am talking of the struggle to survive. Utilizing the rhetoric of the struggle to survive to drive a political narrative is all well and good. But when we paint “our” struggle to survive as the struggle for survival of our group, it becomes a zero sum game. As Sachs puts it, even when we do cooperate, we often do it for the benefit of our own group, so that our group can be stronger than the others.
Cutting into an airport security line is a zero sum game, in which we want our group (our family, for instance) to be stronger than the others. Ditto for lane cutting in a traffic jam. Ditto for any political movement in any country of your choice.
Global cooperation really and truly is difficult when the challenge is not “us” versus “them”. Getting votes from “our” team is much easier not when you define “us”, but when you other “them”. That is, it is often easier and more profitable to define who we are not (we ain’t them!) than to spend time on defining who we are.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: perhaps the most important lesson in economics is to realize that life is a non-zero sum game. This is true at the individual level, at the level of the family, the state, the nation, and all other hierarchies and groupings we choose to come up with.
It is also, unfortunately, the hardest lesson to internalize and apply, and it doesn’t make for a great political campaign. Far easier, and cheaper – at least in the short run – to identify and vilify the other. Unfortunately, the more you create ever smaller groups of “us”, the more fractured and separated we end up being in the long run.
Global cooperation in our time?
I would love it, but I’m not holding my breath.
EconForEverybody 