Empathy: A Novel Approach

In the late 1920s a young man tramped around the streets of London and Paris – where he fell ill and was robbed.  Becoming destitute he took a series of dishwashing jobs and immersed himself in the downtrodden life of Paris.  Five years later this young man published a novel based on his experiences.  The young man’s name was Eric Blair, although most of us will recognise him more by his pen name – George Orwell.  The novel he published became one of the English language classics – Down and Out in Paris and London.¹

Whether Orwell knew the word empathy at the time is uncertain – the word had only entered the English language twenty years before.   However, during his tramps around London and living a destitute life Orwell certainly came to understand the life of those on the margins of society and was able to identify with how they felt and behaved.  In short, his experience enabled him to empathise.

Not all of us will have the chance to experience what Orwell did and thus enhance our empathy.  Perhaps we don’t need to.  Maybe reading his novel and others could help expand our empathy.

Research in 2013² showed that following the reading of fiction the reader’s ability to “infer and understand other people’s thoughts and emotions increased.”  But it wasn’t just any sort of reading that did this.  The results following the reading of non-fiction or popular fiction ranged from unimpressive to insignificant.  It was literary fiction that made the difference.

What’s the difference between popular and literary fiction?  Popular fiction tends to be exciting and has a wide range of emotional responses.  Within popular fiction the characters are often stereotyped and their responses tend to be consistent and predictable.  Literary fiction, on the other hand, more often gets “into the head” of it’s characters, with the reader having to imagine more and discover for themselves the psychology of the characters and the relationships they have.  The reader of literary fiction has to take on the mind of the novel’s characters.  The reader must empathise.

Literary fiction often takes the reader on new, often unexpected, journeys of the mind.  It disrupts, undermines, and challenges the reader’s ideas, prejudices and notions of other people.  It helps the reader to understand people who are different in some way. 

Another study, in 2014,³ discovered that when we read about the experience a character is having in a novel then the part of the brain that is lit up is the same part of the brain that lights up when we are having that same experience.  So, by reading about an experience, our mind perceives it very much as if we are living that experience ourselves.

Why is any of this important for social change?

The Egyptian novelist, Alaa Al Aswany,⁴ has an answer to this question.  Aswany was also a prominent character in the 2011 Tahrir Square demonstrations that heralded the beginning of the Arab Spring.  When asked about social change and his writing, Aswany had this to say:

“I don’t think literature is the right tool to change the situation right now.  If you would like to change the situation now, go out into the street.  Literature, to me, is about a more important change: It changes our vision, our understanding, the way we see.  And people who are changed by literature, in turn, will be more capable to change the situation.”

Aswany first noted the power of the novel to enhance his empathy when he read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The House of the Dead.  In that novel Dostoevsky describes a scene in which a prisoner, lies dying.  Another prisoner stands by his bed and begins to cry.  A soldier/guard stands nearby watching the crying prisoner.  The prisoner turns to the soldier and simply says: “He, also, had a mother.”

In that simple sentence, and especially with the word also, Aswany says that he recognised and understood that although the dying man was a criminal, although he was not useful to society, he also had a mother like all of us.  Aswany goes on the say:

“We should understand that people are not bad, but they can do bad things under particular circumstances…. Literature is not a tool of judgment – it’s a tool for human understanding.”

Roman Krznaric has researched and written a lot about empathy.  He is the founder of the world’s first Empathy Museum.  He is also a fan of George Orwell and his novel, Down and Out in Paris and London.  Krznaric  has put together a list of 6 Habits of Highly Empathic People, one of which is to inspire mass action and social change.

As this blog began with George Orwell, it is appropriate for it to end with a quote from Krznaric, perhaps the world’s foremost thinker on empathy, describing how he links empathy and social change in the novels of Orwell.

