Living With Trauma 10

The winner takes it all. Abba fans should be able to trace this sentence without difficulty. All is fair in love and war, in business, in friendship, in social climbing, in politicking, in doing religion, or you name it. Blame Darwin? Easily done, I suppose, but I think the great scientist who made evolution a household word with his theories of natural selection, was merely describing a natural human dynamic that has been with us for a very long time. It was really the luck of timing that put his name and theories on the map, so to speak. The Industrial Revolution had already transformed beyond recognition the emerging nations of Europe, as well as North America, and the rampant ferocious kind of capitalism that was being embraced was very much a symptom of the age, and has been recently reinvented as the monster of global capitalism that just might engulf us all before a nuclear bomb has a chance to. Monarchies and tyrants were being either overthrown or held in check by quasi-democratic reforms all over Europe, and the so-called Common Man was already well on the rise. But this wasn't to imply that the very poor and the socially downtrodden would finally get their crack at living decently but that those who did well in business and commerce, or should we say, the emerging Bourgeoisie. You don't have to be a Marxist in order to appreciate just how those cunning swine rose in the social ranks. They did it all on the backs of the poor workers whom they exploited with paltry wages and dreadful working and living conditions in order to fatten their own coffers, making them suddenly richer than aristocrats and monarchs. Into this particular zeitgeist Darwin was born and bred, and this I believe to be the source of the cross-contamination between Darwin's theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection and the brutal survival-of-the-fittest kind of social and economic Darwinism that was wreaking havoc on the most vulnerable populations during and following the Industrial Age. There is absolutely no kindness, no benevolence and no altruism in Darwin's portrayal of nature. Rather, he purported a seething and fecund cesspit of competing organisms each trampling the others in order to gain supremacy, survive and pass on their genes. Hardly a recipe for paradise. And it goes without saying that this dynamic is very real throughout nature. But this is not the only story. There have been countless documentations of non-familial kindness throughout the natural world, both within and between species. Perhaps it doesn't occur often, or perhaps science remains biased towards the dark side of nature, in order to continue endorsing a pure laine kind of Darwinism. It is hard to say. But any suggestion that goes against the popular notion of survival of the fittest in order to pass on their genes narrative is at best going to be held in suspicion and likely to be laughed at derisively. Neither will they be persuaded that kindness, compassion and empathy are equally genuine human traits as are the nastier features, unless it can be somehow coded to evolutionary psychology or biology, or to put it crudely, the one who wins gets the most sexual partners. I can remember having had this conversation once with another member of a fundamentalist church I was attending for two years (don't ask, don't tell!). She seemed to suggest that humans who weren't Christians were all naturally selfish and depraved. I mentioned to her the experience of St. Paul and his companions when they were shipwrecked on Malta. The inhabitants, none of whom were Christians, showed these castaways tremendous kindness and charity. I asked my friend to please try to explain that away. She tactfully changed the subject and the matter was never mentioned between us again. I am thinking of two conversations I have had in the last five days or so. One with my supervisor yesterday. We meet together every other week or so and often engage in really interesting conversations about politics and social and global issues. Together we were musing about how constructive dialogue could be developed between ideological enemies, especially around the importance of educating society about the real issues of poverty, homelessness and social and economic marginalization. I told him about a friend of mine, who tends towards the conservative. He is from Latin America and, despite our ideological differences, we connected almost immediately as close friends. We have since spent the last couple of years dialoguing, some times rather intensely, about those same issues. I told my supervisor that because of our mutual liking and my friend's natural sense of empathy, I have been able to explain to him in terms he doesn't seem to find alienating just why we have homeless, poor and hungry people in this very wealthy and privileged land called Canada. I have also been telling my friend, gently and through personal stories and anecdotes about the circumstances and conditions that led to my own experience of homelessness and economic poverty. While we don't necessarily agree on all the details, he is showing an open mind and an interest in learning more about the issues. On his invitation I even send him selections from this blog every week, for English practice but also to provoke and stimulate thought for him about these and related matters. The other conversation occurred a few days ago when I stopped to chat with a lady who lives in one of the mansions in Shaughnessy Heights. I often see her outside gardening or raking leaves. She often hears me singing the Te Deum Laudamus in Spanish, seems to like my voice and lately has been stopping me to chat. I have learned that she is a woman of faith, a Christian with a strong concern for what is going on in our society and about the poor. This is very reassuring to me because it is for me a strong reminder to not stereotype others according to social class, urban geography, or background, be they my Latin American friend or the lady in Shaughnessy. I think that as we approach others in a spirit of friendship and good will and if we actually allow ourselves to like each other, then this can only be a huge step forward in beginning and establishing conversations about poverty and the need for social and political change. Bashing the middle and upper middle classes as heartless bourgeois swine (and I will concede here that some of them are heartless bourgeois swine)is only going to create more enemies. Approaching others in a spirit of love, friendship and respect? Regardless of ideological position, or social and economic class? Well, it's worth a try.