The time perspective problem in conflict analysis and resolution

Tatar scholar Zufar Fartkutdinov once said “the patience of a nation is measured in centuries.” Many nations and their independence movements lie dormant for hundreds of years until they are roused by great upheavals. Others make attempts at independence but need to be patient and change political culture over centuries to get their way. But what Fartkutdinov called patience, some might call living in the past.

Time perspectives are an interesting psychological phenomenon. We see the passage of time in all kinds of different ways. Some people focus on the past. Of those who do, some think about the good things, or at least what we can learn from the bad, and others brood over past misfortunes and injustices. Some people are only interested in the pleasures of the present. Others are more focused on the future, and lose sight of the lessons of the past. Psychologists Philip Zimbardo (who wrote the Lucifer Effect) and John Boyd have studied time perspectives and have reached two conclusions that are highly relevant to conflict resolution: a) time perspectives are learned, not naturally ingrained, and b) a healthy time perspective is one that takes a balanced and optimistic view of the past, present and future.

For someone Zimbardo and Boyd would call “past-positive”, reflecting on the past is about learning from the bad (eg. mistakes) and celebrating the good. Both men scored nearly perfect for past-positive on the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, a test of how we perceive time that you should consider taking. Their high scores were presumably because of their wide understanding of time perspective psychology. They know it is very important to know what happened in the past, because it provides a sense of continuity and a sense of self. It can be a source of happiness. And it is necessary if we want to predict the future. But too much emphasis on history, especially a “past-negative” perspective on your group, can cause serious problems.

A focus on the past seems to lead to collectivism. Collectivism rises from an extreme focus on history as told by members of the group you belong to. I have detailed the problems that collectivism causes in my series on individualism and collectivism. Collectivist ideas such as nationalism, racism and so on are irrelevant in modern society, where they are no longer necessary for security or meaning. They continue to exist, however, because we consider the past to be much more than something to learn from. For so many collectivists, the past is a source of pride, honour, rules and meaning.

But should it be? Our groups are not pristine. They have committed war, pillage, rape, oppression and other crimes, often on large scales. Collectivists, of course, dismiss these cases as aberrations, not the people we really are. But a fair reading of history would have to include the good with the bad. Clearly, our collective pasts are not the best place to find virtue.

What is so bad about living in the past? For an individual or a group, the dangers are the same. First, people who are stuck in the past are not willing to try new things, make new friends, or embrace change. For an individual, this can mean a life of misery. What if you moved to get a new job and spent your whole time thinking about how much better your old home was? You would be missing out on all the opportunities for fun and learning in your new environment. For groups, fear of the new means all the same things, but with global implications.

Take, for instance, the Tibetan people. Given that the Tibetans were once free of Chinese rule, many of them resent that it has come back. The fact that most Tibetans are not old enough to know what it was like for Tibet to be independent is irrelevant. People locked in past-negative perspectives imagine what the past was like as they reconstruct it from stories and can only imagine a return to it. But if a Tibetan adopts a future perspective (or better still, a balanced and optimistic view of time), he or she can thrive in the new and prosperous China. Many Tibetans have already done so. Why does one have to cling to one’s culture and past to the rejection of all others? If there are advantages in doing so, try adopting a new culutre in addition to your old one.

Second, since most groups, especially fiercely collectivist ones, share a history of trauma, such as war, genocide, oppression, slavery, and so on, they are likely to want revenge. As Zufar Fartkutdinov probably realised, revenge can stew for centuries. Think about the hatreds in the world that are based on past injustices that hating people feel have gone unresolved. Palestinians hate the Israelis. Millions of Asians hate the Japanese. People from the former Yugoslavia hate each other. Tamils and Sinhalese hate each other. Muslims hate the Jews and the Americans. Anyone who might have oppressed my people, even though I may have lived free and peacefully my whole life, is evil. These feelings are often called ancient hatreds, but a more accurate word is racism. Not everyone in these groups feels hatred, but it is difficult not to when your parents and teachers and friends and leaders and media and history books all tell you to.