“The traditional way to think about social change is about changing political institutions – new laws, new policies, overthrowing governments and so on. I think social change is actually about creating a revolution of human relationships. About changing the way people treat each other on an everyday basis. That’s what Orwell was learning about. He was talking to individuals – understanding the minutiae of their lives – and after his time living in the streets of London he went on to do journalistic work which was really about trying to connect with human lives.”

Epilogue: A Caution

It may be tempting to think that it is possible to forego reading a novel and watching the movie instead and still gain the benefit of enhanced empathy.  Be warned – it may not be so.  Certainly, some movies can evoke an empathic response, a la the lyrics from the 1961 song: sad movies always make me cry.

The advantage of novels however, is that the internal dialogue of characters is embedded within the novel.  Internal dialogue can often get lost in a movie, however, with the attention of the viewer being distracted by special effects, big-name actors, or the scene setting.

Movies may have some impact on our empathy, but television can have a negative effect.  Research involving pre-schoolers in 2013 found that pre-schoolers who are exposed to more TV than others have a “weaker understanding of other people’s beliefs and desires, and reduced cognitive development.”⁵

Notes:
1. George Orwell is also well-known as the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, The Road to Wigan Pier, and others.
2. David Comer Kidd, Emanuele Castano, Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind, in Science 18 Oct 2013: Vol. 342, Issue 6156, pp. 377-380
3. Wehbe, Murphy, Talukdar, Fyshe, Ramdas, and Mitchell, Simultaneously Uncovering the Patterns of Brain Regions Involved in Different Story Reading Subprocesses, PLoS One. 2014; 9(11): e112575. Published online 2014 Nov 26.
4. Alaa Al Aswany’s most well-known novels are The Automobile Club of Egypt and The Yacoubian Building.

5. Quoted in www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201412/can-reading-fictional-story-make-you-more-empathetic, accessed 24 May 2016

Morality Before The Law

In the mid 1800s two French political philosophers engaged in a long running debate.  One, Pierre Proudhon, is famous for his assertion that “property is theft.”  The other, Frederic Bastiat, is less well-known but has given us one of the most incisive quotations about the conflict between morals and the law.

“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

he is quoted as saying.

Both of these quotations are relevant today, more than 150 years later.  In a world where just 62 individuals own as much wealth as half of the world’s population we have a situation ripe for contradiction between morals and the law.  Were he alive today, Proudhon would be aghast at the inequality of the world.  He would be amongst the forefront of those claiming that those 62 individuals are stealing from the world’s poorest people.

Why do we have laws at all?  Three of the primary purposes of law are to: maintain social order, resolve disputes, and distribute social resources.  What happens when the law protects wealth accumulation and punishes the poor for attempting to obtain some of those social resources?

An Individual Case

An Italian court was faced with exactly this situation recently.  In 2011 Roman Ostriakov, a homeless man, was caught leaving a Genoa supermarket with cheese and sausages worth €4.07.  In 2015 he was convicted of theft, fined €100 and sentenced to six months in prison.  However, on 2 May 2016, Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation, overturned his conviction, with the Judges stating that the "right to survival prevails over property,” mimicking Proudhon’s phrase.

Every day in Italy 615 people are added to the list of homeless, according to an Italian commentator.  Across the OECD homelessness is relatively high, with anywhere between one and eight people in every 1,000 experiencing homelessness each year.  Poverty levels are even higher.

Fortunately, for one of those homeless, the Italian court system recognised Bastiat’s dilemma, and opted for morality over the law.

A Community Case

In Western Pennsylvania, Grant Township is home to just 700 people, with 1/5th of them living below the poverty line.  The median household income is just $27,500 – the median household income for the US as a whole is almost double that at $52,000.

Notwithstanding that there are just 700 of them, with very little income or assets amongst them, these residents are upholding their moral right to stand up to the might of Pennsylvania General Electric (PGE) – an oil and gas exploration company that wants to undertake fracking operations in the area.

In 2014 the elected officials of Grant Township passed a Community Bill of Rights Ordinance that included “the rights of human and natural communities to water and a healthy environment.”

