No Cheap Wit

What would the world look like if everything was shared? What if competition disappeared?

At first glance, it might seem an overly romantic and idealistic QUESTION. After all, nearly all of us were brought up in a culture that values competition – often above all else. I clearly remember a social studies teacher telling our species couldn’t survive without competition. After all, it’s “survival of the fittest.” Isn’t it?

In his documentary Tawai, explorer Bruce Parry takes us into the intimate lives of a hunter-gatherer society in Borneo. We watch children swimming in a shallow stream, while adults pick fruit and chop meat in preparation for the afternoon meal. Sitting under a makeshift tent, a village elder hooks an arm across Parry’s shoulder, nuzzling his head against this relative stranger’s temple.

Parry’s eyes are watering. The moment seems almost too intimate to film. So it is with borderline-uncomfortable clarity that Parry begins his monologue of love for these people and their culture.

“There is no cynicism here,” Parry says. “There is no cheap wit. It’s so different to me and my life where it’s all chippiness – who can be a little bit above the other with their comments and quotes. Here it is just a solid, loving group… You’re just enveloped in these big loving arms. And made to feel welcome instantly.”

He later comes to the conclusion that a culture of sharing and non-ownership allows these people to live so openly, and lovingly. They have no jealousy of one another’s talents. What benefits one person benefits them all. What one owns, everyone owns.

Now I’m not so naïve to think that a commercially-dominated culture such as ours will renounce this urge to own (and own more), or that we'll suddenly begin sharing our living rooms with strangers off the street. But wouldn’t it be nice? How many of our insecurities would fall away? How much jealousy would disappear? And how quickly would we stop seeing others as threats, and embrace them as one of our own?