海角大神

If Thomas Jefferson or James Madison were nation building today, what would they be reading? America鈥檚 success is built in no small part on its founders鈥� insight into human nature. In the 18th century, that meant study of Enlightenment philosophers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Locke. Nowadays, it might mean sharing a conversation with Nicholas Christakis.

Professor Christakis runs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and his recent book, 鈥淏lueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society,鈥� feels like a modern-day Enlightenment treatise. With scientific methods and tools that were scarcely imaginable three centuries ago, he runs humanity through the wringer and comes to a conclusion that might surprise some people: 鈥淭he arc of our evolutionary history is long. But it bends toward goodness.鈥�

So as part of my effort to acquaint you all with fellow readers and thinkers working to expand the best in our natures, I sat down with him in December for a chat and turned the conversation to politics.

Dr. Christakis鈥� research suggests that a 鈥渟ocial suite鈥� including love, friendship, cooperation, and teaching has been hard-wired into human beings, though we tend to deploy these qualities selectively toward those like ourselves 鈥� our 鈥渋n group.鈥� In many ways, he says, America is an unprecedented social experiment, testing whether we humans can share these behaviors more broadly.

In that, America has had an important superpower. It has had identities that cut across in-groups. For example, 鈥測ou might go to a different church from someone else, but you had connections with them鈥� 鈥� your children played baseball together or you went to the same school or had the same occupation, Dr. Christakis says. And the less segregated we are 鈥� not just racially but by ideology, religion, income, and education 鈥� 鈥渢he stronger the democracy.鈥�

That鈥檚 changed in recent decades. People talk about living in 鈥淔acebook bubbles鈥� where we only interact with people who agree with us, but it goes beyond social media. We live in an increasingly 鈥渟orted鈥� society. Yet for a diverse democracy to overcome the urge to tribalize, it needs citizens with crosscutting identities, he says.

So what do we do now? We can combat tribal tendencies in one of two ways, Dr. Christakis says. We can 鈥済o up, or go down.鈥�

We can go 鈥渦p鈥� to a higher unifying identity as fellow citizens, for example. While most nation-states define themselves by ethnic or linguistic identity, 鈥渋t鈥檚 almost unparalleled in the history of the world that anyone can become an American,鈥� he says.

Or we can go 鈥渄own鈥� a level and acknowledge the innate value of each individual, as Martin Luther King Jr. argued. 鈥淓very single human holds prejudiced opinions,鈥� Dr. Christakis says. But that can be overcome by 鈥渙ur innate capacities for recognizing the uniqueness of others and for forming friendships.鈥�

In the end, the founders got it right. The Constitution reflects crucial features of human nature, Dr. Christakis says. Political tides can push against our innate desire for the good in the social suite, 鈥渂ut only for a while.鈥