Within two months of this Ordinance being passed, PGE filed a lawsuit objecting to it, and threatening the residents with litigation if they tried to stop fracking operations going ahead.  The US Environmental Protection Agency sided with PGE and issued them a license to inject fracking waste into the watershed that Grant Township relies on.

Residents feared arrest and prosecution if they took civil action to oppose or block PGE.  Acting for the entire community Grant Township Supervisors passed a law that legalises direct action by its citizens to protect their access to social resources.  The law states that if courts do not uphold the right of communities to stop large corporates threatening them then “any natural person may then enforce the rights and prohibitions of the charter through direct action.”

Furthermore, this law “prohibits any private or public actor from bringing criminal charges or filing any civil or other criminal action against those participating in nonviolent direct action.”

The law is believed to be the first in the US that specifically upholds the rights of communities to use direct action to oppose corporate greed and power.  It effectively says that the communities moral rights supersede those of court imposed laws, and that citizens would not have to choose between Bastiat’s cruel alternatives.

These two examples, enacted within 24 hours of each other, indicate that occasionally morality can prevail in the face of unjust laws.

My Participation In Groups (An Exercise)

It is almost a truism to say that no community development work, nor any social justice advocacy works without there being at least one group.  By now the famous quote of Margaret Mead’s exemplifying this is well known:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Humans are gregarious creatures and the way that we express our humanity and our wish for betterment is often through interaction and communion with others.  It would seem important then, for us to understand how we work in groups, both individually and collectively.  Group Dynamics its called.  Here is a simple exercise¹ designed to enable us to work out how we participate and what we need from a group in order to optimise our participation.

Materials:  Not much really, just some large sheets of paper, some pens, markers or pencils.

The Process:

1. Participants take a large sheet of paper each along with something (pen etc) to write with.  The facilitator asks people to spend whatever length of time is needed (10-30 mins) to list down on one half of the sheet how they think they participate in the group.  It may be worth giving some examples (eg questioner, big-picture contributor, humorist, quiet thinker, pessimist, recorder).
2. On the other half of the sheet participants are asked to make a list of those things that they need from or in the group in order for them to participate effectively and creatively.  Again, some examples may be given (eg time breaks, fun, food, sense of achievement, learning, respect).
3. When people have completed their lists, ask them to  consider their lists and decide the most important items from each list.
4. Each participant then spends 2-3 minutes sharing with everyone else the things they consider important from their lists.  They do this without comment from the rest of the group.  The listeners should use this time to practise deep listening.
5. Once everyone has shared their lists the facilitator asks the group to think of how the various needs within the group can best be met.  The facilitator should allow for plenty of discussion here with the eventual goal of the group coming to an agreement on what can be tried within the group.  Arriving at this goal should not be rushed however, as it is the discussion and sharing of ideas here that is of importance, rather than the final outcome.
6. Once agreement has been reached, the facilitator can lead the group in a discussion about the processes, roles and functions that were displayed within the exercise itself.

Notes for the Facilitator:

It is important to keep a positive tone to this exercise and to dissuade participants from accusing or suggesting that others in the group are responsible for their irritations in the group.  Reminding everyone that everyone is there for similar reasons (something that is to be achieved, learned, or researched), and that individuals operate, usually, from the best they know.


1. This exercise is adapted from Resource Manual for a Living Revolution, Coover et al., New Society Press, Philadelphia, 1977

Can We Vote For The President Too?

One of the basic tenets of community development is that those affected by a decision should also be involved in making that  decision.  For many people around the world one of the decisions that most affects them is the decision as to who becomes President of the USA.  Shouldn’t we have a vote in who becomes President of the most powerful, dominant nation on Earth?

Remember Henry Kissinger?  He was the Secretary of State for Presidents Nixon and Ford.  In 1999 he spoke at Trinity College in Dublin on “Globalisation and World Order.”  In that speech he made a remarkable, candid admission that

“… globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the US.”

