Iran attacks Israel, Israel attacks Iran. Russia invades Ukraine and so on, the media headlines shout out from newspapers, TV and online, misleading and dangerous. Media laziness using country names to define a conflict. Years ago I saw a Fox news report about a riot in suburb of Paris, ‘France burns’ it screamed, simplistic, reductionist and absurd.
Iran didn’t attack Israel nor did Russia invade Ukraine. Governments, regimes, dictators mobilise the military force they control to attack others. This is self evident but the laziness or sensation seeking use of a countries name as a proxy to naming the regime, government or leader gives a picture that is dangerously wrong. Country X didn’t attack country Y, the political leaders did and without consulting the wider population. On top of this we see the demonisation of one country by another screamed out by a politicians through the media using terms like vermin, animals and worse to describe the people of another country.
‘Divide and rule’ is an axiom that’s been around for a long time and we keep doing it to ourselves. The world portrayed by too much of the media is divided into countries that attack, manipulate or support each other, the reality is that it’s the political leaders of each country that decide to do this. Any argument that contends that many of these governments were elected ignores that fact that, even where elections are supposed to be free and fair, wealth, connections, propaganda, lobbies and lies are effectively weaponised to ensure that the status quo stays intact.
That’s the context and brings me to the ‘elite overproduction’ concept developed by Peter Turchin, which describes ‘the condition of a society which is producing too many potential elite members relative to its ability to absorb them into the power structure’. There are roles that are accorded high social status, being President or Prime Minister, having a position in a government or being CEO of a major company are examples of this. These roles are limited in number and so people spend their fighting their way along a stony path towards a position that enhances their social status. We sometimes talk in terms of someone’s ‘ego’ but this is over simplifying the situation, talking in terms of social status is more interesting. It brings to the fore our hardwired instinct to improve our social standing amongst our peers. This, in the context of a prosocial society, is useful for all but within a competitive dog eat dog paradigm it’s very destructive.
In the former an individual will seek to enhance their social standing by helping, sharing and being compassionate. In the latter the same drive leads us to continual conflict, warfare, competition and the tragedy of the planet. It results in a scrabble for media exposure, any sound bite will do if it gets a headline. Insults, personal attacks, lies and distortions, anything if it helps someone scrabble a bit further along the path to a position of ‘power and influence’ and thus high social status.
In the same way that competition between industries leads us inexorably to lower and lower quality products so to does this quest for social standing in the political sphere. Individuals say and do whatever it takes to climb over the bodies of their political rivals and get a step closer to the status they crave. Are the political leaders of today good managers? The evidence is all around us that this isn’t the case, economies crash from one crisis to another, climate chaos isn’t being addressed in the way it should, wars and conflicts all over the globe, all symptoms of people not doing their jobs properly. Our politicians are, in the main, more concerned with their social status than with actually doing something real.
Global military expenditure has reached the obscene level of $2440bn about 40% of what the estimated 1 trillion dollars we need to spend each year to mitigate climate change. 2.4 billion dollars to manufacture weapons that maim, kill and destroy what we have built. It would be difficult to find a more absurd and ridiculous use of our time, resources, money and energy. The planet is reeling form our pollution, our gases and our hubris.
It may be that the divisions being promoted by aspirant politicians and those in place are being rejected. The More in Common study showed that UK politicians who persist in promoting divisive polemics are losing votes. People are more concerned with their personal and concerns like local employment and local antisocial behaviour. If this is the case then maybe we can find a way out of the absurd situation in which we find ourselves.
We all live on the same planet, we all breathe the same air, we all depend on the same biosphere. We must, personally and at a local level understand that we are one global people and we need to look after each other and the Earth. This study shows that if we move away from divisive polemics and towards an understanding that, all over the world, we have similar transformative experiences we become more open to the idea of a shared global identity. When this is coupled with getting people to understand that we have a common ancestry, not just at a local level but globally then the effect is multiplied. The factious Us versus Them arguments that are thrust into our faces by status seeking people are making everything worse, we can combat this by sharing experiences and understanding that we have a common ancestry. The GENI project aims to build a World Family Tree, anyone can participate and see how linked they are to thousand, tens of thousand and somtimes millions of other people around the world.
Despite their toxic algorithms social media platforms have been used by people to connect wth others all around the world and they share experiences and news about their lives in general. The platforms have of course encouraged people to strive for a higher social status as measured by likes, shares and revenue, to become ‘influencers’. Despite this people get a glimpse into other and often distant people’s lives, they see that we are more similar than distant. Perhaps the generations that are growing up now will reject war in the future because they would end up trying to kill their Insta or TikTok friends.
The people interviewed for the study I cited above are right, local concerns need to be addressed but not by governments but by the local inhabitants. We have to better understand that each local area is like a cell in a body, when the cell’s internal processes work well it’s positive for the whole body. Above all we must stop esteeming people who seek power and fame simply to get a better social status, we must turn away from them and the idea that some ‘hero’ is going to come along and sort it all out. High social status and esteem must go to those who help, who share and who are compassionate without seeking higher status. In this case we can all have a good social standing because we can all be prosocial.