There is a question many of us ask especially when we watch the news. It is this: What is the cause, the real cause, of all the suffering and conflict in the world? I have no doubt that there are a number of ways of answering this question. This is my way. I am becoming more and more convinced that the cause of many of our world’s problems is greed and tribalism. Yes, two things, greed and tribalism. As human beings we tend to feed our greed rather than our need. We also tend to compete rather than cooperate.
Let me begin with greed. Think about this: Human beings are the only species that want more than they really need. We always want more. We are never satisfied with what we have. We find it so difficult to say we have enough. We have this insatiable desire to accumulate wealth, to fill our lives with possessions, to want more and more things. In truth, we have a tendency to be greedy. But this greed is not good for us. It is not good for us personally. It is also not good for those who are experiencing poverty and injustice. Because of greed the world is divided into the haves and the have nots. And we are lucky to be included in the haves!
But what causes us to be greedy? I believe it is the hole in our hearts. Whether or not we are aware of it, there is a huge hole inside each of us that needs to be filled. Unfortunately we try to fill this hole with the wrong things. In particular we try to fill it with possessions. We call this materialism. Jesus, the great wisdom teacher, cautioned us about materialism, about filling the hole we have inside with possessions. For Jesus the hole we have inside can only be filled by love. That’s it. If we are filling the hole we have inside with love, if we are letting ourselves be loved, then we will not need to be greedy. We will be able to say, “I have enough.” In fact, we will be able to say, “I have more than enough.”
Then there is tribalism. If human nature tends to be greedy, it certainly tends to be tribal. The human community is made up of all sorts of tribes. We all have our own tribes: family, ethnic group, religious denomination, class, nationality, profession, club, football team, etc. Tribes are about our need to belong. Belonging to a tribe gives us an identity. It also helps us feel safe and secure. But belonging to a tribe can create dangerous attitudes. It can make us judgemental, exclusive and competitive. It can also create what we call dualistic thinking. Dualistic thinking is either/or thinking. It divides the world into those who are good and those who are bad, those who are right and those who are wrong, those who are worthy and those who are unworthy, those who are included and those who are excluded. It creates outsiders, strangers, rivals, indeed enemies who compete and fight with one another. No wonder we have so many terrible conflicts and wars in our world.
Going forward we have to be willing to go beyond our tribalism, to learn to cooperate rather than compete. If we don’t the suffering and devastating loss of life will continue and we will end up destroying each other. Jesus, who cautioned us about greed, also taught the way of cooperation. He invited us to build an inclusive community where there would be no outsiders, no strangers, no enemies. For him we are all children of God, sisters and brothers in the one family. Again that’s it! Everyone is a child of God and the entire human community is God’s family. Accepting this would surely make a huge difference to the way we see ourselves and everyone else.
To create a better future for ourselves and for our world, this is what I am suggesting: Let’s feed our need rather than our greed and let’s cooperate rather than compete.