The power of one group of living beings relative to another is, I believe, directly related to the capacity of the group members to cooperate with each other and the capacity of the group as a whole to cooperate with other groups. Groups of individuals are bound together by some common need. We often speak of that as a common goal or interest, but I think it’s more accurate to think of such common interests and goals as needs common to all members of the group. The most basic needs – for food, shelter, safety, and support in times of sickness and danger – are the most powerful needs. Such needs are what hold our most natural groups together – those of family, clan, tribe, and nation.
My studies in graduate school (Tulane School of Social Work) were concentrated in small group behavior. And during my years of work as a clinical social worker, I came to see that where a group member fits on the continuum of cooperation – from little or no capacity for cooperation to a great deal – is a measure of that person’s influence and power in the group. I was amused at times at how some people considered themselves highly cooperative, but actually they had no such capacity at all. The only people who could work with them were people who were willing to let them have their way.
Nevertheless, there are times when a person with little or no capacity for cooperation can rise to a position of great power -- usually times of great stress and danger. People look for a strong leader when they are afraid, and it's easy to mistake an extremely willful and self-centered person for a strong leader. Actually, however, such a person is simply a bully -- or (on a larger scale) a tyrant or dictator. True leadership involves the capacity to woo others into devoting their time, resources, and talents to the accomplishment of group goals. Such leadership requires the capacity to see our connectedness to others and to help others towards similar insight.
Consciousness of our connectedness to others is the absolute basis for our cooperation with them. We are all ultimately in the same boat. That is the basis of our connectedness. If I realize this I know that a hole in your end of the boat is also a hole in mine. But if I don't realize it, I foolishly believe I can let your end sink and still keep mine afloat.
While consciousness of our connectedness is basic to cooperation, the capacity to cooperate is also dependent on two other skills: communication and compromise. In undergraduate school at Louisiana College (a Baptist school in Central Louisiana), I took a class in public speaking in which the professor believed that communication is actually quite rare. He told us to say everything three times—tell people what you’re going to tell them in a quick summary, then actually tell them in a more detailed explanation of no more than three points, and then tell them what you told them in a quick recap. If you do this carefully and clearly and the people you’re talking to actually listen (which rarely happens), about 50% of them may understand about 30% of what you are trying to say -- but are likely to retain only a small fraction of that. Those may not be the exact percentages he used, but I believe he was more or less inventing the math to make a point. And it was a pessimistic point I thought. I think communication happens more frequently than he supposed. And the problems we face in interpersonal relationships are not always because we fail to communicate, but sometimes because we succeed more than we intended. Whether good communication promotes cooperation depends on whether those communicating are grounded in the fundamental awareness of our connectedness.
In any case, there can be no cooperation without communication. And the capacity to compromise is just as vital. Compromise is nothing more than the ability to give up some of what I want so that you can get some of what you want, and -- more important than either of those -- so that both of us can get what we need to survive.
In this election year, I find it useful to rate the major players in terms of their awareness of our connectedness as individuals and nations and their capacity to compromise, to communicate, and to cooperate. Those ratings say more of what kind of leader a person is going to be than the positions he or she may take with respect to the major economic, social, and political issues facing us as a nation and as members of the world community.
