The Legacy Of The Armenian Genocide Is Woven Into The Fabric Of America.

Love her or hate her, one thing is undeniable; Kim Kardashian has single handedly introduced the word “Armenian” into pop culture. E! Channel often refers to Kim Kardashian as the Armenian Princess.

Armenian, what’s that?” Yes, it is shocking but true; most people in the United States have had no clue that an entire group of people called Armenians exists.

Armenia, Republic of Armenia, Hayastan, a landlocked republic in southwestern Asia; formerly an Asian soviet; modern Armenia is but a fragment of ancient Armenia which was one of the world’s oldest civilizations.

Throughout 2500 years the Armenian people have been invaded and oppressed by their neighbors. Should a former empire look after former subjects? Especially if they have been relegated to the fringe and are struggling?

Emotionally speaking, one can argue that yes, it should.

Yet common sense says, “Hold on a second.”

If there is one lesson that history has taught us about imperialism, it is that this kind of care always comes at a price.

Take Armenia, for example. It fared well both as an ally of tsarist Russia and subsequently as one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union.

Both the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. are relics of the past, as is Armenia’s well-being.

Some dropped their language and religion to survive after the 1915 genocide, but close to 100 years later, “hidden Armenians” want to take pride in their identity.

The average American child and teen knows more about the Kardashians than the culture. But for some it’s impossible not to read her surname and think of her Armenian heritage. Kardashian is distinctively Armenian. The model’s father, paternal grandparents and paternal great grandparents were all of Armenian descent.

Kim is an 4th generation Armenian and famous in the world, so this is enough for every Armenian to be proud of Kim. But because of cultural and traditional issues, many do not want to accept that she is an Armenian.

Armenia has been around for at least 3,000 years. Armenians have historically inhabited the “Armenian Highlands”, a vast section of mountains and valleys across eastern Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus. It is here that the biblical mountains of Ararat (and today’s eponymous cognac brand) can be found.

Is Armenia Europe’s most disregarded nation?

It’s certainly ignored by the travel media. Armenia’s claim to fame is that it was the first country in the world to officially adopt Christianity – in AD301. The most iconic image of Armenia is Mount Ararat. Ownership of Ararat is just one of several issues that strain relations between Armenia and Turkey.

Armenians have a rich culture and strong biblical ties. Noah’s ark is rumored to have landed in the heart of historical Armenia on Mt. Ararat, yet people still have no clue who the Armenian people are. An estimated one and a half million Armenians died at the bloody hands of Turks in the 1915 Armenian Genocide, yet to this day Armenians fight for recognition of this tragic event.

In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power), Mitanni (South-Western historical Armenia), and Hayasa-Azzi (1600-1200 BC).

Much of the region’s history has since been spent under the dominion of whichever great power was à la mode at the time: Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Persians, Russians and Soviets have all come and gone. These empires often fought their wars on Armenian territory, using Armenian soldiers. Despite rarely being politically independent, Armenians have consistently kept their language and their church. Its location on the silk road allowed Armenia to forge a link in the great network of merchant communities that extended from eastern Asia to Venice.

David M. Lang in his “Armenia: Cradle of Civilization” wrote: ““The ancient land of Armenia is situated in the high mountains… Although Mesopotamia with its ancient civilizations of Sumer and Babylon, is usually considered together with Egypt as the main source of civilized life in the modern sense, Armenia too has a claim to rank as one of the cradles of human culture”.

The historical ties between Armenia and Egypt are really close; they are so close that while standing in front of the magnificent Egyptian sculptures made in III-I millennium BC you can feel the time flowing through a petrified silence which weaves the tapestry of the history.

Wealth and peace reigned over the Armenian world, and, in accord with the prophecy, each man can rest under his vine or fig.

