There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World

by Carlo Rovelli

Localism and nationalism are not only miscalculations, they draw power from their emotional appeal: they offer an identity. Politics likes to play upon our insatiable desire to belong. “Foxes have dens, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head . . .” The nation offers just such a home, a fictitious one: it is a fake, but it costs little and pays politically. Not that we don’t have national identities: we do have them. But each of us is a crossroads of multiple, layered identities. Putting the nation first means betraying all our other identities. Not because we are all equal in the world, but because we are different within each nation. Not because we don’t need a home, but because we have better and more dignified homes outside the grotesque theater of nationalism: our families, our fellow travelers, the community we share values with, spread throughout the world. Whoever we are, we are not alone: we are many. And we have a wonderful place to call home: the Earth, and a marvelous, variegated tribe of brothers and sisters with whom we may feel at home and identify with: humankind.