A technical bit first
Back in the day, who knows when, our ancestors developed a deeper theory of mind than the other species around them. An easy explanation of this idea of a theory of mind (ToM) can be found on Wikipedia “In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them. A theory of mind includes the knowledge that others' beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts may be different from one's own. Possessing a functional theory of mind is considered crucial for success in everyday human social interactions. People utilise a theory of mind when analyzing, judging, and inferring others'
Until the age of around 3 or 4 young children are relatively unable to understand that other people don’t see what they see, don’t feel what they feel. Hidden behind a curtain with their feet showing, a young child feels concealed, ‘I can’t see you so you can’t see me’. At some point the child will start to understand that this isn’t really correct and they become increasingly capable of understanding someone else’s ‘point of view’. The age at which this happens depends on the individual and a variety of cultural factors. Bilingual or multi-lingual children tend to develop a theory of mind earlier that their mono-lingual peers.
As an adult one should have a strong capacity to ascribe mental states to another and fully understand that the other person doesn’t see the world in the same way. There will be similarities but also differences. The areas of the brain that ‘light up’ when our theory of mind is activated overlap with those areas that are activated when we are feeling empathy to another. Empathy also activates different brain regions which are associated with emotional responses. So we are basically hardwired to develop a theory of mind and empathy.
Still way back when, humans went on to develop survival strategies firmly based on cooperation. There are, simply speaking, two forms of cooperative interaction, direct and indirect reciprocity. The first can be found in both humans and non-humans, I scratch your back → you scratch mine. The second has only really been conclusively found in humans, I’ll scratch your back even if you don’t scratch mine. This capacity rise out of one’s theory of mind and also a capacity to think in terms of a group, I scratched that person’s back, others saw me be ‘altruistic’, this increases my reputation as being a cooperative and prosocial member of the group and will bring a non-directly reciprocal reward. We are also drawn to cooperate more with people who have a high social status derived from their own capacity for non-reciprocal behavior. The broader a persons theory of mind is the more likely it is that they will be cooperative, kind and prosocial.
Broader
We often, perhaps too often ascribe a sort of vertical aspect to human behavior, especially about how we assess someone’s personality. This person is above me, this person has a higher level of awareness than me, this person is more evolved than me. Evolution being understood in a vertical hierarchical sense, ‘we as humans are above the other animals’.
Yet in English there are a number of expressions that speak of broadness of mind, ‘travel broadens the mind’, ‘doing that will broaden your horizons’ amongst others. A pebble thrown into a pond will create ripples that spread out, a person who interacts strongly and prosocially with others will improve their capacity to understand someone else’s point of view and their mind will broaden and their theory of mind will develop. This can encourage better cooperation and more empathy. Similar can be said of one’s skill set, acquiring new skills broadens one’s competences and when these are shared in a non-directly reciprocal way one’s reputation is enhanced and other people will be more inclined to be cooperate with you.
Fairness
‘It’s not fair!’ An expression that we hear coming from even quite young children. We are hardwired to detect unfairness and to respond negatively to it, this response is a major factor in human cooperation. We are less likely to want to help an individual who behaves unfairly. It is very likely that this instinct was a precursor that lead the way to the development of human cooperation.
Hand
I am holding it up and gazing at the fingers, the articulations, I fold it and watch as the open hand becomes a fist. A fist that can hold or strike.
I can offer it, I can lend a hand, unasked. Seeing someone struggling my theory of mind ascribes a mental state to that person, they are grappling with something difficult and they are feeling cross and frustrated. My compassion, kindness and prosociality pushes me to offer my help, I don’t ask them if they want me to lend a hand, I ask them what it is that I can do to assist them in accomplishing their task. If I ask them if they want my help they may feel indebted to me afterwards, which I don’t want and nor do they. Why? Because neither of us want to enter into a direct reciprocity as the other person may never be in a position or have the competences needed to ‘scratch my back’. We seek an indirect reciprocity without actually consciously thinking in those terms. Deep inside somewhere I instinctively know that gaining a reputation for being helpful will improve my social status and other people will be more prepared to help me when I need it. The other person knows that they won’t be burdened by a direct reciprocity debt and that, by willingly accepting my help, their own reputation will be enhanced.
Urban Permaculture
We can discuss subjects like urban Permaculture as much as we like but local communities need strong local social networks based on indirect reciprocity and empathy. They need vibrant, dynamic and diverse cultural activities that encourage people to broaden their minds and develop their theory on mind.
Good Permaculture design can transform local communities but without those things noted above we will not move on to the 3rd phase of human social development. The 1st being our millennia as nomadic hunter-gatherers, the 2nd being our recent move to being sedentary farmers and industrialists. The 3rd being readopting many of the prosocial attributes which worked so well for so long for our nomadic ancestors, and which are hardwired into our brains, combined with those things that enabled us to develop increasingly sophisticated food production systems (such as sylvo-agro-pasturalism and agro-forestry), ecological buildings and energy production and use. I am not talking about the current state of affairs but I am referring to the rapidly developing trends that must become dominant and replace our current destructive systems.
How?
By pushing at open doors, most people have one. It maybe that this individual is a climate skeptic so that’s a closed door, but maybe they are worried about their child’s asthma and link it to local pollution. It maybe that another individual feels unconcerned by the catastrophic loss of biodiversity yet they are worried about how to feed their family with so little income. When working with a person or a group part of the art of Permaculture design is to identify these open doors. Pushing on the closed ones is a waste of time and leads to long and futile arguments.
By laughing more, by wearing a smile. The polycrises that we face are heavy stuff and can very quickly demoralise people and give them a feeling of futility. We can, however, face these crises with a lightness of spirit, with laughter in our hearts.
A recent study that inspired a number of newspaper articles revealed that anger was the emotion that best motivated people try and do something about climate change. Bill Mollison, at one point, mentioned that it was anger that motivated him and for many of my Permaculture peers it was the same. Yet we found that we progressed quicker and better when we laughed a lot, it encouraged better social cohesion, more people came along to our workdays simply because they were so much fun. We improved our lives and those of others, helped deal with climate change, biodiversity loss and other crises and we enjoyed ourselves doing it.
By looking the other way. We have been indoctrinated for too long into believing that only the ‘elite’, the elected politicians, the central governments have the clout and the skill sets needed to sort this mess out. This despite the fact that a glance around the geopolitical world reveals how flawed this idea is and how in reality our elected, or otherwise,‘leaders’ are incompetent and not fit for task. We need to encourage people to turn their mental gaze away from centralised governments and towards their local community. It is here that you and I can act effectively and efficiently without waiting an eternity for the government to do something, which they probably won’t anyway.
Ps. People sometimes ask me where I get all this stuff about brains etc from so here are a couple or three sources
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01114-8
Cooperation driven by reciprocity, not conformity
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617714828
The human response to unfairness evolved in order to support long-term cooperation
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01963