I am because you are

Human beings – a mystery?

Almost 200 years ago, on 16 August 1839, the Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky wrote in one of his letters to his brother Mikhail:
    “The human being is a mystery. You must unravel it, and if you will spend a whole lifetime unravelling it, do not say that you have wasted your time. I am preoccupied with this mystery, for I want to be a human being”.
    Dostoevsky was only 18 years old when, impressed with the works of Schiller, Shakespeare, Homer and Pushkin, he began to explore the question of what defines a human being. Not only they, but also Aristotle, Virgil, Spinoza, Comenius, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Immanuel Kant and many others have explored the same issue. As a result, European cultural history today possesses a centuries-old, rich tradition of thinkers and researchers. They have explored what is needed for people to live together in peace. Over time, new branches of science have continually supervened, bringing their own research findings, so that today we lack no knowledge to make peace and freedom possible for all people.

War is not an inevitable fact

At the beginning of the 20^th century, the then still fledgling science of psychology also addressed the question: Why does war exist? The answers varied greatly. The doctor and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud postulated an innate destructive aggression and death drive in human beings, which must be kept in check in order to prevent wars. At the same time as Freud, Alfred Adler, the founder of Individual Psychology, also addressed this question and placed the feeling of emotional connection – which he referred to as Gemeinschaftsgefühl (a sense of community) – at the centre as a measure of mental health. As a doctor, he had witnessed the horrific events of the First World War and explained (among other things) in his essay “The Other Side: A Study in Mass Psychology on the Guilt of the People”, that people do not go to war of their own free will and supposedly in accordance with their nature – as Freud claimed – but are driven into the frenzy of war by propaganda, coercion and violence. Thus, both had drawn different conclusions from the bitter experience of the First World War. Whilst Freud’s theory of the aggression and death drives was subsequently refuted on several occasions,¹ Adler’s reflections gave rise to important educational concepts which, to this day, provide valuable impetus for peace education and are worth taking up. A key aspect of this is educating our younger generation about how and why it is possible to exploit people and nations, to turn them into followers or, through intimidation, into silent, fearful individuals who are powerless to resist the killing and boundless greed for wealth that inhuman wars entail.
    What Adler said about human nature more than 100 years ago is now confirmed by research findings in the personal human sciences – which include developmental psychology and anthropology. It is therefore surprising that Freud’s long-outdated theory is repeatedly revisited. Is this part of the war propaganda created by Anglo-American think tanks?

A look over the fence

This makes it all the more important to engage in a deeper examination of the legacy of European cultural history. It offers us many intellectual and emotional answers to the question of what is needed for a dignified coexistence (and serves as a compass for assessing today’s undesirable developments). Yet the Western perspective often fails to take into account the far larger part of the human family – the Global South. Would it not be a reassuring and enriching perspective to know what other communities have to contribute to the question of war and peace? One example of this is the South African philosophy Ubuntu (translates as “humanity” or “community spirit”), which the former archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu outlined in his speech on World Ethos Day 2009 at the University of Tübingen, with reference to current political events.² Not only there, but in many other contributions, he and other personalities addressed their concerns regarding peace policy to people of all ages. Desmond Tutu was therefore delighted that his granddaughter Mungo Ngomane took up his ideas, and he wrote in the foreword to a book she had written on the subject: “We feel pride and perhaps also ease that the wisdom passed down to us by our ancestors is being passed on. Perhaps this is the only thing we can hope for: that each generation conveys to the next how we humans should live together, that we must look after one another and treat everyone with respect as a human being.”³ Is his hope not something that our entire human family should carry in their hearts, or as Nelson Mandela put it:
    “Our compassion binds us together – not out of pity or condescension, but as human beings who have learnt how to transform shared suffering into hope for the future.”⁴

Building a protective wall against war

This brief glimpse over the fence shows us that we have a vast wealth of resources, not only here at home but throughout the world, with which we can strengthen the sense of connection with our fellow human beings among ourselves and our younger generation, and build an inner bridge to people all over the world. This task of upbringing and education is once again a priority – though, unfortunately, it lies far removed from today’s Western curricula – so that children may be empowered, as adults, to follow the voice of humanity. For schools, this means aligning their educational mission and learning objectives in such a way as to do justice to the social nature of the child. The basis for this is that children are driven neither by instincts (as Freud mistakenly assumed) nor by brain waves⁵ to view their fellow human beings as enemies. Children are inherently inclined towards humanity and, from the very beginning of their lives, depend on the response and connection they receive from their fellow human beings. This is corroborated by current research findings. It is important to emphasise this because theories with a different focus currently dominate training in the educational professions. They ignore key findings from the modern human sciences.
    Modern research points to an educational approach that places collaborative learning and the class community at the centre. Here, a child or young person has an excellent learning environment in which to experience and develop empathy themselves. Particularly today, when many children lack the basic model of living together within a family, school therefore becomes a vital place for education in humanity, enabling a protective wall against war propaganda to take root within them.
    Through genuine, lively interaction with their teacher and their classmates, children can develop a warm interest in other people, as well as the ability to form and nurture friendships, to feel compassion and shared joy, and to foster a spirit of mutual helpfulness. It is not the top achievements of individuals that are required, but human interaction as the foundation of every learning process. They then encounter one another as people who all have their own particular problems to solve, and realise that they are not alone with their worries.
    It goes without saying, therefore, that the teacher must not allow any child or young person the opportunity to act out ingrained self-centred attitudes – such as mistrust, envy, defiance and an unhealthy craving for recognition – within the class community, nor must they permit individual children to begin dominating class activities. In this way, the classroom becomes a place of trust, where mutual support is encouraging for everyone.
    Even high-achieving children and young people gain the confidence that they, too, will be helped if they find themselves in difficulty. Through such a strengthened sense of connection with their social environment, the child or the young person builds a bridge between themselves, their peers and the wider world. This opens up the possibility for healthy personal development for everyone.

Who is the human being?

For the teacher, this form of teaching always presents a personal challenge, because a class community cannot simply be “set up”; rather, the teacher faces the complex task of creating a classroom atmosphere in which the children build mutual understanding and develop solidarity with their classmates. In pursuing this aim, the teacher must recognise, with understanding and sensitivity, how each individual child behaves within the class and how they shape their relationships. Community-based education then becomes – paradoxical as it may sound – the education of the individual. However, this is an individual who is situated within a real, existing world, a community in which the child experiences their connection with others and actively relates to the people around them. In this way, every individual can make their contribution so that human communities learn from the experiences of their history to correct mistakes and errors, and so that children develop a sense of humanity – linked to a clarification of the question: Who is a human being? •

¹ Names associated with this include Adolf Portmann, Ruth Benedikt, Arno Plack and others.
² Desmond Tutu. “Ubuntu,Weltethos und Menschenwürde: Eine afrikanische Perspektive” (Ubuntu, Global Ethics and Human Dignity: An African Perspective), 15 June 2009, University of Tübingen; see also Boneza, Raïs Neza. “Toward the ‘Ubuntu-isation’ of a fractured world. Or: When the ‘international community’ forgets to ask the rest of humanity.” www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2026/no-15/16-28-july-2026/toward-the-ubuntu-isation-of-a-fractured-world
³ Ngomane Mungi. I am because you are. Ubuntu – 14 South African lessons for a life of connectedness. (14 südafrikanische Lektionen für ein Leben in Verbundenheit). Munich 2019, p. 7
⁴ ibid., p. 51
⁵ With their biological approach, the neurosciences are revisiting the theory of heredity in a new form.