So where does this leave us? Zimbardo and Boyd’s first point was that time perspectives are learned. If they are learned, they can be unlearned. For people to want reconciliation instead of revenge, they need to learn other perspectives on the past, and on time itself. A future orientation would also be helpful. A future orientation makes you more likely to learn, save, work hard and try to reconcile the past for the sake of the future. Some of the conditions for a future orientation are

-living in a temperate zone, because different seasons make us plan ahead;

-a stable family, society and nation, because we can predict the future and how our actions will be rewarded;

-education, because we spend many hours learning with no immediate benefit but great future benefit;

-having a job and being successful, because these things show us our effort can pay off.

The future is worth keeping in mind in order to make the right decisions today. Poor neighbourhoods, especially those with poor schools, drugs and gangs, have trouble leaving a “present-fatalistic” mindset because it seems as though, whatever you do, you are bound to be stuck in the ‘hood. But someone with the future in mind thinks it is better to be safe than sorry: no guns, no drugs, no jail, just hard work for future payoff.

The past is too often a weapon in the propaganda war. It should be taught as a way of orienting oneself in a morally neutral history, and learned through multiple perspectives. The past has too much pain and blood to be where we should get all our rules and morals from, but if we learn an inclusive and fair history, we can learn important lessons about how to improve the world. If we focus on the future, we are more likely to be patient and work hard for the benefit of others. Learn more about time perspectives and their effects in the Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd.

The implications of human nature for conflict analysis and resolution

Three years ago, I wrote a post on this blog claiming that human nature did not exist. In that post, one of this blog’s most popular and controversial, I said that no one really knows human nature and its being invoked by so many people renders it meaningless. I was wrong because I thought human nature meant what was the same about everyone, and the same in all cultures, and different from what all other animals do.

I have read copiously on psychology and anthropology since then, however, and, fascinated by the study of human nature, realise that my definition of it was wrong; or at least, my definition was different from that of the psychologists. I now have a better definition. Human nature is, basically, what we all have in common, across cultures, based on our evolution. People vary considerably within cultures but each group has certain things in common, because we have a shared ancestry. We all hunt: we do not all hunt the same way, because different environments mean different ways of hunting, but we all hunt. We all sing and dance: taste in music and dance varies wildly, but it is a feature of every culture anthropologists can find.

In fact, there is a long list of human universals by American professor of anthropology Donald Brown that gives us some idea of what we all have inside us. This list, found here, was originally assembled in 1989 and has grown since then. The ideas may not seem revolutionary to you, until you realise that all of these things are common to all human cultures. This understanding can be used to cross cultural boundaries, making it essential for conflict resolution. If we know certain things we can find in any culture, we know practices that are probably recommended or proscribed, and how to negotiate and deal with anyone else more smoothly.

We must separate the myths of human nature from the facts. Steven Pinker, perhaps my favourite scholar on the subject, in his book the Blank Slate, effectively discards the commonly held belief that tribal societies from less complex civilisations (eg. a small group living on the savannah or in the jungle) are less violent than those in more complex societies. The thinking behind this “noble savage” misconception is that, given the damage done by modern warfare, there must be something inherently corrupting about modern life that leads us to kill one another. However, if one looks at the proportion of males killed in war, that of modern society does not even approach that of certain tribal societies such as the Dugum Dani of New Guinea, the Jivaro of Peru and Ecuador and the Yanomamo people of the Amazon. While a tiny fraction of men from the US and Europe were killed in the world wars of the 20th century, that proportion rises to over 20 percent for the Dani and Yanomamo, and over 50 percent for the Jivaro. (Pinker, 39) Furthermore, some 90 percent of hunter gatherer societies engage in warfare and raiding. (ibid.) Returning to a pastoral, hunter gatherer life would not eliminate widescale violence.

The point that I have always emphasised as most important regarding human nature is that, however much we understand it (and many of us do not), we must never use it as an excuse. It may be “human nature” that we cannot sprout wings and fly around the room, but to say that, for instance, nationalism, racism or other forms of collectivism are human nature risks legitimising them. We must not be slaves to our nature but use our ability to think critically to make the right decisions. We are smart and strong enough to resist the pull of our nature if it would lead to morally questionable actions.

Or are we? As I said, we all hunt because humans evolved as hunters. But most of us do not hunt the same way we used to. Some of us hunt criminals or enemies of the state; others collect coins and stamps. To a scholar of human nature, these two acts are both manifestations of the hunting instinct. Desmond Morris, in the Human Animal, a zoologist’s analysis of human life and behaviour, says that war is not an act of aggression, such as the dishonour or anger that might lead a man into a fistfight with another man, but a highly organised hunt. We needed an awareness of geography, an ability to plan and organise, and an ability to kill in order to hunt successfully. These qualities are still around, and so is the killing.

