Robert Wright - Why We Think They Hate Us: Moral Imagination and the Possibility of Peace

Cato Unbound has posted an excerpt from Robert Wright's new book, The Evolution of God (look for a review coming at this site in the future).

Why We Think They Hate Us: Moral Imagination and the Possibility of Peace

by Robert Wright
Lead Essay
June 8th, 2009

The essay below is an adapted excerpt from my new book The Evolution of God. It’s about “the moral imagination”—a term that has been used in various ways but, in my usage, refers to the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of other people, especially people in circumstances very different from our own. I argue that the moral imagination naturally tends to expand when we perceive our relations with other people as non-zero-sum and to contract when we perceive those relations as zero-sum.

This excerpt is a chapter that comes near the end of the book, after I’ve made an argument that, at the risk of oversimplification, boils down to this: In general, when a religious groups sees its relations with another religious group as non-zero-sum, it is more likely to evince tolerance of that group’s religion. When the perception is instead of a zero-sum dynamic, tolerance is less likely to ensue. (For an essay-length version of the argument, see this article, based on the book, that I wrote for Time magazine.) The moral imagination, I contend, is involved in this adaptive process.

For most of the book I make this argument by reference to the past. I tell the story of the Abrahamic God as he passes through three thresholds: the emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel, the emergence of Christianity, and the emergence of Islam. I argue that, during all these phases, fluctuations between tolerant and belligerent scriptures—in both the Judeo-Christian Bible and in the Koran—largely reflect fluctuations between zero-sum and non-zero-sum situations (or, strictly speaking, between the perception of zero-sumness and the perception of non-zero-sumness).

With the chapter excerpted below, the book becomes forward looking. It addresses such questions as (a) whether dynamics in the modern world are sufficiently non-zero-sum to in principle foster greater tolerance among the Abrahamic faiths; (b) whether, if so, this principle will indeed be translated into practice. In the process the chapter raises questions about whether human psychology naturally impedes comprehending the true motivations of enemies, even when this comprehension would be in our interest; and (c) whether such comprehension would entail absolving enemies of blame for their actions.

Our Misfiring Mental Machinery

You might not guess it to read the headlines, but by and large the relationship between “the West” and “the Muslim World” is non-zero-sum. To be sure, the relationship between some Muslims and the West is zero-sum. Terrorist leaders have aims that are at odds with the welfare of Westerners. The West’s goal is to hurt their cause, to deprive them of new recruits and of political support. But if we take a broader view—look not at terrorists and their supporters but at Muslims in general, look not at radical Islam but at Islam—the “Muslim world” and the “West” are playing a non-zero-sum game; their fortunes are positively correlated. And the reason is that what’s good for Muslims broadly is bad for radical Muslims. If Muslims get less happy with their place in the world, more resentful of their treatment by the West, support for radical Islam will grow, so things will get worse for the West. If, on the other hand, more and more Muslims feel respected by the West and feel they benefit from involvement with it, that will cut support for radical Islam, and Westerners will be more secure from terrorism.

This isn’t an especially arcane piece of logic. The basic idea is that terrorist leaders are the enemy and they thrive on the discontent of Muslims—and if what makes your enemy happy is the discontent of Muslims broadly, then you should favor their contentment. Obviously. Indeed this view has become conventional wisdom: if the West can win the “hearts and minds” of Muslims, it will have “drained the swamp” in which terrorists thrive. In that sense, there is widespread recognition in the West of the non-zero-sum dynamic.

But this recognition hasn’t always led to sympathetic overtures from Westerners toward Muslims. The influential evangelist Franklin Graham declared that Muslims don’t worship the same god as Christians and Jews and that Islam is a “very evil and wicked religion.” That’s no way to treat people you’re in a non-zero-sum relationship with! And Graham is not alone. Lots of evangelical Christians and other Westerners view Muslims with suspicion, and view relations between the West and the Muslim world as a “clash of civilizations.” And many Muslims view the West in similarly win-lose terms.

So what’s going on here? Where’s the part of human nature that was on display in ancient times—the part that senses whether you’re in the same boat as another group of people and, if you are, fosters sympathy for or at least tolerance of them?

It’s in there somewhere, but it’s misfiring. And one big reason is that our mental equipment for dealing with game-theoretical dynamics was designed for a hunter-gatherer environment, not for the modern world. That’s why dealing with current events wisely requires strenuous mental effort—effort that ultimately, as it happens, could bring moral progress.

Read the whole excerpt.

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