The perception of the world as a garden of grapevines is perhaps best illustrated in the relief frieze encircling the Holy Cross Temple on the Island of Aghtamar in Lake Van, which is designed and built in the 10th century by the architect Manvel on the order of King Gagik Artzuni. Manvel covered this frieze with mythic symbolic scenes depicted in the forms of familiear everyday village life with reality and myth thoroughly intermingling in the sculptures to present the Armenian concept of an ideal life taking place in a vineyard when the grapes were ripe.

This symbolic world is organized by an endlessly arching, grape-filled vine, which completely entwines the church , representing the Tree of Life; the vine’s spirit is personified in the form of an old man living in the trunk.

In aspect of the dialogue of civilizations the scientific and cultural spheres are important. And its vivid example is the Golden age (V c.) of the original and translated Armenian literature of V century which played a significant role in the life of many generations of the Armenians, thus enriching the treasury of world culture too.

Characterizing Egypt as a renowned country “which is situated in a beautiful part of the world and abound in various fruits”, Egypt “is surrounded by a miraculous wall of Nile, which not only protects but also feeds it…”.

The father of the Armenian historiography gave high praise to Alexandria: “the city is proportionate… built between sea and an artificial lake”.

Alexandria which passed from the paganism to Christianity made a great impression on Movses Khorenatsi. He wrote: “Now not a five-headed Pluto rules here” but “a preacher of the Gospel Mark and there are no more god-born heroes from the kin of the dragon…there are the chapels of the saints…

Over the centuries Armenians maintained close and direct contacts with the Greek culture, by which they were deeply influenced. During the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ of Byzantium’s intellectual life, Armenia played an important role in the preservation of Greek cultural heritage, as much as the neighbouring Syriac speaking world, in particular for the transmission of Greek philosophical scholarship. The old centres of translations of Late Antique Armenia as well as the scriptoria and the libraries attached to the monastic schools of medieval Armenia contributed considerably to the reception and dissemination of the Greek scientific texts.

Like the Jewish people, the Armenians were another community that has suffered genocide in horrendous proportions. While The Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottomans.

In contrast to it some “research centers” are engaged in falsifying and misrepresenting of the Armenian history as well as in the anti-Armenian propaganda in the information war. E.g. “Institute for Armenian Researches”, which deals with dissemination of the hostile information about Armenia and the Armenian people by denying the Armenian Genocide and falsifying and distorting the Armenian Question, was established in Turkey on the order of the authorities.

The anti-Armenian purposes of the “institute” had already been mentioned: “”In order to institutionalize this campaign of denial and try to invest it with an aura of legitimacy, a “think-tank” was established in Ankara in April 2001. Operating under the name “Institute for Armenian Research” as a subsidiary of The Center For Eurasian Studies, with a staff of nine, this new outfit is now proactively engaged in contesting all claims of genocide by organizing a series of conferences, lectures, and interviews, and above all, through the medium of publications, including a quarterly”4”.

In this sense we speak about true Armenology.

Armenology (“studying of the materials about the Armenian reality… as a theory about academic knowledge revealed in various fields, and peculiarities characteristic to Armenian reality, researched by appropriate disciplines with their own distinctive methods”)1, by its potential, for the creator and preserver of the spiritual and cultural values – the Armenian people, is the mentality constituting system.

The protection of the spiritual, academic and ideological spheres of the Armenian people (the Republic of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Artsakh), Javakhq and the Armenian Diaspora) in the information field is implemented on the academic grounds with the help of the true Armenology which has accumulated millennia experience and which nourishes the national ideology.

In this aspect, in the spheres of information and psychological security the importance is attached to the defense from external and internal distortions as well as “dissemination of ideological concepts on the external information field in the context of national interests” .

One of the results of the official visit of the president of the Republic of Armenia to the Arab Republic of Egypt in April 2007 was the opening of the Center for the Armenian Studies at the Department of Philology at the University of Cairo on the decision of the government of Egypt on December 13, which is at the center of the attention of the Embassy of the RA and Armenian community. The foundation of the Center for the Armenian Studies in Egypt is remarkable from the point of view of historic ties with Armenia.

The majestic pyramids bearing the impress of eternity reminds of ancient Egypt.