Though we are not slaves to our nature, we operate in quite predictable ways. In the Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo shows how truly flexible we are when confronted with environments that are unfamiliar, systems that exert their will on us, and situations we are not in control of. We are always at risk of influence by others that can make us do violence, and we must be vigilant or risk perverting our values. One can be a mafia boss, ordering the killing of whole families; a prison guard beating people up for not eating their bread; a politician ordering thousands to kill thousands more; and still go home to our families and feel good about ourselves. The line between the angels and the demons of our nature is thin.

The biggest question is, how can we use our knowledge of human nature to minimise violent conflict? If we understand our most basic urges and the trouble they could get us in, we can minimise their destructive effects and perhaps benefit from them. Here are some features of our nature, how they can be destructive, and how we can change our behaviour.

-Behaving predictably. One reason a small act of violence in the form of terrorism can be so effective is that it usually provokes a predictable response. The disproportional retaliations of, for instance, the Bush administration to terrorism played right into the hands of the terrorists. Many popular books on psychology and economics attempt to explain that, while we are ultimately free to choose, we succumb to innumerable pitfalls in our thinking because we are not aware of them.

If you think human behaviour is not predictable, you can test it for yourself. If you are a man, go up to another man bigger than you, surrounded by his friends, also bigger than you, and push him. I bet you that 99% of the time, what you think will happen will happen. If a friend tells you something he believes to be true, say “not only do I disagree, but that was a really stupid thing to say. Do you even know what you’re saying? What’s wrong with you?” Unless you are talking to the Dalai Lama, you are likely to make your friend angry, defensive and more convinced than ever that he or she is right.

Dr Zimbardo says that anyone is susceptible to manipulation, influence by unsavoury characters and contemptible behaviour. The less aware we are being manipulated, or the stronger we think we are to counter it, the more compliant we are likely to be. There are many books on persuasion and influence that can teach us to be aware of evil forces acting on and through us. The best I have read is the Lucifer Effect.

-Categorising and simplifying. We have an urge to put things conveniently away into drawers and pigeonholes in order to save ourselves the trouble of thinking too much. We talk in simple language and simple thinking about the Muslim world or the Arab world, the West, Africa, the black community, Asian values, such and such a civilisation, and so on. Speaking this way is easier, but if we do not recognise the nuances, the enormous variety within these groups, we are liable to make serious mistakes.

I write further on this subject in Why Interculturalism Will Work. You can read it at http://www.scribd.com/doc/15987798/Why-Interculturalism-Will-Work. Suffice it to say, if we simplify the world too much, we risk making the wrong decisions, leading to misunderstandings, disrespect, conflict and war.

-Cognitive dissonance. In a previous post, I described part of this shortcoming as windows and mirrors. Windows are what we use to look at others, and we are very good at seeing their faults. But when it comes to our own, looking in the mirror, we see ourselves–and significantly, the groups we are loyal to–as pristine. This happens because we have an inborn tendency to legitimise everything we do as right and noble, to write off our own weaknesses as not really weaknesses and, put simply, to lie to ourselves about ourselves.

The book Mistakes Were Made (But not by Me) is a book about the damage cognitive dissonance can do. It shows how we can believe, for instance, that we go to war for freedom, kill for peace, terrorise for justice and are never at fault when we are wrong. Sure, some people died in the war I started, but they were probably mostly bad people. Sure, what I am doing is bad for others, but if I didn’t do it, someone else would. Sure, it looks like I’m stealing money from my company’s shareholders, but I work hard and deserve it. Really, I should be taking more, but I’m holding back. What a nice guy I am.

But knowing our limitations is how we can overcome them. Checking cognitive dissonance requires awareness of how and when we do it. If you have any nagging doubts as to whether your actions were morally justified, you might be right. Do not simply write off everything you do as a legitimate means to some greater end. Imagine someone else doing the same thing. Imagine your enemies, if you have any, doing the same actions. Are they still legitimate? Can you understand the point of view of someone who does similar actions?