Think about it.  Of the ten largest foodstuffs companies in the world, 6 of them are US companies: Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mendelez, and PepsiCo.  If it’s fast food we are after, then the top 10 companies are all US companies.  I probably don’t even need to name them, their logos and advertising hoardings are in just about every town and city in the world.  Headed up by McDonalds, the list includes KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Burger King.

When we go to the movies, what do we see?  The 100 top grossing films in 2015 were all made by US companies.  Musically it is not much different.  The Big Three music companies make up over 80% of the world’s market in the recording (and our listening) sector.  And those three are based – you guessed it – in the US.

Who is it that lets us know the news?  US companies.  The four largest news corporations are all US based: Comcast, Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Time Warner.  And if we think we can bypass such giants of news and head for the Internet, then think of which companies largely control the content on that: Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Okay, we won’t buy anything, we’ll stow our money away in banks, and not be part of the globalisation/Americanisation of the world.  Unfortunately, that won’t be easy – four of the world’s ten largest banks are US owned.

It seems we can’t escape.  If we do try then the US is not likely to leave us alone.  The US had 662 military establishments in 38 countries, in all continents except Africa, around the world in 2010.  By comparison, Russia had military bases in 10 countries, all in Eastern Europe and Asia.  The UK had bases in 18 countries and France 14.

Bases are one thing, military incursions another.  The US has by far been the nation most likely to have sent troops or other military personnel to another country, often in an aggressive manner.  To list all of these would take many lines of text.  But it doesn’t take much delving into history or our memories to name many of these.  Since the end of World War Two there has not been a year pass when the US has not deployed military operatives to someone else’s lands.  We all know of the “invasions” of Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Panama, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Laos, Oman, Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Grenada, …. Over the past 50 years the US has been militarily involved in at least 35 nations around the globe, on all continents.  For the reader that would like to see a thorough list of these incursions (or whatever euphemism may be used) since 1890, then click here.

When there are US bombers flying overhead, naval ships in your ports, and soldiers in US uniforms in your land, it is hard to pretend that you are not affected by the decision as to who becomes President of the US.

Perhaps somewhere in the world there is a community, or maybe a few individuals untouched by US movies, fast food, the Internet.  Perhaps there is somewhere that has not been “invaded” or had a US military base established.  Even somewhere like this is not immune to the effects of US policies and practises.

No-one is immune to the effects of climate change.  Here, the US has again played the most significant part.  Carbon dioxide is a long-term gas.  Hence historic emissions are just as important, if not more so, than current emissions.  Since 1850 almost 30% of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere has come from US sources.  Even today, China, the second highest cumulative contributor, has contributed only 9%.

Around the world we are all affected in many ways, some significantly so, by the decision as to who becomes the POTUS (President Of The United States).

So, can we vote for the President too?

Who Cares Anyway?

I was intrigued by a question last week that asked why it is that people don’t seem to be concerned that the Great Barrier Reef is dying?¹  The question is a good one, not because of the answers, but because of another question it provokes: in the face of climate change, how do we respond psychologically?

We know the science of climate change.  We know the facts and figures of climate change.  We know the future scenarios.  We know that we know.

Yet, do we know what happens inside our heads, our hearts, and our guts?  Do we know how we respond internally, psychologically, and emotionally.

When we hear and see all the reports on climate change and what is happening to the planet it is as though we are witnessing a death.  Not just any death.  But the death of an old, trusted, reliable friend and provider.  To some, it is the death of their mother – Mother Earth.  To others it is the death of civilisation, of humanity.

As we know from the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,² almost 50 years ago, when faced with death we exhibit five responses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Could it be that when we witness the death of something as large as humanity or the Earth, that these responses play out in our collective psyche?

The response of denial is easy to pick.  We see it every day from many politicians, bureaucrats, corporate heads, and conservative think-tanks.  We see anger as well, with anger being the motivating emotion for some climate change activists.