There is a saying: “Man is afraid of time and the time is afraid of pyramids”. These man-made monuments seem to be a symbol of eternal antagonism of life and death.

According to the definition of Anania Shirakatsi “origin is the beginning of the destruction and destruction, in its turn, is the beginning of the origin. And due to this indestructible confrontation the world acquires eternal character”.

Since the opening of the Armenian embassy in Egypt close relations has been established with the Armenian community. Its best manifestation is the building where the embassy is placed – on the isle of Zamalek in the middle of the Nile. It was granted by the AGBU branch and repaired by the efforts of the Armenian community.

Under the patronage of the Embassy of the RA and the head of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church His Grace Bishop Ahot Mnatsakanyan I delivered a lecture to the Armenian community in Egypt on “Armenia in the ancient and medieval cartography and civilizational contribution of Armenia to the development of the “Silk Road” and “Significance of the elucidation of the history of the ancient Armenia in the aspect of the spiritual and cultural protection of the Armenian people and patriotic education of the youth” (Pltakian Hall in Cairo and the National Diocesan Residence in Alexandria).

Armenian studies are a bridge, connecting the white summits of Ararat-Masis mount and peaks Egyptian pyramids…

Armenians always played a major role in the life of Egypt. Armenian-born Nubar Pasha Nubarian became the first PM and foreign minister of Egypt, with streets in Cairo and Alexandria named after the politician who garnered numerous titles and awards during his lifetime. His son Boghos Nubar Pasha founded the Armenian Great Benevolent Union (AGBU) in 1906. Before Gamal Abdel Nasser’s presidency in 1952, 60000 Armenians lived in Cairo and about 30000 in Alexandria.

“Egyptologists have hinted the Egyptian fascination with the pyramid to this belief. The Egyptians had since ancient times developed close connections with the people of Ararat. The great pharaohs often married into the noble and royal families of ancient Armenian kingdom of Mittani, Queen Nefertiti being one of the most notable representatives of Mitanni princesses on the Egyptian throne.

Their friendship and cooperation with the Kingdom of Mittani and intimate connections stretched from the Kingdom’s period into the Hyksos and Hurrian dynasties (XVI th dynasty) in Egypt from the Armenian Highland.

“Beautiful Has Come”…

Queen Nefertiti of Egypt was a native of Mitanni. The Mittani Kingdom of Armenia was an off-shoot of the Hurrian kingdom. The Hurri (a member of a people, originally from Armenia, who settled in northern Mesopotamia and Syria during the 3rd-2nd millennium bc and were later aborbed by the Hittites and Assyrians. (See also Mitanni.) Hittite & Assyrian Harri, Hurri), and the Mittani peoples were the contemporaries the Hittites and the Hykos, within whom they shared many cultural and political aspects.

Today, all these aforementioned nations are considered to be, in varying degrees, proto-Armenians; that is we modern day Armenians are direct descendants of the remnants of those ancient tribes. Moreover, Solomon’s wife was a Hittite and King David purchased Jerusalem from Hurrians. Hittites, Hyksos, Hurrians, Mittani and Urartu had an immense impact upon the ancient world for centuries.

Nefertiti (14th century BC) was the wife of King Amenhotep IV the intellectual Egyptian ruler of Egypt (reigned about 1379-1362 BC).

She bore him six daughters but no son. His reign was distinguished by a religious revolution, strongly supported by Nefertiti, that renounced the established pantheon of gods in favor of a single, supreme deity, Aton. Aton, represented by a sun disc, was revered as the source of life and the bounties of nature.

A girl from Armenia whose beauty is only exceeded by her virtue and kindness of heart. Where else can you find features like this but Hayastani , which is the original crossroad between Western Asia and Eastern Europe.

It is suggest that Nefertiti was in fact the Tadukhipa, the daughter of Tushratta (also known as Dasharatha) King of the Mitanni, but most scholars consider it more likely that Tadukhipa was actually Queen Kiya.

