1. We Can Be the Best Source of Support, Love, Assistance & Cooperation
In any species, in almost any animal, there is always the potential for huge conflict, because with any species, all members of that species have the same needs. So they might fight each other for food, shelter, nest sites, territory, sexual partners, all those kinds of things. But human beings have always had the other possibility. We have the possibility to be the best source of support, love, assistance and cooperation, much more so than any other animal… and so other people can be the best or the worst. You can be my worst rival, or my best source of support.
“Four Horsemen – Feature Documentary – Official Version.” 1:07:27 – 1:08:10
2. What Really Makes Us Happy?
What’s really suffered is human relationships, family life, the things that really matter to us. In the end, the only thing that makes human beings happy isn’t money, it’s very clear that you only get marginal gains from wealth. What really makes us happy is other people. It’s our relationships with other people that are really being damaged by the last thirty years. We trust them less; we have less interaction with them; we bond less than ever before; we marry less and marriages are under more threat than ever before, and all the associations that represent permanent unconditional human affection are being eroded or damaged. That’s the real legacy of the last thirty years. In some sense, we’ve got to recover and rehumanize our lives, otherwise not only will they be nasty, brutish and short, but they’ll be lonely.
Phillip Blond, Director of ResPublica in “Four Horsemen – Feature Documentary – Official Version.” 1:10:08 – 1:11:05
3. Human Beings are Alive because they Seek Attachment & Because they’re Propelled by Affection
The West is coming to the realization that its human project is failing. The West was so convinced that if you push people to achieve as individuals, that accumulated achievement of individuals would make for a successful society. And what the West is now beginning to realize is that the individual achievement, without incorporating the vulnerable community, is a myth. The idea was, “Make your own life. Be individually aspiring, and then you’ll be individually achieving, and then you’ll be individually prosperous, and then you’ll be individually happy.” You end up doing that in a glass jar, and the glass jar has a limited height, and it’s encapsulating, and in the end, you die of lack of oxygen. Human beings are alive because they seek attachment, and because they’re propelled by affection. So the isolated achieving individual, in the end, implodes.
Camila Batmanghelidjh, Founder of Kids Company in “Four Horsemen – Feature Documentary – Official Version.” 1:11:06 – 1:12:21
4. Purpose in Life has to be Outside Yourself
In order to find a purpose in life, it has to be outside yourself. It matters not how you construct it outside yourself, as long as it is a positive value added to society pursued. But it has to be outside yourself. It can’t be yourself. If you’re pursuing yourself, you’re pursuing the abyss, as Nietzsche said, you’re going to wind up in the abyss.
“Four Horsemen – Feature Documentary – Official Version.” 1:12:21 – 1:12:45