If I could redesign humans, starting from the ground up, Id probably change a whole lot of things. But if I could only make one tweak, Id add a safety valve.
Last week, China and Japan have been writing chapter 9,432 in the Great Saga of Sabre Rattling as each of these powerful nations whips up fervour and rage over a handful of tiny islands. The islands are known as the Senkaku Islands (if you are Japanese) or the Diaoyu Islands (if you are Chinese), and they may have oil reserves in the nearby oceans.
I have neither the patience nor the foreign policy experience to venture an opinion on whether Japans or Chinas claim to the islands is better. All I know is that both countries want the islands, whether its directly for the oil, or indirectly to set a precedent over resources in the area.
But is that why protesters in Japan and China are so fired up? In China, in particular, there have been violent demonstrations which seem to have been initially egged on by the government, until they got out of control.
Why should a construction worker or IT guy or taxi driver in Beijing care about the fate of a tiny handful of minor, uninhabited islands hundreds of miles away, which he will never set eyes on?
It certainly isnt abstract concerns about gaining the oil so that Chinas GDP can go up another 0.0001 per cent.
Its about intangibles, instead. National pride and patriotism. Hatred over horrors committed 70 years ago. Raw xenophobia.
The governments of both China and Japan certainly know how this works. As do the governments of pretty much every powerful country in the world.
One of the worst things a politician can do is stoke up unthinking hatred. We even know this, intellectually if not
instinctively.
Watch the furious arguments in the United States over Obamacare.
On the one side are people who believe that a mixed public-private health system, approaching universal health insurance, is the work of the devil, or possibly the ghosts of Stalin and Hitler. On the other side are people who believe that their opponents are baby-eating monsters who need to be made to see reason.
From up here in Canada, with our decades-old socialized system, its hard to take seriously. We have a system that looks like outright health communism compared to Obamacare, but its a settled issue, one that no political party dares touch. Yet few in the American fight are capable of stepping back and disengaging from the emotions it produces.
Its not that people disagree that I dont understand. Its the degree of rage that erupts that scares me.
Ive seen it in myself. Although Ive never tossed a brick in a riot or hit someone with a bat, I dont think those actions are completely out of the realm of what I might do. Im human. Im susceptible to unthinking anger.
Thats why Id love to have that safety valve. It wouldnt stop people getting angry. It would work, instead, like the valve on an old steam engine. When the pressure gets too high, the valve hisses away, and some of the anger leaks out. No big explosion ensues.
If I had the foggiest idea how to create that safety valve, Id start working on it today. Because we have a big, big world with a million tribal divisions, between nations and governments, races, religions, and creeds.
If we had nothing else to fight about, Im sure wed be killing each other over Flames versus Oilers, Mac versus PC, or Xbox versus Playstation.
