World renown anthropologist, Richard Lee (1979), recounted his experiences living with the !Kung, a San Bushmen hunter-gatherer group in the Kalahari whose culture has been around for at least 150,000 years. They are fiercely egalitarian with several tools to maintain it. One tool is ‘rough leveling’ or teasing.
Hunters use relentless teasing against a successful hunter, saying things like “Oh, it’s such a small animal. We should try to get something larger, like a rabbit.” They do this until the successful hunter laughs, bringing him out of the clouds of ego inflation and back down to community membership.
Another anthropologist reported that whenever he looked at his watch his Indigenous companion would ask, ‘are you going to be far-hearted now?’
What does far-hearted then mean? Essentially, non-presence (emotionally, mentally).
But it has a relational status component. Far-hearted also means that you are putting yourself above others.
Think of the last few centuries of far-heartedness:
- Conquistadors bringing rapaciousness to previously unencountered lands, peoples and diversity
- European aristocrats enclosing (privatizing) the common lands, leaving peasants barred from generations of harvesting from local forests, forcing them to migrate. This is still happening around the world today.
- Corporations, starting with the Dutch United East India Company, who through their practices enslave plants and people to make a profit for shareholders back home. Still happening.
- Today, the ultra-rich who have no national loyalty move their money to places where they can corrupt politicians to undermine the common good so the rich prosper. Happening all over the world.
In fact, money makes us far-hearted. It takes us out of responding ethically (like a good, compassionate human being) to the present moment and puts our attention on our nest egg.
Morality is ribboned throughout cultural practices. What one focuses on, aims for, is rewarded for, hears about regularly, is taught, observes in others, etc. It is for All, for some, for mine, for me?
Money is a made up conception with no real value, unlike sunshine, fresh water, and hugs.
What’s of true value is what makes us more human: loving presence, positive touch and social free play. What’s of true value fosters flourishing of our humanity, of our placefulness on Earth, of our partnership with the rest of Nature.
If we consider the possible origins of habitual far-heartedness, it likely started with property—having more than others and wanting to keep it. This happened with mono-agriculture of grains which allows for storage (but also taxation since harvests are predictable, unlike foraging foods). It also happened with domestication of animals and herding which leads to the control of women and children, as men were predominantly the herders and wanted to pass on their ‘wealth’ to ‘their’ children. Property, storage, control.
Far-heartedness is about removing oneself from the egalitarian interplay, and I mean play, of ‘us-here-now.’ Instead of I-Thou relations where one relates with appreciation to the other, one moves into I-it relations, using others as tools for other goals rather than as fellow travelers through life.
The dominant culture is all about a utilitarian approach to life, following one ideology or another, a far-hearted orientation.
For example, to expect obedience is to be far-hearted. The person has a script they’ve been persuaded to adopt and they are carrying it out. One can do this badly too, as ICE/CBP agents have shown us. What we have seen in videos is that they are exemplars of far-heartedness, treating humans like they are preparing wild animals for slaughter (another far-hearted activity).
Humanity is built from near-heartedness, from nested support 24/7, where individuals always feel connected but free.
References
Buber, M. (1958). I and Thou (R.G. Smith, trans.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Lee, R. B. (1979). The !Kung San: Men, women, and work in a foraging community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.