海角大神

More than 150 years ago, Charles Darwin grappled with a classic question about the nature of nature and the existence of God.

鈥淭here seems to me too much misery in the world,鈥� wrote the naturalist, whose book 鈥淥n the Origin of Species鈥� was just beginning to send a jolt through 19th-century scientists and theologians both. 鈥淚 cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the [parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.鈥�

As a version of the 鈥減roblem of evil,鈥� Darwin鈥檚 observations posed a different kind of question for those working within the religious traditions of 鈥渢heodicy,鈥� suggests Nicholas Christakis, an evolutionary sociologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Usually seeing misery as a matter of free choice, theologians tried to reconcile a good and all-powerful God with evil.

The questions of his own work are actually kind of similar, says Professor Christakis, whose new book, 鈥淏lueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society,鈥� surveys the ways evolution has shaped human nature and its discontents.

But his book is a 鈥渟ociodicy,鈥� he says, one that shows how the forces of evolution shaped humans into a species with deeply rooted social instincts and one that is fundamentally good.

鈥淗ow do we vindicate a belief in the goodness of society despite the fact that, of course, every century is replete with horrors?鈥� he says in an interview. 鈥淵ou know there鈥檚 tribalism and violence, there鈥檚 selfishness and hatred, all through the world. And nevertheless, in my view, we as human beings create a society that鈥檚 good.鈥�

It is in many ways part of a wider genre of recent books that have tried to take on this current era鈥檚 relentless 鈥減essimistic gaze,鈥� as Dr. Christakis calls it.

A range of writers, from scientists to political thinkers to clergy and others, have been trying to write 鈥渃orrectives鈥� in the midst of America鈥檚 oft-noted angry social divisions and growing political polarization. These range from Arthur C. Brooks鈥櫬爊ew book, 鈥淟ove Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt鈥� to 鈥淚 Think You鈥檙e Wrong (But I鈥檓 Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations,鈥� from Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, hosts of the podcast 鈥淧antsuit Politics.鈥�

The idea of vindicating goodness in the midst of suffering is at the heart of Dr. Christakis鈥� analogy between these genres, and the stakes include the subjective and profoundly human perspectives of hope and optimism as opposed to cynicism and despair.

鈥淭he benefits of the connected life must have outweighed the costs, or otherwise we wouldn鈥檛 live socially,鈥� Dr. Christakis says. 鈥淲e have been pre-wired to live in a particular way, and it鈥檚 a good way,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 full of lives full of love and friendship and cooperation and teaching.鈥�

The word 鈥渙ptimism,鈥� in fact, was first coined to describe 鈥� and often mock 鈥� a tradition of theodicy. Theologians argued that an all-powerful and perfectly good God could only create 鈥渢he best of all possible worlds鈥� 鈥� so, despite the evils within it, our own world must be the 鈥渙ptimum鈥� of possible worlds.

Arguing for 鈥榯he bright side鈥�

Today the scientific community, most American media outlets, and perhaps the majority of people have been overly obsessed with the dark side of our evolutionary heritage, he says, or what some theologians might call instead a primordial 鈥渙riginal sin.鈥�

鈥淪o I kind of wanted my book to be a corrective,鈥� he continues. 鈥淚 think the bright side has been denied the attention it deserves.鈥�

And while few are working to justify the ways of God or natural selection and demonstrate how society is fundamentally good, many have been analyzing that current 鈥渃ulture of contempt鈥� and working to exhort Americans to pay more attention to the proverbial 鈥渂etter angels of our nature,鈥� and cultivate the shared humanity and goodness that undergirds our common lives.

鈥淐ontempt is kind of a metastatic phenomenon,鈥� Mr. Brooks, a conservative social thinker, told The Daily Signal. 鈥淲hen you treat somebody with contempt, you make a permanent enemy. You just can鈥檛 go back from that.鈥�

Mr. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, offers his own practical correctives to this social illness: cultivating a love and respect for others even in the midst of profound social differences. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 need to disagree less, we need to disagree better,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that comes from ... remembering that we鈥檙e all brothers and sisters, and we need to persuade each other. And even if we have to not agree, that鈥檚 OK, too.鈥�

In different ways, books like 鈥満＝谴笊駍 in the Age of Outrage鈥� by the Evangelical scholar Ed Stetzer are urging members of the subculture to step back from expressions of outrage and hostility and present a 海角大神 witness rooted in loving others.

鈥淪eeking kindness in an increasingly cruel landscape, or, at a time of unprecedented mobility, yearning for a sense of rootedness 鈥� well, rabbis have a two-millennium head start in dealing with all of these,鈥� writes Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, whose new book 鈥淢ensch-Marks,鈥� released on Tuesday, promotes a 鈥渘obility in normalcy, especially in these tumultuous times.鈥澛犅�

鈥淚f by sharing what I鈥檝e learned, I can add a modicum of generosity, honesty and human connection in a world overflowing with cruelty, loneliness and deceit, then I鈥檒l have done my job,鈥� Rabbi Hammerman said in a statement.

