By Barend ter Haar.
Good diplomacy serves the interests of a country, but bad diplomacy helps a country to destroy itself.
Take for example the year 1914 when bad diplomacy led to the first World War. Among the many reasons why diplomacy failed, two should be mentioned here: Governments avoided a realistic look at the price of modern warfare and were unwilling or unable to look beyond their narrow (perceived) national interests. The result is well known: the fall of the Russian, German and Austrian empires and the beginning of the European Civil War that lasted at least until 1945, if not 1989.
Is diplomacy doing any better nowadays? Are governments now looking reality in the eye? Are they now looking beyond their short term national interests? And why is it that governments conduct policies that are self-destructive? These are very difficult, but also very important questions. Too important, one could argue, to leave it to diplomats and foreign policy specialists to answer. But who can help?
Diplomats might follow the good example of the development experts at the World Bank. In its most recent World Development Report Mind, Society and Behavior the World Bank invoked the help of many disciplines, such as neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, to answer the question why the results of development aid are so often disappointing. Diplomats should do the same. A discipline that might be of much use is biology. Since Darwin wrote The Descent of Man, a lot has been learned about human nature. What is important to realize is that the way we act and react is not only influenced by what we have learned from other people (our culture), but also by hundreds of thousands years of evolution (our genetic predisposition).
Genetic adaptation is a very slow process, certainly in comparison with the enormous speed human civilization developed since the late stone age. Our current genetic predisposition therefore dates from before that time, when our forefathers still had to gather and hunt their food in the wild. However, some of the genetic adaptations that worked very well at that time have now become dysfunctional.
Take for instance our innate impulse to eat sweets and nuts when they are placed in front of us, whether we are hungry or not. Our far ancestors were right to eat whenever they had the chance, but for modern man this impulse is dysfunctional. If we want to remain healthy, we have to withstand this temptation. In principle we can do that, but nevertheless obesity has become a very serious public health problem. Another problematic genetic trait is our inclination to make a sharp distinction between our “own” group and “other” groups. We are genetically predisposed to consider the “others” as potential enemies and not to care very much about their lives.
Hundred thousand years ago that was probably useful, but under current circumstances this inclination has become dysfunctional. The sociobiologist Edward Wilson said it quite eloquently in The Social Conquest of Earth: “We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. (..) We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.” Now what to do? We cannot change our nature, but we can be aware of our genetic handicaps. Studies on the evolutionary origins of war and ethnic conflict are therefore not only of academic interest, but deserve the attention of pragmatic diplomats.
A closer look at the results of biological research with regard to our hereditary handicaps will help us to realize that policies that feel good because they were effective 100 000 years ago might now be self destructive. A better understanding of our genetic predispositions can therefore help us to prevent avoidable disasters.
