Mod. 5.1 - Making Sense of Hope; Making Hope Sensible

There is a Cherokee legend about an elderly brave who tells his grandson about life. “Son,” he says, “Within all of us there is a battle of two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” “The same fight is going on inside of you, and inside every other person, too,” explained the wise Cherokee elder.

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The grandfather simply replied, “The one you feed.”

If, as author Eduardo Galeano reminds us, we are the stories we tell ourselves we are, could the stories we tell ourselves (as a society, civilization) about 'human nature' represent a crucial mental-model (paradigm, worldview) which, if shifted, could cascade into systemic change across a range of domains and issues?

Watch an interview with Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind: A Hopeful History. Reflect on how we feed our better angels as we dream about desirable futures and go about manifesting them into realities.

---

In a similar vein as a previous reflection, I believe the binary presented of good vs. evil is valuable, but also limiting because of its black and white nature. As we know and have seen, context matters greatly and is pivotal to understanding the gray area in between the black and white. I would also argue that within the black and white or good vs. evil frame, it is by studying and gaining greater understanding of the gray area that we are able to realize greater balance between the two sides. We begin to understand why we as individuals and as groups sometimes make bad or evil decisions and why we sometimes make good decisions. Behind this question of shifting the paradigm or worldview of human nature, there is an underlying assumption that the means by which we frame our understanding of human nature, i.e. the stories we tell ourselves, is the most pervasive vehicle or means by which we can make that paradigm shift. What if instead of telling a different story, we replace the narrative with scientific understanding? Instead of shifting from “Humans are good or evil” to “Human nature is made up of our choices”, we moved to “History, science and research has shown us that humans evolved to develop a sense of meaning and purpose that prompted us to create narratives, but humans are not defined or limited to those narratives. Our neuroplasticity allows our brains to create new ways of being and making in limitless ways. How we as a people in our respective communities and societies choose to create those ways of being is up to each and every one of us.”