-Collectivism. Whether or not it is an excuse, collectivism appears to be a big part of our nature. When I say collectivism, I mean treating people in terms of in-groups and out-groups. To a collectivist, there are people in my group that are inherently superior to those outside my group. I care for those in my group like I care for myself–we are human beings deserving respect and dignity. Those outside the group, however are less than human. Our love of team sports, with separate uniforms, chants and rivalries that occasionally erupt in violence are an example of this.

The evolution of this feeling is understandable. We used to live in small bands where those we knew were family. However, our idea of community has changed over time to what Benedict Anderson calls “imagined communities”. Imagined communities are groups that consider themselves to have an essential similarity that makes them equal (and by extension, more important than others), though they may never meet. Soldiers go to war to protect their nations, even though the only thing they are certain to have in common is nationality. Zealots engage in holy wars because followers of their gods are threatened. See this post for more on collectivism and conflict.

If we can harness collectivist sentiment and language, we can use it to mean everyone. After all, our groups do not have to be exclusive. We can be a brotherhood of men, a community of the world, a united human race.

-Proving oneself. Young men, from teenage years to young adulthood, have an urge to prove themselves. That was the age they were most likely to perfect their skill at hunting and find mates. These boys are most likely to want to do violence. In Blood and Belonging, Michael Ignatieff describes the killing that took place in the former Yugoslavia.

[U]ntil I had encountered my quotient of young males intoxicated by the power of the guns on their hips, I had not understood how deeply pleasureable it is to have the power of life and death in your hands. It is a characteristic liberal error to suppose that everyone hates and fears violence. I met lots of young men who loved the ruins, loved the destruction, loved the power that came from the barrels of their guns.

Perhaps liberals have not understood the force of male resentment which has accumulated through the centuries of gradual European pacification. The history of our civilisation is the history of the confiscation of the means of violence by the state. But it is an achievement which an irreducible core of young males has always resented. Liberals have not reckoned with the male loathing of peace and domesticity or with the anger of young males at the modern state’s confiscation of their weapons. One of the hidden rationales behind nationalist revolts is that they tap into this deeper sub-stratum of male resentment at the civility and order of the modern state itself. For it seems obvious that the state’s order is the order of the father, and that nationalism is the rebellion of the sons. How else are we to account for the staggering gratuitousness and bestiality of nationalist violence, its constant overstepping of the bounds of either military logic or legitimate self-defence, unless we give some room in our account for the possibility that nationalism exists to warrant and legitimise the son’s vengeance against the father. (Ignatieff, 187-8)

Boys who are occupied and motivated by other things, however, do not kill. Paul Collier, author of Wars, Guns and Votes, says that in post-conflict situations, one of the highest priorities is jobs for young men. “[T]he reason [such situations] so often revert to conflict is not because elderly women get upset, it’s because young men get upset. Why are they upset? Because they’ve nothing to do.” His suggestion is job creation in construction: it is necessary after the destruction of conflict, and the jobs are not subject to international competition.

Proving oneself is really another way to say reaching one’s potential, just like one can do in a job. At this key age, young people can be coaxed into anything with the right attention and care. That is why, in strong communities, they play sports and video games, do homework, have jobs and volunteer for their community. Suppressing all teenage rebellion in a society that values freedom is impossible. Therefore, our task is to divert the people most at risk of committing acts of violence and give them occupations that, to their genes, are equivalent to hunting, but to the rest of us are productive rather than harmful.

Ignoring the truth, hunting each other, behaving predictably, dividing the world into us and them and simplifying the world away are just a few sides of our nature with implications for analysing and resolving conflict. Exploring the depths of human nature can help us understand, mitigate and reverse the tragic consequences of some of our most basic, and most dangerous urges.

Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities

Collier, Paul: War, Guns and Votes: democracy in dangerous places

Ignatieff, Michael: Blood and Belonging: journeys into the new nationalism

Morris, Desmond: The Human Animal: a personal view of the human species

Pinker, Steven: The Blank Slate: the modern denial of human nature

Tavris, Carol, and Elliot Aronson: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

Zimbardo, Philip: The Lucifer Effect: understanding how good people turn evil

Individualism: the Reappearing Ideal, part 5: Rights

“From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.” – Carl Schurz

Rights, human

Human rights are only rights if they cannot be taken away. Some people have no rights. They live in societies where elites have summoned collectivism to relieve these poor people of the only thing they should have been born with. And sometimes governments will simply take away rights and become more popular as a result. The internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians during World War Two is a prime example. The Japanese are the enemy, these people are Japanese, so just in case, we will lock them up. Though they were citizens, they lost their rights to racism.

