Mankind’s Inner Ant

As Moffett says: “Being comfortable around unfamiliar members of our society gave humans advantages from the get-go and made nations possible.” Bodies such as the United Nations and the EU attempt to achieve harmony between societies but Moffett is sceptical; neither earns emotional commitment “because they lack the ingredients that make them real for the member”. His approach is to identify a list of the features of personal crises and then to compare these with the features of national crises involving Chile, Finland, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Australia and the United States – all countries with which he is familiar and, mostly, whose languages he speaks.

Source: www.newstatesman.com