I mean, yes, borders are artificial, but that doesn’t mean they’re anything new. They may be more prominently defined now, but we have literally never as a species lived in a completely borderless world. And yes, states are different to how we used to live, but only because of their scale.
For all of modern human history (from around 2 million years ago) up until the development of settlements with the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture (around 10,000 years ago) we existed exclusively in small multi-family cooperative bands of a few tens of people, linked into tribal societies of a few hundred to a few thousand people.
These tribal societies would have been competing for scarce resources and territory, in a hostile world. Bone records show many met violent ends. In fact, an average of 15% of all prehistoric skeletons show signs of intentional violence.
So, for 99.5% of the time that we have existed as modern humans (and probably much longer before), we lived in small groups, in a world where, if you weren’t wary of strangers, you might get an axe to the head, and then not be able to pass on your stranger-welcoming genes to the next generation.
That time - the vast majority of our history - shaped who we are and defined our core instincts.
But, that’s not to say there’s no hope; the human mind is incredibly complex and extremely adaptable, it’s our greatest strength. As I said, we have the intelligence to be able to shape our own minds, to form our own views on inter-group relations.
I guess what I’m saying is, if we don’t consciously make this effort, it’s incredibly easy to fall back into these primal instincts which, yes, can be exacerbated by external systems but are inherent to all of us.
What’s artificial, really, is this global world we have been thrust into in the last few centuries, hence why there have been so much problems trying to get people to adapt to it, though adapt, I’m sure, we will.
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
origamiaround
prguitarman
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
gummygunk