The individualist society would not have this problem. There would be an equality of rights, because no groups, no leaders would deserve more or less rights. There would be no justification for a Patriot Act or a Federal Communications Commission, or the Canadian Human Rights Commissions boondoggle, a group whose job seems to be to lock people up who hurt minorities’ feelings. And the only reason that not everyone disagrees with taking others’ rights away is they see it as good for the collective. It is not. As Martin Luther King, Jr, said, an attack on justice anywhere is an attack on justice everywhere. If one person’s rights are in jeopardy, yours could be next.

Rights, collective

Rights, in case I forgot to mention, are the province of individuals. During the 2009 war in Gaza (and for the past half century) one often heard that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” as if it were a beehive. But Israel is not a beehive, nor is it a person. It is a jagged piece of beachfront property with a lot of angry people in it. Does Los Angeles have the right to defend itself? I rest my case. (Indeed, the apologists of the Zionist cause bring much of the criticism they receive on themselves through their pig headed collectivist actions and rhetoric. That said, in another case of treating members of a group all the same, during the same war in Gaza, there was an outbreak of anti semitism in Europe. Of what the small Jewish minority in Europe had to do with the war in Gaza I am not aware.)

The reason we can talk of “Israel” at all is that we have invented entities that governments or militias or what have you are protecting at the expense of individual rights. Israel is a nation state; it has an official religion and a culture and a territory. All of those things, nation state, religion, culture and territory have their own rights, rights that will be protected before any human being’s rights are. It comes out in just about every country, every day. Politicians try to appeal endlessly to “national interest”, which is just as bad as appealing to self interest. It accustoms people to ask, what is in it for me? for every policy. What of policies that benefit all humans? asks the individualist.

But of course collectivists will not be satisfied with this argument. All right, let’s say that you believe your culture is at risk from another, more imposing culture. Here is the thing about cultures. If they are worth doing, they will be done. If others find value in adopting cultural practices, they will. If they find good reasons to keep their old ones, they will. Culture is collective action by individual choice. An individual should never be forced to continue traditions, or even shamed into doing so by the collectivists around them. In sum, groups do not need rights because if anyone wants to join, they will join. If people want to leave, they should have that choice. Rights are there to protect us not just from other people but from our group.

Collectivists delude themselves when they say that some entity like society, a nation, a culture or a religion should have rights, and especially so when they say those rights trump individual rights. Governments rule according to what is right for society. Is society not made up of people? Different people? Some people want A, others want B; some people want +C and others want –C, which contradicts +C. There is no way leaders could do what everyone in a given group wants, so politicians say they do everything “society” wants instead. Yes, we are trampling all over your rights but we have to protect society!

It similar thinking that has brought us the idea that society is to blame for someone’s crime. It was not Jones that killed Smith, even though Jones pulled the trigger, but society. Since society is made up of people, and we could not possibly blame Jones, it follows that Smith’s death was the fault of everyone EXCEPT Jones.

Crimes, collective

Whatever happened to individual responsibility? Because of our penchant toward collectivism, we tend to make laws that take responsibility away from the actual perpetrators of acts. Hate speech, for instance, should not be a crime. One could easily argue it is immoral, just like some argue that homosexuality is immoral, but immoral and illegal should be separate. If I stand on the corner (or on my own blog) shouting that we should behead Ann Coulter, most people would shout encouragement but very few would actually act on it. Most people can reason that, just because I am angry about something, it does not mean they should form a lynch mob.

But let us pretend that they did. A mob runs to Ann Coulter’s house and cuts her head off. Millions cheer. The sentencing judge’s questioning should not be “who riled them up?” but “who wielded the axe?” There is only one killer here. Blaming the rabble rouser diverts responsibility away from the rational individual. This is the problem with collectivising the crowd as “the public”, or some other amorphous entity and considering that it is just the puppet of a criminal.

