Ever since, humans have specialised more and more.29
Stephen Pinker, a celebrated Harvard psychologist, says there are three intertwined attributes explaining humanity’s pre-eminence among species–language, social cooperation and technological expertise. All three evolved together, making it possible for humans to work in groups to ever-greater effect.30 Fellow psychologist Daniel Goleman adds an intriguing twist, highlighting the way that empathy has become a human characteristic, making it easier for us to work together in groups by thinking and feeling in similar ways.31
Goleman argues that humans have become subconsciously attuned to each other in a way that harmonises and resonates, resulting in our instincts for compassion, empathy and altruism. Over time we have developed neural responses that automatically mirror the feelings, experiences and actions of the people around us. In the transcription of a radio broadcast that you are about to read, look out for the speaker’s instantaneous mirroring, and monitor your own responses as you imagine the scene.
Lakehurst, New Jersey, 7 p.m., 6 May 1937
The Hindenburg was a German commercial passenger-carrying Zeppelin airship–a hydrogen-filled blimp–the largest and most luxurious flying machine ever built. During 1936 it made seventeen Atlantic crossings, including one round trip in less than six days, a record. It left Frankfurt on the evening of 3 May 1937 and crossed the ocean uneventfully. We pick up the radio commentary of its landing in New Jersey, three days later. The speaker is journalist Herbert Morrison.
It’s practically standing still now. They’ve dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship; and they’ve been taken hold of down on the field by a number of men. It’s starting to rain again…the rain had slacked up a little bit.
The back motors of the ship are just holding it just enough to keep it from—
It’s burst into flames! It burst into flames, and it’s falling, it’s crashing! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It’s fire–and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible!
Oh my! Get out of the way, please! It’s burning and bursting into flames; and the…and it’s falling on the mooring-mast…
Crashing, oh! Four or five hundred feet into the sky and it…It’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It’s smoke, and it’s flames now; and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring-mast.
Oh, the humanity! And all the passengers screaming around here. I told you, it—
I can’t even talk to people. Their friends are out there. Ah! It’s…it…it’s a…ah! I, I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it’s just laying there–mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and…Lady, I, I, I’m sorry. Honest: I, I can hardly breathe. I, I’m going to step inside, where I cannot see it.
32
It took just thirty-seven seconds for the Hindenburg to be completely engulfed in flames, so Morrison had no time to analyse what he was seeing. We get an unfiltered stream of consciousness where he tearfully implores those who can’t see or hear him to get out of harm’s way. Empathy dominates his reaction, to the point of rocking him physically.
Of course, Morrison’s famous broadcast is an extreme example of empathy. But typically we use it every day, probably every hour or even every minute, across the spectrum of human interaction, from the mundane to the extraordinary. Here, Greg describes an empathetic moment in his office, a barely noteworthy event that occurred while we were writing this section, the sort of thing that happens all the time in a billion people’s different realities:
‘The name of your manager, please,’ in an emphatic tone. ‘
I asked you for the name of your manager
.’ The voice of a colleague broke into my thoughts.
Curiosity
. As his insistent tone permeated the office I was compelled to listen to the dispute, half in English and half in French, with the Iberia Airlines customer service counter in Marseille. I pieced together that his fourteen-year-old daughter was stranded in Malaga, Spain, because Iberia had bumped her off her flight. He now swore quietly, viciously, I think with the telephone on mute, and it was clear how upsetting this was for him.
Alarm.
I have a daughter as well, younger, immeasurably precious. The thought of her being stranded in some foreign country by administrative incompetence–or, worse, some commercially calculated deceit–
was
upsetting. The language became more heated and rapid. He struggled with the service staff, in tersely enunciated French, powerless but for voice and word.
Anger.
This was wrong! How could they do this? The atmosphere in the office was tense, and I shared some of his anger. I found my jaw set, as if I were about to get into some imaginary punch-up.
Then, ever so gradually, he started to make progress. The tension receded. She’d be on the flight home after all.
Relief.
We seem to be wired to connect to those around us. Our empathy is most powerful in face-to-face groups, among people we know intimately. Goleman says that groups generate ‘a subtle, inexorable magnetism, a gravity-like pull toward thinking and feeling alike about things in general among people who are in close relationships of any kind–family members, workmates, and friends’.33
The number and variety of human hubs have steadily increased throughout history, but, until the last three hundred years, it was a slow process. In the Stone Age, people experienced just two or three hubs: the family, the tribe and–for men–the hunting party. Around 9000 BC our ancestors began to move from hunting wild animals and gathering fruit to ‘agriculture’–domesticating animals, planting crops. But this made little difference to the number of hubs–for most people there were still only the family, the tribe, the farm and possibly a market. Typically, the hubs did not change over the course of a lifetime. Only explorers, traders and the upper echelons of society routinely experienced a life with more than three or four hubs. For thousands of years, human existence was incredibly predictable and local.
Then came the Industrial Revolution. Ordinary people began to move into the modern world–the cosmopolitan orbit of cities, schools and universities, multiple jobs in a career, travel and migration, clubs, leisure activities, voluntary groups, and friendship circles that could be freely adopted. People roamed; like me in my backpacking days, they came across individuals and groups they never knew existed.
These developments led to a momentous change in the human condition–a huge increase in both the number and choice of hubs in our lives. Think of all the hubs that you have experienced–the family into which you were born; the family you may have entered through marriage; the different groups of friends to which you have belonged; the schools and colleges you have attended; your jobs and perhaps different work groups within the same firm; the sports clubs, gyms, societies or hobby groups you have joined; social or volunteer groups; other affinity groups or collections of people with whom you have travelled or socialised. You have probably participated in dozens or even hundreds of hubs.
Moreover, the number of potential hubs, those in which we could participate, runs into millions and keeps rising. Frictionless communications and affordable travel have intensified the dense and wide-ranging web of human connection. We can form, maintain and renew links easily. We can even interact simultaneously with hundreds or thousands of people–in cities, in market places, in social groups, and all these again in cyberspace. New groups can form and change their shape at the drop of a hat, in ways that were previously unthinkable.