Her name was Tadukhipa which is now pronounced as Taguhi.

She was so beautiful that Egyptians called her Nefertiti which in their language means “Beautiful Has Come”.

Native sources on the religion of the Hurrians of the Mitanni kingdom are limited; about their mythology, however, much is known from related Hittite and Ugaritic myths. Like the other peoples of the ancient Middle East.

Because only a few Mitanni settlements have been unearthed in Mesopotamia, knowledge of Mitanni arts and culture is as yet insufficient.

There is no question that a human tragedy is unfolding in Egypt and becoming more critical with each passing day. While no one can remain indifferent to the killing and maiming of civilians, the Prime Minister of Turkey is the last person on earth who should be taking such a self-righteous attitude. Anyone who has blood on his hands has no right to demonize others.

Curiously, after Pres. Morsi’s unceremonious departure from power, a series of articles appeared in scores of Egyptian newspapers, detailing the history of the Armenian Genocide, demanding that Turkey pay restitution to the survivors, and calling on Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister , to acknowledge his country’s criminal past.

To top it all, a surprising twitter message was posted on August 17 by Adly Mansour, Egypt’s Interim President, announcing that his country’s “UN representative tomorrow will sign the international document recognizing the Armenian massacres which were committed by the Turkish army, causing the deaths of one million people.”

Understandably, most Armenians would be displeased that the victimization of their ancestors is being exploited in a political tug of war between the two countries. Yet, unfortunately, this is politics as usual. If Egypt’s new leaders find it expedient to recognize the Armenian Genocide, this would be a welcome change. It is better to recognize the Genocide, regardless of political motives, than not to recognize it for all the wrong reasons!

After all, no one can expect the Egyptian government to take a position on an issue, if it is contrary to its own national interests. In this regard, Egypt is no different from other countries, including the United States and Israel, which periodically dangle acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide as a Damoclean Sword over the heads of Turkish leaders.

The final decision on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide depends on whatever concessions Cairo is expecting from Ankara. If Egypt, the most populous Arab state, recognizes the Armenian Genocide, that would deal a devastating blow to the Turkish government’s frantic efforts to counter the worldwide commemorations of the Genocide Centennial in 2015.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

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A Story About Science, Knowledge, Democracy and Freedom Of Choice

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Soccer is Life; Love is Basketball

It continues to be one of sport’s most unlikely spectacles — Dennis Rodman, American ambassador. Yet on Sunday, there he was on national television, acting as an unofficial spokesman for stronger ties between the United States and North Korea.

Sport is a major part of modern life and, driven by an Akira-style media, is worldwide in its audience.

Sporting events like the Olympics, the World Cup, the European Championship, the Africa Cup of Nations, and the Super Bowl are some of the most-watched events across the world.

Last week, ex-NBA player Dennis Rodman (nicknamed “The Worm”) and several members of the Harlem Globetrotters went to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un and participate in basketball exhibition events as part of a VICE documentary that will air on HBO.

In many ways, the experience played out like your typical buddy comedy. Guy plays basketball, guy has facial piercings and attends a book promotion wearing a wedding dress, guy claims he’s going to marry himself.

Then said guy travels to a secretive, totalitarian country where nuclear weapons have been tested to meet and talk about the Chicago Bulls with said country’s leader, a man we know little about, but whose father once allegedly shot 11 holes in one during a round of golf and claimed he could control weather with his mind.

“To succeed in sports requires practice, discipline and determination; important skills that help young people succeed in all areas of their lives.”

The “nonsense” promulgated by the north in relation to events surrounding the birth of Kim Jong-il, of double rainbows magically appearing at the moment of his birth, and army generals speaking after his funeral of snow falling like rain weeping for the loss of the “Dear Leader,” is all mysticism, to some devoid of any rational or scientific content, and has nothing to do with a materialist understanding of the world around us, and nothing to do with socialism.

It has more to do with the legacy of Confucianism, Buddhism and mysticism and how such ideas have shaped the people of Korea and many other peoples—not just in the east.