In 鈥淏lueprint,鈥� Dr. Christakis cites the work of the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who points out in his recent book 鈥淓nlightenment Now鈥� that many don鈥檛 realize the enormous social progress of the past few centuries. In the midst of this era鈥檚 relentless pessimist gaze, Mr. Pinker argues, few focus on how the efficiencies wrought by science and technology have led to greater life expectancies, fewer wars and fewer violent deaths, and a relative global prosperity that has shrunk the overall rates of poverty and disease.

Such a pessimistic gaze can blur out bedrock strengths of the many people of goodwill who quietly hold together community ties and keep the daily rhythms of everyday life steady.

A poignancy behind the optimism

Still, there鈥檚 an underlying urgency, and even poignancy, at the heart of the optimism in Dr. Christakis鈥� sociodicy.

Three and a half years ago he and his wife, Erika Christakis, a scholar of early childhood development, became embroiled in a campus controversy over offensive Halloween costumes and free speech.

A video of an angry group of students confronting Dr. Christakis went viral, and it soon became an emblem of outrage, used manipulatively by many on both the right and left. 鈥淚鈥檓 sick looking at you.... 聽You are not listening, you are disgusting,鈥� one student told him during the two-hour exchange.

At the time, Dr. Christakis defended the students on Twitter, but he puts the confrontation and the maelstrom that followed on the list of the top 10 worst things that happened in his life. It was especially difficult for his wife, who resigned her position at Yale after the controversy.

Though not addressed, it鈥檚 part of the backdrop of 鈥淏lueprint.鈥� As he writes, 鈥淥ne of the most dispiriting questions I have encountered in my own laboratory research is whether the affinity people have for their own groups 鈥� whether those groups are defined by some attribute (nationality, ethnicity, or religion) or by a social connection (friends or teammates) 鈥� must necessarily be coupled with wariness or rejection of others. Can you love your own group without hating everyone else?鈥�

Dr. Christakis builds his sociodicy primarily through telling stories that illustrate what he calls a 鈥渟ocial suite鈥� of eight instincts that form the core of human societies. These include the bonds of love for partners and kin, the ability to cooperate, and the ability to form friendships and then social networks of friends.

These bonding instincts rooted in love also include a built-in tension. The 鈥渟ocial suite鈥� includes a profound preference for family, friends, and wider 鈥渋n-groups,鈥� which leads to an 鈥渙therization鈥� of those not part of the group.

Yet this 鈥渋n-group bias鈥� is essential for the larger 鈥済ood鈥� society the social suite builds. 鈥淸Cooperation] is supported not only by the fact that we reliably interact with friends rather than strangers within the face-to-face networks we fashion,鈥� he writes, 鈥渂ut also by the fact that we form groups whose boundaries we enforce by coming to like those within the group more than those outside of it.鈥�

鈥淧eople everywhere choose their friends and prefer their own groups,鈥� he continues. 鈥淚n turn, cooperation is a crucial predicate for social learning, one of our species鈥� most powerful inventions.鈥�

In the early chapters of 鈥淏lueprint,鈥� Dr. Christakis examines the social organization of a number of 鈥渦nintentional communities,鈥� like the survivors of shipwrecks. In some, cliques began to compete and the society disintegrated; in others cooperative instincts prevailed.

In others, he describes the formation of intentional communities, including religious groups like the Shakers, or artificial communities, like online gamers. And while aspects of the 鈥渟ocial suite鈥� are always at work, the kinds of societies that can emerge are not always 鈥済ood,鈥� per se.

鈥淧eople often think that personality traits such as kindness are fixed,鈥� he writes. 鈥淏ut our research with groups suggests something quite different: the tendency to be altruistic or exploitative may depend heavily on how the social world is organized.鈥�

It鈥檚 an irony at the heart of the 鈥渙ptimistic鈥� theodicies, too. Theologians have often argued that there can be no virtue without the reality of vice, no beauty without the facts of chaos, and that no true character can be formed in a life without tests.

All societies, from individual family units to civilizations, are shaped by a swirl of often ambivalent human instincts. But in many ways, 鈥淏lueprint鈥� argues, the most enduring societies are those most rooted in love.

鈥淟ove is a particularly distinctive human experience,鈥� he writes. 鈥淟ove also paves the way, evolutionarily speaking, for us to feel a special connection not only to our kin, but also, ultimately, to unrelated individuals.... We form long-term, nonreproductive unions with other humans. This is exceedingly rare in the animal kingdom, but it is universal in us.鈥�

It鈥檚 an observation at the heart of his optimism, and Dr. Christakis modifies another theological affirmation to conclude his justification of the ways of natural selection. 聽聽聽

鈥淭he arc of our evolutionary history is long,鈥� he writes. 鈥淏ut it bends toward goodness.鈥