Depression, however, may be the hidden response to climate change.  In the face of overwhelming statistics, science and stories, it is easy to see how many of us can slip into a depressive response.  This may range from cynicism, through despair, all the way to avoidance and withdrawal.

The stories of the effects of climate change arrive in our inboxes every day; on TV, in newspapers, via social media.  We have been aware of these stories since 1990 (the year the first IPCC³ report was published) and they came slowly, almost like a trickle.  There are now more of them, and they are becoming more and more disturbing.  In the 25 years since that first IPCC report, the stories tell us that things have got worse.

Overwhelming, frightening, disturbing.  It’s all hopeless.  No wonder the response for many of us is depression.  Our minds tell us that it is all hopeless and that we are powerless.  Our psyches respond by telling us to go and hide in despair, where we give up and withdraw.  All our conditioning tells us that despair is a personal problem.  And our culture tells us (especially men, but women are not immune) to be positive, keep your chin up, don’t cry, man up (be a man), get over it, or cheer up.

Our emotions, especially ones like sadness and despair, are viewed as “bad’ and to be shut away inside us, where no-one else can see them.  When we do so we personalise what is in reality a collective response.  Personalising our despair we then repress it, and in doing so, isolate ourselves from others, and from the root cause of our despair – our collective psychology.  Then we feel bad about feeling bad, only deepening the despair and withdrawal.

Transforming the Question

So, the question now transforms itself.  Instead of asking why do people not give a stuff, we ask: how can we enable people to move from a place of despair, withdrawal or cynicism to a place of life-affirming hope and action?

The first answer would seem to be to resist the urge to continually bombard us all with the statistics, facts and figures of climate change destruction.  Instead, we could look at the work of educators such as Joanna Macy, Bill Plotkin, John Seed, Tom Atlee and others.  Their work helps answer the question by moving from despair to life-affirmation.

Joanna Macy, for example, began her work in the 1980s with the publication of her work Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age.⁴  Over the years Macy (now in her 80s) has refined her thinking and practice to acknowledge the despair we feel and to offer us a way out.  She calls it the Great Turning and advises that the way out of our despair is to start by actively experiencing that feeling.  By doing so we come to recognise that our pain for what is happening is a message that we, and the Earth, are all inter-connected.  Through a variety of exercises Macy guides us to unblock our feelings of despair and depression and discover a life-affirming approach to life and what happens around us.
For the reader who wants to know more, check out these websites:

• www.joannamacy.net (the work of Joanna Macy)
• www.animas.org (based on the work of Bill Plotkin – eco-psychologist)
• www.co-intelligence.org (based on the work of Tom Atlee – an advocate of co-creation and co-intelligence)

Notes
1. Recent reports suggest that 93% of the Great Barrier Reef is now severely bleached.
2. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying in 1969 based on her work at the University of Chicago medical school.
3. IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  The IPCC has now published its fifth report, released in November 2014.

4. Joanna Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, New Society Publishers, 1983

How Should We Think, Mr Einstein?

Albert Einstein is one of the most quoted historical figures: possibly the most oft quoted scientist.  One of his most famous quotations is,

“We can’t solve problems using the same thinking we used when we created them.”

It seems that Einstein never actually said this, although he was the Chairman of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists who sent  a telegram to hundreds of prominent Americans in May 1946, in which the following phrase was mentioned:

“…a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”

This telegram came in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at a time of heightened nuclear tensions.  Somehow that extract from the telegram came to be attributed to Einstein himself and re-formatted to the quotation about not being able to solve problems with the same thinking that created them.  Certainly, when Einstein was interviewed a few months later he reiterated the quote from the telegram and said to the interviewer (Michael Amrine)

“We must abandon competition and secure cooperation.”