Korea, north and south, is shaped by the “Cold War” tensions between the west and the Soviet Union and those between the Soviet Union and a China dominated, as it was then, by Maoist ideology, coupled with the tensions that still bubble to the surface between the two Korean states themselves.

The partition of Korea was itself the product of the Cold War, which in Korea turned into a very hot war of savage proportions. Hundreds of thousands died on both sides. Most cities and towns in the north were flattened by the saturation bombing of the United States and its allies.

As in all peasant societies, religion has played and no doubt still plays a role in people’s lives, shaping how they see and understand things. To western eyes, much of what we see and understand about the east is influenced by how little we know and understand of eastern religions and cultures.

But, here’s a riddle that seems to have escaped the notice of United States policymakers as anxious to preserve “stability” in Egypt as they are on the Korean Peninsula.

If the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then how come Washington’s long favorite friend in the Arab world, Egypt, is so cozy with one of Washington’s bitterest enemies, North Korea?

And if your friend is providing a base of operations for sales of missiles and other stuff to all your foes in the Middle East, then how come your friend is your friend?

All of which points to this puzzle: Why has the United States, since Jimmy Carter as US president engineered the Camp David accords in 1978 and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty the next year, showered billions of dollars in aid on North Korea while Egypt was double-dealing in North Korean missiles, technology and advice?

The answer seems to be that American politicos and envoys, in a long-running saga of supreme diplomatic casuistry, incompetence and all that, preferred to downplay if not ignore Egypt’s ever-tightening ties to North Korea in the overriding interests of guaranteeing a shaky peace in the Middle East.

For two years the United States, South Korea and Japan have intermittently talked of an all-or-nothing deal with North Korea on the nuclear standoff, which President Lee Myung Bak has called a “Grand Bargain.” Egypt’s peace overtures to Israel in the late 1970s are the role model for such a bargain.

The allies currently facing North Korea also struggle to coordinate priorities. South Korea faces a security and existential threat from its northern neighbor. Japan demands resolution to the abduction issue and the threat posed by North Korea’s missile program. The United States is concerned above all else with trying to defend the NPT and a shaky global non-proliferation regime.

Without the potential for an Egyptian style uprising or Grand Bargain for Korea, and heeding the need to prevent war, the only viable option left is an incremental, trust-building approach. This will ultimately be a long and difficult task, demanding both bilateral and multilateral efforts to address the range of concerns of all the major actors. If the dynamic of perpetual conflict on the Korean peninsula is ever to be changed, however, there is no alternative.

Few things are as widely followed, understood and propagated on a mass scale as modern sports are, argues “Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture,” authors Andrei Markovits and Lars Rensmann. While the rules, sanctions, size of field, numbers of players etc., may differ from one sport to another, they are the same in every country.

From New York to London, Nairobi to Tehran, Beijing to Buenos Aires, a goal is a goal, a touchdown a touchdown, and the meaning of a red card or the losing of a wicket, can all be universally understood.

Sport is a language everyone of us can speak,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, and its power as a tool in a country’s public diplomacy arsenal is being increasingly recognized. Mixing sport and diplomacy can help meet various foreign policy objectives: to bring about regime change, open the door for dialogue when it is closed to politics and to arouse a sense of national pride. This mixture however, is by no means “new.”

Do the benefits outweigh the dangers in mixing diplomacy and sport?’

Much like the Internet, sport diplomacy can be used both as a force for “good” as well as for “bad”. It can incite positive change and open the door for dialogue but at the same time it can reaffirm boundaries and identities, further solidifying divisions.

The beauty of sport is only given relevance by its ugliness – in the case of the Munich Games, the fact that they went ahead, despite such tragic beginnings. This timeless dualism is the reality of sport. Terrorism, war and violence are manifest in sport. Sport is more closely associated – in the sports fans mind, at least – with competition, winning, war, violence, than it is with the business of peace.