But what about the leaders? Surely, many people with titles like “president”, “general”, “pope” and “ayatollah” are the ones providing collective ideologies with killer motives. There is a big difference between an article in Newsweek saying that Ann Coulter should die and a political or religious leader issuing text books and forcing everyone to read, from a young age, who our enemies are and why we would kill them if they made a foot wrong against us. Our history books shape our culture. The article in Newsweek gives you the chance to think for yourself, and even encourages it: it must appeal to you to make you act. The text books assault you before you have developed the capacity for logic, when you are truly defenseless against unreason.

Of course there should still be prisons: if you violate the rights of an individual, you go to jail. We already have a reasonably individualist justice system. And yet, there are still crimes for offending entire groups of people. If you say something bad about a religion, or the government in some places, you go to jail. Only an insecure group, one that knows it is on shaky ground, would lock up someone who insulted it. My suggestion is, if you are the representative of a group like the government and someone insults you personally, call them out. Be a man: have a fistfight, work it out, and perhaps you will show your offender your point of view.

Why Interculturalism Will Work: an introduction

The following is my entry in the Golden Gavel speech competition and the teaser for my upcoming book (not my magnum opus) Why Interculturalism Will Work. Enjoy!

Mr master of ceremonies, ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests. Multiculturalism is in ruins. In recent months, we have been hearing a lot of heated debate on the subject. The news makes us ask questions like, is it ok for a girl to wear a hijab while playing soccer? Is it right to ask a gym to tint its windows in order not to offend the people praying across the street? Is it fair to change established practices to accommodate difference, and if so, to what extent? I believe that these questions miss the point.

Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism states that it, and I quote, is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity and that it provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of Canada’s future. If that’s true, surely all of us Canadians would be able to describe multiculturalism. We’re told that diversity is good and it is a part of who we are, but we rarely learn why. Little wonder, therefore, that we are seeing a growing backlash against multicultural policies and too much accomodation of difference.

It may not surprise you that the Canadian government has a vague definition of multiculturalism with words like “harmony” and “acceptance” thrown in. For the purpose of this speech, I will define multiculturalism as official encouragement of culturally similar people to preserve their culture, and the acceptance of cultural differences among these groups.

And what is wrong with that? Who could argue with the right to pursue your collective goals and celebrate your identity? Many Canadians, it seems. Everyone has a controversial opinion. And that’s fine. In fact, for the multicultural vision that so many Canadians refuse to give up on, it is essential that everyone has an opinion on how society should be run. But let’s not fight. What’s the alternative? Interculturalism.

Here’s my definition. Interculturalism is the integration of all cultural groups and the education of everyone on the cultural practices of those around them. Integration and education. Multiculturalism breeds animosity when it is seen as a compromise between the values of the majority and the values of minorities. Instead of compromising, we could have interculturalism.

Please use your imaginations as I draw a picture of an intercultural Canada. From the start of school, children learn from teachers and other students that come from different backgrounds. They learn how others do things in other countries, why people think so differently from their parents and in this they gain new perspectives. New perspectives, be they culturally based or otherwise, help us think critically. The children grow up and enter businesses and government, always remembering how their friends and neighbours approach different issues. Dealing with people in other countries, or newcomers, we would already understand other cultures and languages; or if we didn’t, it would be easy to learn. The multiplicity of perspectives of people of different backgrounds working together will produce synergy, as anyone who has worked on a very diverse team will tell you, and this synergy improves the quality of the work and fuels innovation wherever it is introduced. Most importantly, it would promote, to use the govt’s word, harmony among the people. In an era of ethnic tensions and globalisation, nothing is more important to peace.

What is the current reality? Compromise. Endless trade offs among competing ethnic groups who don’t understand or care about each other. We are already seeing battles of words around the country, and if we let tensions escalate for another generation, we could trade a battle of words to a battle of bullets. Which of these possible futures do you want your children growing up in?

I have some suggestions for those of you who share my vision. While I am not advocating changing all laws and customs for minorities, don’t try to preserve too much either. Don’t be afraid of change: you want to change the world too. While you are making changes, understand the changes others want to make. The whole idea of preserving culture is backwards: cultures evolve, especially through contact with other cultures. So let them evolve. Another suggestion: don’t put too much emphasis on history. Community is not about uniting in a common and probably misunderstood past: it is about building a better future. And finally, treat people as individuals, not as members of a group. Belonging to a group does not necessarily mean anything about how you think.

Take these steps and in a generation’s time no one will remember why we were fighting over a girl playing soccer. Thank you very much.