Our competitors

Last night I watched a television programme about ants. They are, apparently, eusocial. This means they have highly developed patterns of cooperation. They organise between them who does what, and they look after each other. It makes them exceptionally successful, able to bite people all over the world.

But for humans it’s different. The mantra for us, these days, is competitiveness. We are constantly up against ‘our competitors’. Those years at the end of the Second World War when our grandparents became internationalists, wanted to improve the state of the whole world, and created the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, the International Declaration of Human Rights and other international agencies, have gone. The dominant narrative these days is not that we should cooperate to build a better society, but that most of us should accept lower wages and poorer living conditions in order to compete successfully against countless others who are also accepting ever-increasing sacrifices to compete against us.

It’s a different vision of what human life is about: what’s possible, what’s desirable, what’s to be expected.

Differences like this have existed all through history. They play a major part in the Bible. A key difference between the Hebrew scriptures (the Christian ‘Old Testament’) and other ancient near eastern texts of their time is the belief that there is only one god. Typically in the ancient near east, each nation had its national god. There were other gods too – forces of nature, demons causing illnesses – but the national god was the one who defended the nation and fought in its wars. Greeks and Romans would later identify their gods with each other – Zeus with Jupiter, Artemis with Diana – but Assyrians, Babylonians and Hittites thought that just as they fought each other in wars, so did their gods. If Babylonians have been created by the god Marduk and Assyrians have been created by Assur, it is not self-evident that they have any common interests, let alone that they would all benefit by living together in peace and harmony.

Monotheism changes all this.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers:
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. (Isaiah 40:21-23)

If the different nations were made by different gods for different purposes, irresolvable conflict is only to be expected. If, on the other hand, we have all been created by the same god, and if that god has consistent purposes, then the purpose of my life ought to be compatible with the purpose of yours, and so on all round the world. There is reason to believe it possible for us all to live together in peace and harmony, cooperating with each other to make life better for each other.

Gerd Theissen argues that ‘the Jewish monotheism which came into being in the situation of a defeated people ravaged by war, embraced the unique vision of an overcoming of war.’ This is because ‘When everyone recognizes the one and only God, there can be no more wars; this is a logical notion, if wars are wars between different gods’ (Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985, p. 71. Realistically, he adds that ‘this logic does not govern the behavior of Jews, Christians, and Moslems’.)

Thus the idea that all people were created by the same god, with a consistent purpose, changes perceptions of humanity. What is most significant about foreigners is what they have in common with us, not what makes them different. They share with us a common purpose.

Today, though, the dominant narrative is that God has no place in the public sphere. Once again competition takes precedence over competition in public discourse. Whether it ‘works’ better depends on what your priorities are; but for my money, ants do better.

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