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Cooperation, the secret weapon of our species

By Mark Pagel

4 January 2012

In his thoughtful Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of co-operation, Richard Sennett argues there are ways to overcome ingrained tribalism

RICHARD SENNETT’S Together is the second in a planned trilogy of books about “the skills people need to sustain everyday life”. The first instalment, The Craftsman, proposed and explored the notion of an innate human impulse to do things well. Together is about the craftsmanship of cooperation.

Sennett, a sociologist, worries that humans suffer from a deeply ingrained tribalism that “couples solidarity with others like yourself to aggression against those who differ”. He is alarmed by the way societies…

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