Whatever the exact wording, or the circumstances at the time, the quotation that opened this blog poses a question.  What sort of thinking should we be using?  Unfortunately, Albert Einstein is no longer with us (he died 61 years ago this week) and we are unable to ask him directly.  However, we can get some clues from some of his other quotes and writings.  Here are just six modes of thinking that Einstein used and mentioned.

Simplicity

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”  We  have a tendency to want to make things complicated, whereas often the best answer lies in simplicity.  Some professions thrive on making things complicated, with esoteric language and customs that help to exclude those not in the know.  Think of the legal profession, accountancy, politics, management – all maintain their power partly by creating a complicated system that others cannot understand.  Since Einstein’s death Complexity Theory has become an arena of scientific study.  But even here, we note that often the keys to unlocking complex situations are very simple.¹ 

Intuition and Imagination

Einstein loved to play his violin and was an accomplished pianist, and often said that it was when lost in his music that some of his scientific inspirations appeared.  Contrasting imagination with logic, Einstein concluded that “logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.” 

Einstein called the intuitive mind a sacred gift, whereas he called the rational mind a faithful servant.  Twenty years after Einstein’s death Robert Samples published a book² that recalled how Einstein viewed the two minds and concluded, “It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.”  Thus giving rise to another oft quoted saying but misattributed to Einstein.

Curiosity

“I have no special talent,” claimed Einstein, “I am only passionately curious.”  Indeed, it was his curiosity that led Einstein to his famous Special Relativity Theory in 1905.  Noticing that two apparent truths of science appeared to be contradictory, Einstein got curious and wondered why.  He realised that the reason was that both were based on an assumption that he proceeded to tear apart – resulting in his famous theory.

As children we continually ask questions, but eventually we lose that capacity when we get to school where we are taught that the answers are of greater importance.  Einstein disagreed saying that “The important thing is not to stop questioning.  Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”  Perhaps it was because of his desire to keep questioning that Einstein was expelled from school at the age of 16. His teacher claimed he had a “rebellious attitude.”

Make Mistakes

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new,” Einstein is reported to have said.  Many scientists and researchers will immediately see the wisdom in that phrase, and Einstein himself flippantly said that “if we knew what we were doing it would not be called research would it.” 

Don’t Rely on Technology

For a man whose scientific output was crucial in the development of one of the world’s most powerful technologies – nuclear energy – it may seem odd that he would be sceptical of technology.  However, in December 1917 he wrote to his friend, Heinrich Zangger, that “All of our exalted technological progress, civilization for that matter, is comparable to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal. ”  This was almost three decades before the destructive force of Einstein’s equations was unleashed in Japan.  In that same letter to his friend, Einstein laments the lapse towards amorality and says that “I come to value charity and love of one’s fellow being above everything else.”

Connection and Cooperation

Although Einstein did a lot of his work alone he was acutely aware of the interconnectedness of life.  “When we survey our lives and endeavours,”  he noted, “we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings.”  

Einstein did not limit this thinking to humans.  “Our task,” he exhorts, “must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” 

When we consider the problems that beset us today, arguably more complex and more interconnected than in Einstein’s lifetime, the wisdom of this last thinking aspect should become instantly apparent.  There are signs that it is becoming so. 

Are these six modes of thinking part of the thinking that we are using today when facing our problems?  Amongst the world’s leadership I have my doubts.  However, at community level and amongst grassroots networks the use of this type of thinking is becoming more and more apparent.  The task of these movements will be to infiltrate our cultures, our decision-making bodies, and our institutions with these ways of thinking.

The last word, should be another quote from Albert Einstein.  This one ties it all together, and was written just one year before his death.  In it we glimpse a realisation on Einstein’s part that our thinking must look within for answers, rather than suggesting that our problems are “out there” and hence the solutions are “out there” also.  That is the real new thinking that we need.

“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

1. For example, the Mandelbrot Fractal (possibly the most widely known visual representation of complexity) is produced using a very simple equation: z_n+1 = z_n² + c    

2. Robert Samples, Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness, Addison-Wesley, Boston, 1976

What If Hitler Hadn’t Invaded Poland?

