The Other
“Can’t we all just get along.” — Rodney King
It’s time we rise above our Paleolithic neuro pathways and step back from our fear of diverse cultures. Fear, the father of hatred, leads to bias, anger, and violence, primitive responses in which we can no longer afford to engage.
We need cooperation to meet the global challenges that threaten our human race. If allowed to continue along our current path, tribalism will bring an end first to democracy, then to this planet’s ability to sustain mammalian life.
These challenges originated thousands of years ago.
For example, when Orok of the Old Paleolithic period looked at his family and tribe, he felt a sense of trust, cooperation, and empathy.
His neuroactivation pathways and hormonal response gave him a sense of safety and contentment. If Orok were time-traveled and had his blood drawn, it would show that his oxytocin and vasopressin levels were elevated. An fMRI (functional magnetic resonance image) would show increased activity in the reward centers of his brain.
Back in his own time, while hunting, if he spotted a footprint of another human he didn’t recognize from his family or group, his physiological response would have been quite different. To the primitive man, it was a footprint of “The Other” and, therefore, a sign of danger. His world had two groups: his tribe and “The Other.”
His amygdala, the place in the brain where the “flight or fight” response originates, would fire, and his adrenal glands would begin pumping out epinephrine.
Recent experiments using modern techniques involving thousands of men and women have shown that our response to humans of the same race, culture, and language base is much like Orok’s. Subjects reported feeling connected because of familiarity, history, and cooperation. Oxytocin levels rise, and the amygdala is quiet.
However, when subjects were shown photographs of people of a different race or culture, the same subjects’ amygdalae began to fire, and a sense of unease and fear was reported.
So, while we may seem hardwired to fear anyone not of our tribe or family, our brains have a fantastic property called “neuroplasticity.” This is the ability of our brains to adapt to new experiences and actually re-wire our neuroactivation pathways.
Although bias and prejudice are part of our heritage, researchers have shown that people interacting with diverse groups equally can produce new neurological avenues.
Tribalism in the past was essential for survival. However, our world has evolved to where our lives and well-being depend on cultural diversity and social behavior that supports cooperation and empathy.
We must, for our own survival, drop tribalism, dispel fear and hatred from our lives, and accept “The Other” as part of our world.
After all, once we leave our neighborhoods, we all become “The Other” to some group.