IF THE STOICS WERE correct, and the entire human family is one, why is there so much division and polarization in the world today? The short answer is that these divisions have something to do with our biological history as tribal animals. Belonging to a group or a tribe is a natural human need. By definition, people who don’t feel a sense of belonging experience loneliness and alienation. Things become problematic, though, when tribalism becomes toxic.
For roughly the last two hundred thousand years, we Homo sapiens have lived as tribal creatures. Because of that evolutionary history, tribalism is almost impossible to eliminate. But as the physicist and philosopher Marcelo Gleiser observes, “A tribe without enemies is, almost by definition, not a tribe. As a consequence, tribal dispute and warfare is part of what defines humanity.” As he goes on to note,
The biggest enemy we have to fight against now is our tribal past. What served us for so well for thousands of years is now an obsolete concept. It’s no more about the survival of this tribe or that one, but about Homo sapiens as a species. . . . For the first time in our collective history, we must think of ourselves as a single tribe in a single planet. . . . We are a single tribe, the tribe of humans. And, as such, not a tribe at all.31
The Stoics were the first to spell out this idea fully: we’re all members of a cosmopolis, they said, a worldwide, interconnected community of human beings. In other words, we are citizens of the entire world. Seneca, like other Stoics, taught that human beings should desire to benefit all of humanity, the cosmopolis as a whole. Without the mutual support of others, society would collapse. “We are all parts of a great body,” he wrote. “Our companionship is like a stone arch, which would collapse if the stones did not mutually support one another.”32
A sense of belonging is essential, but toxic tribalism tears people apart and goes against the prosocial vision of the Stoics. In Seneca’s words, “You must live for another if you would live for yourself.”33 At its worst, toxic tribalism can lead to the demonization of others, violence, and even genocide. Because of their belief in human unity, if they were alive today, the Roman Stoics would be vigorously opposed to modern identity politics in all its forms, because identity politics divides people into different subgroups, based on traits like gender, race, or sexual orientation. It then encourages those groups to compete against one another for special status or power, as if group identity were more important than our fundamental status as human beings. By taking a “divide and conquer” approach, and by fragmenting the human family into competing groups, identity politics represents the ultimate form of toxic tribalism in our time. Its approach increases social division and risks tearing society apart. As Seneca warned, “Remove fellowship and you will tear apart the unity of the human race on which our life depends.”34 For Stoics, humanity is one: we are all brothers and sisters. Rather than dividing society into warring tribes, we should recognize our common humanity and support one another.
THE TIES THAT BIND: FEELING AT HOME WITH EVERYONE ELSE
All human beings are born for a life of fellowship, and society can only remain healthy through the mutual protection and love of its parts.
—Seneca, On Anger 2.31.7
Seneca’s idea that we belong to a global community of human beings, united through reason and friendship with others, strikes us as modern. Because we now live in a planetary civilization, connected by worldwide trade and communication networks, global fellowship is part of our daily experience.
But how is it that human society, and even global society, comes into being in the first place? If the instincts of tribalism alone governed things, the world would be much more dangerous and polarized than it actually is.
The Stoics had a beautiful explanation for this. It’s known as okeiōsis, and seems to go back to Zeno, the founder of the school.35 The term comes from the Greek word oikos, which means “house” or “family.” Okeiōsis refers to the sense of kinship or being at home that we feel toward other people—the human affinity we feel for others—and it’s the ultimate source of all Stoic ethics. Okeiōsis allows us to see other human beings as near and dear to us, even if we’re not directly related to them. Marcus Aurelius frequently wrote about our kinship with all human beings and how that kinship forms the basis of society. As he put it, “All rational creatures are born for the sake of one another.”36
The most thorough explanation of how natural human affection gives rise to society appears in Cicero’s writings, and the basic idea is simple. “The Stoics,” he says, “think that nature itself causes parents to have affection for their children,” and this parental affection is “the source from which developed the common fellowship of the human race in communities.” This parental affection for one’s offspring is rational and part of natural law. It’s even found in other species. When we see the great effort that even nonhuman animals spend on caring for their young, Cicero says, “we seem to be hearing the voice of nature itself.”37 For the Stoics, he explains,
It is also clear that we’ve been impelled by nature herself to love those to whom we have given birth. From this impulse arises a common attraction that unites human beings as such; based on our common humanity, we feel kinship with others.38
While animals, like bees, work in harmony with one another, “With human beings, these bonds of fellowship are far more intimate. Thus, by nature, we have been fitted to form unions, societies, and states.”39 Further, as we grow older and our reason develops, okeiōsis extends our feelings of kinship to others. Through the use of reason and understanding, the kind of natural affection we feel toward our family members becomes applied to society as a whole.
The Stoics had another way of illustrating okeiōsis, the ties that bind us together with other human beings. This was explained by the Stoic philosopher Hierocles, who lived around the time of Marcus Aurelius. In one of his writings, Hierocles described the circles of humanity of which we’re part (see figure 7), and why “we are eager by nature to win over and make a friend of everyone.”40
The innermost circle is where we stand as individuals. It represents our individual self. The next circle is that of our immediate family, parents, siblings, spouses, and children. The third circle contains more distant family members: aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins. The next circle contains citizens in our local communities and then fellow countrymen. Finally, the largest, outermost circle contains humanity as a whole. Many modern Stoics, including myself, would draw a larger circle yet, representing nature or the living biosphere, of which we’re all a part. But this idea is not modern. It’s part of the ancient Stoic tradition. As philosophy scholar John Sellars notes,