The Boundary Problem of Mutuality
Why reciprocity can lead to tribalism and how to get to exchange-free solidarity
It’s a lot easier to feel affinity for one’s family and neighborhood than it is to care about a far-away person or animal species. Mutuality is part of the problem. The reciprocal and more frequent exchanges that happen between similar or nearby people create a sense of closeness that may develop (or be guided into) exclusivity, competitiveness, or hostility with respect to other categories or groups. For example, you may be extremely close to your spouse while you are less concerned about (perhaps even resentful to) a family living a hundred miles away. You and your partner exchange duties, provide care to each other, and may co-mingle your financial resources; classic examples of tightly woven reciprocity and cooperation. Your circle of reciprocal exchanges may extend past your spouse, but it is unlikely that you'll be able to develop a mutual relationship with thousands, millions, or billions of beings. And yet something like that is what our world needs.
I’ve been writing about mutuality and the structures that support legible, reciprocal, trust-building exchanges such as insurance companies and listening-oriented relationships. Cultivating mutuality does seem critical for living life, but I’ve come to realize that it is an insufficient organizing principle for politics, economics, world civilization, and a personal philosophy. Problems like climate change, international conflict, pandemics, inequality, and exploitation require an ideology that extends further than reciprocity. People must learn to practice an affinity for, willingness to care about, and activation energy related to people, animals, and environments that they will never makes exchanges with or physically experience. Solidarity seems like a better goal than mutuality, in light of the limitations of directly-felt mutuality (though diverse mutual experiences might be the road to pave for building solidarity, as I will discuss below).
Some types of mysticism and Buddhism encourage humans to connect spiritually to all life, to see that things are connected, and let one’s ego wash away in favor of a oneness. Other religions have sought this type of bond with the universe as well, though often at the cost of my-way-or-the-highway theologies. The “frictionless” method for creating worldwide solidarity does seem to work for some people; many of the Buddhists and mystics I’ve met care deeply about the environment, world peace, and equality. There must also be a more pragmatic and non-spiritual route to moving people above competition and prejudice.
The tired refrain that free markets and exchange will save the world, make peace, and bring people everywhere out of poverty is as limited as direct mutuality for helping people care beyond their immediate, contractual, legally-obligated interest (and the libertarian refrain that all-must-be-individual is hypocrisy-meets-absurdity, assuming these freeness lovers drink water and breathe air). National identity and state security are also insufficient, as anyone who thinks for more than a few minutes about the implications of nuclear weapons and the world wars of relatively recent history should have to admit.
A reliable route to widening the empathy circle has to do with direct experience. People have a hard time not caring about people, animals, or places they’ve had close contact with. Therefore, spending significant time on the other side of town, in other countries, and with people who have different cultures can illicit solidarity, especially if those experiences are intimate and interpreted positively; there is a difference between spending a weekend in Paris getting drunk and going to museums and spending two months living with a French family. Mutuality’s dark side is an obsession with a particular group, any group that leads to hatred or competition with other groups. A life steeped in solidarity will constantly expand the groups and categories that one cares for.
So how can we organize our world for solidarity? We need structures, rituals, and widely available experiences that put people in close touch with each other. School & family exchange programs, pen palling, and travel that transcends tourism to build relationships are great examples that can be radically expanded. In addition to people-to-people circles of caring, we need similar programs to help humans get in touch with animal and plant life around the world. The ideas and beliefs surrounding solidarity are well-founded; operationalizing and organizing civilization to get people living solidarity-oriented lives is where our efforts must now go.