The world is connected.  We know that, or at least, we are coming to know that and recognise it for its importance.  Those working for social change recognised this reality when it was realised that methods and ends needed to be in harmony.  The social change mantra that “the ends justifies the means” was thrown out, never to be reconsidered.

Since then our understanding has further increased so that now we are beginning to recognise the full meaning of inter-connection.  We now understand that the consumer choices we make in the western world have an impact of worker conditions in the factories of China, or the fields of Africa.  We understand the incredible diversity and interconnections of various species in ecosystems.  Then of course we have our own technology.  Today, any one of us can be connected to almost anyone else in the world within a matter of seconds via our Smartphones, laptops or iPads.

Connection is not just between places, things, or people.  Connections extend over time.  When we think of our own lives we will recognise the truth of this.  When we were young we made some choices about whether to go to work, get educated, get married, travel the world or something else.  Those decisions connected us with other people, with other places, with other choices.  We made those choices, and they led to yet more connections.  When we think back we can recognise that all through our lives there were points at which we could have gone down an entirely different route than the one that led to where and who we are today.  Connections!

Yes, we all recognise them.  But, have we really thought through the full implications of interconnection? 

Here’s a provocative thought.  Would each of us be here today if Hitler had not invaded Poland?  Think of it for a moment.  I would hazard a guess that the chances are high that many of us would not be here today if Hitler had not invaded Poland?¹

Hitler’s invasion of Poland led directly to the outbreak of World War II, and with it the mass mobilisation of troops from many nations of the world.  It also saw one of the biggest refugee crises in history.  It is estimated that 60 million people died during the war – 3% of the world’s population as it was at the time.  Has there ever been such a massive impact upon the world population?

Even in those nations that were not the scene of battle the war had a tremendous impact on the way people lived, worked and moved.  Women became factory workers or were sent into the fields.  A fundamental shift in male-female roles took place.  Citizens moved to undertake work that supported the war effort. 

Now, think of what sort of impact that had upon generations to come – all those Baby Boomers and the following generations.  Most people born after the end of WW II will have been born as a consequence (amongst others) of what happened in the war.  Many possible couples never happened – one or other of the couple (mostly men) were killed before ever fathering, or mothering, a child.  Men and women moved in droves from their hometowns.  Some even moving and remaining in other parts of the world.  They then met, and formed relationships with, people they may not have if they had not moved. 

The question then is:  if it hadn’t been for the war, would your parents, or grandparents have ever met?  Would they have decided to have children?  Would one of those children have been you?
I’m sure that once you seriously think this through you will realise that the chances are high that you may not have been born if Hitler had not invaded Poland.

Does this mean that we should be thankful for Hitler, or that we should accept the atrocities that were carried out (on all sides I should add) during the war?  Of course not.  What this thought experiment is meant to do is show up that connections are not all rosy, charming, or ethical.  They just are.

The world and everything in it are intricately and immeasurably connected.  We never know what will emerge from some action.  What emerges is unpredictable, simply because it is impossible to map and understand all the causes and conditions that impact upon any action.  All we can do is accept things for the way they are.  Before I am accused of being fatalistic, let me reassure you that this is not my understanding nor what I advocate.  There remains a place for considered, thoughtful, ethical action.

Although this thought experiment picks out Hitler’s invasion of Poland to focus on, it could just as easily have picked out the first non-stop flight around the world (in 1949), or any number of events.  Then there are all those events that are particular to you: where your parents lived, what their occupation was, their education level, who their friends were, …

So, next time you hear anyone talk about how everything is connected, remind yourself that those connections include actions that we would rather forget about.  But everything in the past has had a bearing on the present.  The present is an emergent phenomenon of the past.


1. Instead there would be someone else reading this.  Furthermore, this blog may never have been written because “I” would not have been here.