Once upon a time there was a girl who was alone in the world.
I have forgotten the rest of the story, but I remember the terror contained in that sentence.
With childish literalism, I imagined myself on an empty planet under the icy stars.
More than any other scary story, the image of that wasteland and that helplessness nourished the nightmares of my childhood.
Perhaps the fear of abandonment feeds the universal need to belong to a group, a team, a party, a blood or chosen family.
We are moved by the feverish desire for adhesions.
Even rebellions, conspiracies and nihilisms seek the warmth of a dissident clan.
The more misunderstood the shared trait, the more it unites.
Even social networks, which cage us in a glittering bubble, seduce us by promising us an unlimited possibility of meeting.
Because good company nourishes us.
The word comes from the Latin
cumpanis
, which meant “to share bread.”
One of our deepest appetites is to be accepted and invited, to make good friends with those around us.
We need to trust others, and for them to trust us.
Although that pride of belonging unleashes more passion than compassion.
Under the protection of Athenian democracy, Aristotle defined humans as social beings, civic animals inseparable from the networks of affections, links, exchanges, solidarities and shared dreams that bind and sustain us.
In his
Politics,
he argued that an individual cannot be happy in an unhappy city: the hardships of your neighbors are also your misfortune.
“He who is incapable of living in community or who needs nothing because of his own sufficiency is not a member of the city, but a beast or a god.”
The ideal of independence and arrogant autonomy can offer a divine or fierce life, but in any case inhuman.
There were also shadows in the community imagined by Aristotle;
Women and slaves were excluded from citizenship.
However, a powerful message lies in his words: all human beings are politicians, and not just professionals in the parliamentary profession.
Praiseworthy or detestable, the decisions of power always affect us.
Perhaps for this reason, the Greeks called 'idiot' - whose root means "own" - those who ignored public affairs, pending only their private interests.
In times of shock, politics becomes suspect and societies fragment into archipelagos of isolated, deprived—of collective encouragement—and distrustful efforts.
In those moments, when what binds us is ignored and idiots abound, those who know everything come to power.
In one of Plato's most famous dialogues, the philosopher Protagoras—the intellectual spokesperson of that young democracy—asks how we manage to live together in society, despite conflicts and outbursts.
To explain it, he tells a myth where ideas breathe, have flesh, muscle and a face.
When the gods created the world, they commissioned two titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus, to distribute gifts among the multitude of living beings.
And, alas, the giddy Epimetheus—whose name means “he who acts first and thinks later”—insisted on dealing with the distribution alone;
Like all great incompetents, he was very sure of himself.
He began with the animals: to some he gave claws and sharp teeth;
for the weakest, speed to flee or skillful camouflage.
However, he forgot to reserve a gift for the human species.
There we were, helpless, clumsy, without wings or fins, long-legged, stubborn, vulnerable... a calamity.
To solve the disaster, Prometheus stole the spark of fire from the sky and thus we learned to light bonfires.
Taking pity on our helpless species, the god Zeus gave us justice and political sense.
Protected from darkness and cold by both gifts – fire and the word that unites –, we inaugurate the evenings around the hospitable circle of light to tell stories, sew and sing, create community.
In the love of the fire, even before inventing tables, humanity practiced after-meals.
That way, even if we are weak separately, we became strong by collaborating.
We don't have claws, hooves, stingers or shells, but we learned to weave societies.
We are worth little alone, our true competitive advantage is the talent to cooperate.
The philosopher María Zambrano defined us as “solitude in coexistence.”
In
Person and Democracy
she called for “a humanized society where history does not behave like an ancient deity that demands inexhaustible suffering.”
Faced with the helplessness that always stalks us and, in the absence of fangs, we are protected by acting like political animals, capable of sharing, caring for each other and having fun together.
Thank the gods, we have a spark.
And in the dense darkness, we are brief rays that are sought.
Anthropology and evolutionary biology confirm the intuitions of those original myths.
In his essay
The Secret of Our Success
, Joseph Henrich updates Epimetheus: the human being is a weak, slow creature and not particularly skilled at climbing trees;
We are born fat, premature and with an open skull.
In a prehistoric betting house, our quote would have been zero.
Heinrich maintains that our species' achievements are not the result of innate intelligence or specialized mental abilities.
The reason is that we grow by learning from other people.
Each generation builds on the foundation of the strategies and wisdom accumulated by previous generations.
This background is such a great advantage that natural selection has for millennia favored those who learn best socially.
The braid between culture and genes made us peculiar, a new type of animal: adaptive learners.
Heinrich affirms that innovation depends on our ability to collaborate more than on our intellect, and the great challenge is to avoid the fragmentation and dissolution of our communities.
Science shows that the greatest advances are not flashes of exceptional, unique and unrepeatable minds.
On the contrary, great discoveries are the result of previous findings, collaboration and knowledge shared over time.
However, in school we learn stellar names associated with revolutionary technologies.
We idolize a mythology featuring charismatic and paternalistic leaders, providential rulers, solitary entrepreneurs and disruptive geniuses.
In a perverse paradox of our politics, the skills necessary to win elections—fiercely competitive—eliminate from the race those who would govern in a serenely collaborative way.
Being a piece of bread costs downwards—and hunger—in the world of ego attachment.
As children's stories and Aristotle teach, the myth of the self-made winner is unreal: every solitary advance is actually supportive.
There is a reason we call companies “companies” and, therefore, the place where we learn – school – demands that we be good colleagues.
In fact, separating and confronting each other diminishes our prosperity.
Divided we are more combative and conflictive, less effective.
It is no coincidence that the words solid, health and solidarity have the same linguistic origin.
We have built societies on a paradox: we owe our strength to weakness.
The indigence of human beings becomes the beginning of our power, writes Zambrano.
Cultural evolution favored the growth of tribes, cooperation, internal harmony and the courage to share risks.
In the face of other people's problems, millennia of selection rewarded camaraderie, not “they eat their bread with their own.”
What made us different is not being indifferent to others.
Irene Vallejo
is a philologist and writer and winner of the 2020 National Essay Award for her book
El infinito en un junco.
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