But the institutes of sport and diplomacy are universal in scope and nature, and working in tandem can spread positive sporting values such as mutual respect, discipline, tolerance and compassion among acrimonious political relationships.

“Sports can be a powerful medium to reach out and build relationships…across cultural and ethnic divides, with a positive message of shared values: values such as mutual respect, tolerance, compassion, discipline, equality of opportunity and the rule of law. In many ways, sports can be a more effective foreign policy resource than the carrot or the stick.”

Only certain cultures or segments of society show strong interest in speaking English, travelling to the United States, attending a classical music event, or participating in a discussion on human rights. On the other hand, virtually all cultures and all citizens have an interest in and appreciation for sport.

This makes it one of the best methods for exchange – especially for diplomats operating in an age when the opinions of foreign publics are so crucial for success.

Sports-diplomacy can be a ‘soft’ way of exploring or signaling a foreign policy shift between estranged states. The best example of this is, of course, the 1971 case of Ping-Pong Diplomacy, however a more recent example involves the cricket-

life and culture. Americans learn about foreign cultures and the challenges young people from overseas face today.

When you think of diplomats and foreign policy specialists, you probably envision people in suits and ties, carrying attache cases, clustered in meeting rooms with interpreters rapidly talking between them. But an integral part of the U.S. State Department’s mission is carried out by envoys in shorts, T-shirts, and cross-trainers with nary a briefcase or file folder in site.

Publics the world over seem exhausted after the extraordinary amount of violence of the twentieth century. These publics are more likely to be engaged by soft power overtures from nations, such as cultural or sporting exchanges. In the post-modern information age, sport, culture and diplomacy are no longer niche or backwater institutions but powerful foreign policy tools.

Expressions of hard power through diplomacy based on traditional, high politics of arms treaties, border demarcation or alliances (while still important, obviously) does not hold the same amount of attention among the public as they used to.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said, “Actually, our sport’s exchanges are the most popular exchanges we do. And when I go to other countries around the world and we talk about what kind of exchanges that people are looking for, very often a leader will say, how about a sports exchange?”

According to Rodman’s agent, Dennis saw the trip as a “chance to speak directly to Kim Jong (Un) that the only way to go is with peace, not war.” While the means for securing harmony – a wild ex-NBA star playing and talking about basketball – is unusual, maybe it represents the type of off-the-wall, creative diplomacy America is going to have to engage in to make sure North Korea doesn’t attempt to give us “death by merciless strikes,” which is what a North Korean media editorial stated in an announcement during Rodman’s visit.

Along with football, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it is not uncommon to see basketball hoops in hotel car parks or in school playgrounds.

North Koreans have limited exposure to US pop culture but Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, is well known.

During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, the then secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, presented Kim Jong-il, an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.

Thursday’s exhibition game with two Americans playing on each team alongside North Koreans ended in a 110-110 tie. Following the game, Kim threw an “epic feast” for the group, making round after round of toasts.

The Arirang “Mass Games” are a stunning spectacle of choreography and synchronicity involving 100,000 dancers tumbling and leaping in unison while students use placards to create a huge, cascading wall of images as a backdrop.

“He’s a good guy to me,” Rodman said. “As a person to person, he’s my friend. I don’t condone what he does.”

There are many questions thrown up by developments within the DPRK that we must continue to try to understand and attempt to explain. The family dynasty of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un should be understood as representing continuity and a united front in response to the continued two-pronged approach of the United States in applying economic sanctions and military pressures.

The partition of Korea by the United States has left a deep mark on the Korean people, north and south—in the south creating a society that suffered decades of repression and in the north an atmosphere of a society under siege.

The continued interference by the United States and Japan will not bring peace, unity or stability to the people of Korea. It is up to the Korean people, north and south, to solve their differences and to unite if they desire to. This can be done only with the removal of all foreign forces and nuclear weapons from the south.

The Korean people, north and south, need the support and solidarity of progressive opinion to end the partition and control by the United States and to allow them to decide for themselves the future direction of their country.

