Can Ants Teach Us to Be More Human?
The battles in the Irish Parliament this week make me feel a little less embarrassed about the bitter gridlock in American politics. But mostly, I'm sick at heart about why we can't do better. Working together demonstrates our humanity.
But ants work together better than humans.
(Photo courtesy www.surespeech.co.uk) Each ant selflessly does their own job and the whole colony works together to achieve a common goal. But did you know that different species of
ants who hate each other co-exist and work together?
Compare that to the United States Congress.
In 1939, a republican senator, Elizabeth Norse got together with a democrat senator, Robert Wagner. They both wanted to do something in response to Germany's Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews. The two worked together on legislation to allow 20,000 German Jewish children to immigrate to the United States.
Members on both sides of Congress came together to support the legislation, including former President Herbert Hoover, who'd led efforts that restricted immigration ten years earlier.
I wish this story had a happy ending. But opponents mobilized against the bill. President Theodore Roosevelt remained silent on the issue, and congress killed it. I wish we would learn more from history.
Kindertransport evacuated Jewish children from Nazi Europe to Great Britain. 
Did you know during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, citizens of New York City righteously criticized the authorities in Salem for convicting people on the basis or hysterical witnesses, executing them on little actual evidence?
Did you know 50-years later, New Yorkers--fearing not the devil, but a slave revolt--conducted their own witch hunt complete with hysterical witnesses and deadly justice. Remembered as the "Bonfires of the Negroes," 17 blacks were hanged, along with 4 white "ringleaders," 13 African slaves were burned at the stake and 70 more shipped to the Caribbean and sold. I wish we could learn more from history.
Enough depressing stories. Please share a time you've overcome fear, or difference, or indifference, and worked together for better.
But ants work together better than humans.
(Photo courtesy www.surespeech.co.uk) Each ant selflessly does their own job and the whole colony works together to achieve a common goal. But did you know that different species of
ants who hate each other co-exist and work together?
Compare that to the United States Congress. In 1939, a republican senator, Elizabeth Norse got together with a democrat senator, Robert Wagner. They both wanted to do something in response to Germany's Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews. The two worked together on legislation to allow 20,000 German Jewish children to immigrate to the United States.
Members on both sides of Congress came together to support the legislation, including former President Herbert Hoover, who'd led efforts that restricted immigration ten years earlier.
I wish this story had a happy ending. But opponents mobilized against the bill. President Theodore Roosevelt remained silent on the issue, and congress killed it. I wish we would learn more from history.
Kindertransport evacuated Jewish children from Nazi Europe to Great Britain. Did you know during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, citizens of New York City righteously criticized the authorities in Salem for convicting people on the basis or hysterical witnesses, executing them on little actual evidence?Did you know 50-years later, New Yorkers--fearing not the devil, but a slave revolt--conducted their own witch hunt complete with hysterical witnesses and deadly justice. Remembered as the "Bonfires of the Negroes," 17 blacks were hanged, along with 4 white "ringleaders," 13 African slaves were burned at the stake and 70 more shipped to the Caribbean and sold. I wish we could learn more from history.
Enough depressing stories. Please share a time you've overcome fear, or difference, or indifference, and worked together for better.
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