A team of anthropologists at University College London interviewed hundreds of couples in two hunter-gatherer tribes, the Palanan Agta of the Philippines and Congo’s Mbendjele BaYaka, as well as the Filipino farming tribe the Paranan, which is a patriarchal society. These people offer a strong approximation of the lifestyles and communities of our oldest ancestors and their survival strategies. The anthropologists studied cooperation between strangers and acquaintances and concluded that our hunter- gatherer ancestors, before they took up farming, believed that men and women were equal.

Members of current hunter-gatherer tribes say they prefer to live close to their kinfolk. That makes sense, since siblings and grandparents can help with child care. But even though that’s what they say, it’s not what they do. In fact, the tribes live in camps that are heavily populated with folks to whom they’re not related. This seems to be because the wife wants to live with her kin and the husband with his. The negotiations are so fraught that they end up living with a constantly changing group of strangers instead. This works because the members cooperate. “Sharing and cooperation is crucial to survival,” explains Andrea Migliano, the paper’s senior author. “So [tribe members] evolved mechanisms to cooperate with unrelated individuals.” For example, hunters only find food about 75 percent of the time. That would mean a family would go hungry one day out of four. But that doesn’t happen because unrelated neighbors learned to share their food. (Thomas K. Grose, May 15, 2015, adapted from an article on the NPR website).

Look at us so-called “civilised” people! We have embraced competition, free enterprise and capitalism so comprehensively that we can pass a homeless man or woman in the street without a thought. We can leave tending to them to a small number of generous people who give money to feed, clothe and house the crazy, the simple-minded, the drug addict and the man leaving jail without prospects. We complain about entitlements, free-loaders, and the idle poor, and do what we can to reduce tax on the premise that the extra money floats all boats. Of course, this premise is largely bogus – and selfish. We have lost much of our empathy and community spirit. This was strongest when we all lived in villages and everyone knew one other. Now we mostly live anonymously in or around cities. All the more reason to reach out to the poor and sick. This is one reason I am an Epicurean; I believe we are all in this together and we have a duty to others.