With the power to unite, awaken hope and inspire change, the mixture of sport and diplomacy is certainly an area we will be seeing more of in the future. We just have to keep in mind that sport diplomacy should in no way be seen as a quick-fix measure.

When sport is mixed in with other facets of diplomacy and concrete foreign policy changes, perhaps the positive vision articulated by Nelson Mandela can be further actualized.

However, based on the negative backlash caused by Rodman’s visit, it seems pretty certain President Obama will not be taking credit for the diplomatic mission in the future, even if the U.S. and North Korea build a friendly relationship and the Raptors leave Toronto and become the Pyongyang Kim Jong Uns.

But, in my opionion, maybe sending someone like Dennis Rodman to meet with the leaders of North Korea is a good thing.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

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Proof Of Life After Death

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The Power of Two

What would happen if you took two people and teamed them up to accomplish a goal? Return a few months later, and you might find them working well together and getting the job done. Or you might find them at each other’s throats and accomplishing less than if they had worked independently.

An interesting puzzle lies between those extremes. Why do some partnerships succeed while others fail? Why do some people click while others clash?

One of the most neglected areas of human relationships is an understanding of what happens when two people team up to accomplish a task. Many books have been published to help readers understand themselves. Many more have been written about what makes a high-performing team or a great manager. But little has been done to guide two collaborators through their journey to reach a common goal.

People typically think of partnerships as formal arrangements, like the legal agreements between attorneys or between entrepreneurs. But a partnership — good or bad — exists whenever two people double up to accomplish an objective. Two students working on a term paper are partners until it is written. Two coaches of a kids’ soccer team are partners until the season ends. Two accountants assigned to complete a financial audit are partners until the work is done. Although poorly understood, these relationships are crucial to your success and happiness.

Humans are made for collaboration. Our blood pressure rises and falls based on whether allies or enemies are nearby. We eat similar amounts when dining together. We laugh, not so much because something is funny, but because laughter is a kind of social glue. (A person is 30 times more likely to laugh when he’s with someone else than when he is alone.)

One person observing another rehearses in his own mind what the other is doing. A network of “mirror neurons” throughout the brain creates the empathy we need to see the partnership from the other person’s perspective. We unconsciously adjust our grammar and word choices to match what someone else already said — a subconscious way of signaling “I agree with you.” This kind of mimicry, one study found, “is automatic and reflects the fact that humans are designed for dialogue rather than monologue.”

The mere presence of a collaborator alters a person’s perception of the world around her. When experimenters filled a transparent box with potatoes and asked volunteers to guess its weight, people who were told someone else would be helping them lift the box estimated it to be lighter than those who believed they would have to pick it up by themselves. “These results suggest we may see the world not only through our own eyes but also through the eyes of the groups we form,” wrote one researcher. “We plan our actions guided partly by what we think we can achieve with others.”

In a world that emphasizes individual achievement — the star salesperson, the MVP, the soloist — we forget that everyone is descended from millions of ancestors who survived because they didn’t go it alone. Today, failing to form partnerships will handicap your career and decrease your happiness. In the past, it could get you killed.

In the many dangerous generations that molded human nature, our predecessors’ survival required not only strong bones and muscles, resistance to disease, and the ability to make tools, but also the ability to collaborate — to discern, trust, sacrifice, empathize, and intelligently combine their work with someone else.

For our predecessors, survival “depended on dealing with their neighbors: sometimes helping them, sometimes ignoring them, sometimes exploiting them, sometimes liking them, sometimes hating them — and having a sense for which people warrant which sort of treatment, and when they warrant it,” wrote Robert Wright in his book The Moral Animal . “The evolution of human beings has consisted largely of adaptation to one another.” Hunters who worked together were more likely to return with a kill. Two men who made a pact to help each other improved their odds of fending off mutual enemies.

