Author: Patrick Clarkin

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Our Overlapping Family Trees

“If I did not believe that anthropology could also serve as an instrument of peace and a tool for human conviviality … I would have long since renounced this uncomfortable and difficult science and somewhat marginal way of life.”

— Nancy Scheper Hughes, “Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics” (2001: 53)

“One sunny mornin’ we’ll rise, I know/  And I’ll meet you further on up the road.”

— Johnny Cash, “Further On Up the Road“

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I thought it might be helpful to visualize just how quickly the number of direct ancestors can grow, and how we can confidently say that all people share ancestors. Let’s say that this is your biological family tree for a just a handful of generations, keeping in mind that ‘family’ here refers to direct biological ancestors. This might not exactly be the family you recognize during holidays and get-togethers, and we all have people who fall in and out of our lives. But everyone has two biological parents. OK, OK, some people might have more than two biological parents, but let’s keep it simple.

Going back a mere three generations, you have 8 direct biological great-grandparents, as this number doubles with each generation we go back.

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Family Tree1

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Love is Wise. Hatred is Foolish.

“The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple. I should say love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more closely and closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way; if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”

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The Branches of Humanity

I think it helps to remember that all humans share common ancestry. While there are certainly cultural and biological differences around the globe today, these are the tip of the iceberg, the distant branches of the tree. Under the surface, at the roots, the distribution of people across the globe owes itself to a long, gradual process of migration — or several migrations — during which time some differences arose (along with the interbreeding with neighboring groups that maintained similarities). 

The animation below illustrates some of the major migrations of people across the world over the past 200,000 years, reminding us of our roots and shared connections. Some of this is already out of date. For example, a recent study suggested that modern humans may have reached China by 100,000 years ago, much earlier than suggested in the video. But the point still stands — no matter where they live today, all humans can trace their lineage back to the same place.

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Peace is Rational

“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men.”

“What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time…I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task…Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again…And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”

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“Many times, I have kissed & cryed over this”

In an 1839 letter from Emma to Charles Darwin, shortly after they were married, she wrote about her worries that Charles’ pursuit of scientific questions on evolution might lead him further away from religious faith. Emma wrote: 

“May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, & which if true are likely to be above our comprehension.”

At the time, Darwin would have been around 30 years old, two decades before On the Origin of Species was published. Their correspondence showed that Emma’s concern that Charles’ need for evidence could not be applied to matters of faith, and that this probably meant — to her distress — that they would probably be separated in the afterlife. At the bottom of her letter, Charles added his own note: 

“When I am dead, know
that many times, I
have kissed & cryed
over this. C. D.”

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Hillary Clinton on UXO in Laos

Hillary Clinton was recently asked about the leftover bombs that the U.S. dropped on Laos. The heart of her reply:

“This is a humanitarian disaster that we created, and we need to put more money in and work much faster to try to clean it up so we don’t have more deaths and injuries.”

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Our Trivial, Different Ways of Being Human

From Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” (p. 283):

“We have held the peculiar notion that a person or society that is a little different from us, whoever we are, is somehow strange or bizarre, to be distrusted or loathed. Think of the negative connotations of words like ‘alien’ or ‘outlandish.’ And yet the monuments and cultures of each of our civilizations merely represent different ways of being human. An extraterrestrial visitor, looking at the differences among human beings and their societies, would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities. The Cosmos may be densely populated with intelligent beings. But the Darwinian lesson is clear: There will be no humans elsewhere. Only here. Only on this small planet. We are a rare as well as endangered species. Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have captured the most comprehensive picture ever assembled of the evolving Universe — and one of the most colourful. The study is called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UVUDF) project.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. (Source)

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Ten Lessons on Love, from the Wise

I started teaching a new class this semester on patterns of human mating. One of our assignments was what we called “Interviews with the Wise.” I asked students to speak informally with older people, asking them what they had learned about sex, love, marriage, and relationships, and what lessons they would like to pass along to young people. We collectively came up with the questionnaire as a class. 

The interviewees ranged in age from their late 50s to their early 90s (‘older’ is always a relative term, I suppose). Most would probably be described as traditional, most were married once, but some were married a few times or none at all. Several were raised Catholic (it is New England), and we had a range of people from different ethnicities.I was very impressed with how seriously the students took the assignment, and how open their interviewees were. 

Below are some of the patterns I noticed from the interviews:

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Gordon’s Story

We had a visitor in our Patterns of Human Mating class this week, a 70-something year-old gay man named Gordon. One of our assignments is that students must speak, informally, with older people about sex, love, marriage, long-term relationships, etc., and what they’ve learned and what advice they had for young adults. This was inspired by a conversation I had a few years ago with an 83 year-old woman named Evelyn, which I found enlightening. Other than age, we weren’t looking for people from any specific demographic, or people with any orientation. We just wanted to listen to whatever wisdom and experience is out there.  

We asked around to find people to speak with, and found Gordon through a local organization that works with older adults. He kindly shared some of his life story, the progress he’s seen on acceptance on LGBT people over the course of his life, and we had a nice discussion for about 25 minutes. He then stayed for the rest of the class to hear the lecture. He even asked a few questions during the lecture, and asked if I could email him some of the studies we discussed in the class.

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