How do we replace exploitation with mutual care? What are the essentials of this way of life? Here’s a real-life example to start, a picture to help us think clearly about where our world is today, and what it needs to be whole and healthy…
We have always adopted animals, starting with a very old German Shepherd that had lived outside, largely neglected, on its elderly owner’s front porch across the street from us.
When the owner died, no one came to claim or care for the dog, so we brought him home. The first night he howled and whimpered all night long, frightened and confused.
He was skinny, missing patches of hair, and had smelly sores on his back. We fed him, bathed him, petted and talked to him, and took him for long walks with our infant son. We loved him into the family.
It took time to build his trust, and for him to grasp that he was now safe, cared for and loved. The reality he had accepted as normal—fed, but otherwise neglected and stuck on a porch in all weather—was now gone.
The skin healed, the hair regrew, and he gained weight. For the few years he was with us, he was happy, content, caring and protective, especially of the little one, our infant son, whom he accompanied on our walks.
We’ve seen this same pattern with our subsequent adoptions of dogs that had clearly been abused. A newly adopted one once leapt from our car window and ran, so terrified as he was of any humans and the inevitable cruelty he expected from them.
It took about six weeks of constant care, and then one day he simply rolled over on his back for a belly rub, as if to say, “Safe at last.” Like all the others, he became an integral, affectionate part of our family. It always takes time and persistence, but they all surrender to genuine care, and then they thrive and give love in return, mutual care, with willingness and joy.
Are there corrections needed in the course of caring? Sure—but not by cruelty. A dog quickly grasps that being accepted and loved in a family is worth the moments of correction. That’s how they learn the ways of love. Anyone who’s adopted or raised animals has seen this process at work.
The cynic in us says, Yeah, well good luck with humans. So let’s just grant that humans are complicated, and often difficult, and some of them have grown up to become bullies and parasites. But now that we know we don’t need them in charge, that we don’t need to “stay in our place,” we can see the way forward, take hold of the future, and change it. And we will.
Here are the essentials needed to reach this goal:
- A clear-eyed acceptance of how we’ve been kept in our place—our labor and lives enslaved and exploited for others’ benefit, out of all proportion to our shared value as human beings.
- A rigorous understanding of propagandaand how to recognize it, starting in childhood. If we can teach kids not to accept candy from strangers, we can teach them not to fall for the lies of manipulation. But we must teach it—intentionally.
- The intentional and constantly reinforced teaching of empathy—being able to understand the nature, needs and fears of others. This does not mean a mindless acceptance of every difference as equally valuable, but it does mean seeking to consciously understand each other, to imagine oneself in their place, and ask, “How would I want to be treated, if that was me?”
- An insistence on rewarding growing skill and effort fairly—but not at the cost of subsidizinghoarding or privilege. Work should receive proportionate, just reward.
- An insistence on our personal obligation to provide mutual care to everyone—no exceptions. This includes food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education and safety—the essentials that make us healthy, capable contributors to the common good.
- Changing ourselves—our families and neighborhoods—first. We can’t change the whole world at once, but we can change where we are. And that change will spread. Think globally. Act locally.
- Training, in families and schools, that teaches that mutual careas the highest good—the path to thriving and abundance. And honoring those who live it. Write it. Teach it. Insist on it.
- An awareness that bulliesand parasites hijack even our best ideals—including mutual care—to seize power and drain our life and efforts. This was the fatal flaw in every failed utopia: socialism, communism, cults and more. Expose them.
- A readiness to swiftly stop those who try to gain power by harming or imposing control over others, or through threat, exploitation or fraud. Keep them from keeping us in our place. Resist and restrain.
Of course, there will be voices that belittle these necessary advances, will chuckle at our naïveté, rail about all the failed utopians over the course of history, and claim that—like it or not—only the reigning powers-that-be who stride above us now, and ruled throughout history, have the strength and right to run the world. And who sell us the lie that we are richer, more prosperous and healthy, than we’d be without them.
But it is all myth and lies, trickle-down nonsense. We must say no to bullies and parasites, and yes to mutual care. Then nothing will “trickle,” and abundance can flow. We will thrive best without them.