PAX: Berger 08

Michael Berger (Center for Brain Research, Medical University Vienna, Austria):

We all are strangers

Especially with elections ahead, most political parties try to spice their soup with a larger or smaller pinch of xenophobia. Only the Greens and the Liberals try it the other way around: they try to spice with xenophilia. Probably this explains their modest successes. Instead of salt they try soap for their soup, and as any cook could have told them, this is no appropriate measure to attract customers.

Humans are nothing but social animals with highly developed communication skills. In permanent conflict with changing environmental conditions, with other animals, and with conspecifics over millions of years they have become what they are today. Even if today we display educated skills, as attending theatres, reading smart books, donating for fellow-men in need, and watching for weeks 22 adult men running to and fro in a meadow measuring 105 x 68 meters and trying to kick a ball into 2 metal frames, so we remain biological creatures, built from cells, equipped with brains, neurons, hormones, glands, the whole inventory of natural facts. And for these reasons, humans will ALWAYS fear spiders, snakes, 2 bright growling points in the darkness, and strangers. That's how it is. You can measure it in the brain, it happens unconsciously and can only be controlled on second thinking, with sufficient consideration. Each politician knowing to play that instrument will easily obtain the desired tunes from it, he cannot fail.

The only means against demagogy and populism is the TRUTH. You must tell the voters: Yes, you are right, the increasing number of strangers amongst us IS frightening; the proceeding mixing of cultures DOES represent a problem; we do UNDERSTAND, that you feel uneasy. Only such declarations will create a chance to be trusted by potential voters. It makes no sense to praise the "charm" of a multicultural society. Strange cultures are welcome as a temporary entertainment and pastime, but humans in general do not enjoy the continuous confrontation with aliens. We all have a spontaneous, natural preference for familiar things we are accustomed to since childhood. This is true for all cultures, not only for our own. E.g., here in Austria we should feel pity for each Turk and each Serb and especially for each African, for having to tolerate so many strangers around them.

We all are humans, natives and foreigners, and we ALL have a problem with strangeness; and the problem increases from year to year. Nobody enjoys to get on the nerves of others. For example, I would like to know which of my (Austrian) habits gets on the nerves of a Turk, a Serb, or an African. I don't know, I don't have the slightest idea. Vice versa, our estimated turk, serb respectively african short- and long-term fellow-citicens would probably be surprised to learn, which of their behaviors bothers us Austrians. E.g., I ask myself whether female muslims are aware of the fact that headscarves or even face-covering veils, unfamiliar to natives, attract the eyes of male Austrians (rather than to hide the wearer).

Occasionally, our society is praised as "modern", and increasing "mobility" and accelerating changes in social structure are welcome, as if such developments would meet a basic human need. However, such expectations are leading on the wrong track. Behavior scientists are not aware of a general and continuous hunt of humans for changes. Although each individual exhibits a transient period of increased mobility, associated with a desire for change, this inclination wanes with increasing age. In later life, a preference for familiarity predominates.

A "modern society" characterized by mobility and rapid changes may be attractive for a minority. For a majority, however, it develops more and more into a burden. In recent years, several terrifying fruits have budded from this burden. Humans are social beings and entirely reliant on a community, in spiritual and practical terms. Here, they experience control and regulation of their behavior. Unfortunately, the next generation is rarely formed by wise old characters as in fairy tales, who miraculously know how to provide the young ones with wisdom and strength. Young ones with a migration background often experience their elders as powerless and insufficiently integrated into their actual social environment. They find their idols elsewhere, not always wise and modest ones, and their socialization often takes place outside a loving family context. Young Africans frequent the streets of Vienna and have no home any more. We as natives have difficulties with offering them alternatives, because only few of us have an idea of what kind of home they came from.

Our society is suffering. It hurts from end to end. Let's not go around and preach "Everything is okay, everything is super, all are happy, we just have to drop our prejudice" etc. It will not take long and the affected will laugh at us, in a rather bitter style.

Societies need time to develop. Changes must be digested. The time it takes has more to do with biological facts (as e.g. the duration of a generation) than with economic necessities. The economy unfortunately tends to ignore basic anthopological facts, with often unfortunate outcomes. We should not limit our engagement to naive-altruistic positions; neither would we be taken serious, nor would we do justice to the problems. Who said: "Die Wahrheit ist dem Menschen zumutbar" [Humans can be expected to accept the truth]? I think, it was Ingeborg Bachmann. How right she was.

MB (7/08)