Along the way, humans developed exceptionally large brains, organs that are expensive in biological terms. The brain accounts for only 3% of the body’s weight, but it consumes 20% of the oxygen and glucose a person takes in. An organ that needy must justify its fuel bill, and it does. We need nimble, adaptable brains to navigate the terrain of our large and complex social networks. People “probably encounter no problems more challenging than those of dealing with other members of their community,” wrote one observer. “Judging whom to trust, forming alliances, keeping score of favors given and received — all were necessities made easier by greater cognitive ability.”

Yet for all our instincts, most of us today don’t fully exploit our collaborative potential. Gallup research reveals that the median number of work partnerships for an American employee is four, but there is a tremendous range around that number. When asked how many strong alliances they have, most people say they have one or two, maybe three or four. The small proportion of people who say they have dozens of close teammates raises the average for a population that is generally partnership-poor. “In thinking through my best and worst work partnerships, I keep seeing more experiences in the ‘worst’ column and a sparsely populated ‘best’ section,” said one manager at a medical device manufacturer.

The most common number of work partnerships — the answer given by 16% of the U.S. adult population — is zero! Asked if they have ever had a great partnership at work, about one quarter of employees say no.

The more partnerships you have, the better. Even one strong collaborative relationship markedly increases your wellbeing over those who are going it alone. Compared with their isolated coworkers, those with just one collaborative relationship are 29% more likely to say they will stay with their company for the next year and 42% more likely to intend to remain with their current employer for their entire career. Those who feel well teamed with one or more colleagues are substantially more engaged at work; they generate higher customer scores, safety, retention, creativity, productivity, and profitability for the business and a greater level of happiness for themselves. On the other end of the scale, isolation creates a health risk on par with smoking. Solitary confinement is considered by many a form of torture but many people impose it on themselves in their daily lives.

“The sad thing is that I’ve never had a successful partnership,” one businessperson said. “I’ve been thrown into the leadership role in every single ‘group project’ or organized group outside or inside of schooling. Every time, I have become the leader, ended up doing the majority of the work, and gotten the majority of the credit. I’ve learned — again, sadly — that I’m better at taking care of my responsibilities myself and not depending on others for creative success in my personal, artistic, or professional futures.”

One of the reasons partnerships fail is that every cooperative instinct is matched by a competitive reflex: deep-seated desires to not be taken advantage of, to come out on top, or to extract revenge. Not knowing what to expect from a new counterpart, every potential collaborator faces a friend-or-foe dilemma. While failing to work together was often fatal to ancient humans, so was being fooled by an adversary. Fearful of being made a fool or wanting to win, many people play it safe, failing to put enough of themselves on the line to start a collaboration. And when they do, their counterparts often fail to reciprocate.

But many people who are slow to make peaceful overtures are not afraid to go to battle stations at the first hint of hostilities. As a consequence, acrimonious relationships are at least as common as partnerships. Bickering over anything from office locations to a piece of legislation can collapse into years of animosity.

The double-edged nature of social instincts means that collaboration requires much more than just pairing up two people and pointing them up the mountain. When two companies sign a “joint marketing agreement” and team up their salespeople, some pairs inevitably fail. “In good relationships, reps work cooperatively, openly, and effectively as true partners,” found one study of joint sales efforts. “In poor relationships, reps withhold information from each other; point fingers when someone ‘drops the ball’; question the competence, integrity, and standards of the partner; and express a high degree of frustration with, and negativity toward, the partnering concept.”

Great partnerships don’t just happen. If both partners don’t really need the talents of the other, there is no reason to team up. If they lack a common mission — the foundation of any joint endeavor — the two will work at cross-purposes. If they don’t divide the work and rewards fairly, one of the collaborators will take his marbles and go home. Without a willingness by each of them take substantial risks, and reciprocation from both of them, they will never develop the rhythm of trust that defines collaboration.

The alliance will implode unless both learn to accept the idiosyncrasies of the other. If one of them betrays the other, he unleashes powerful, negative reactions, and the relationship can be extricated only with great difficulty. Unless partners learn to communicate well, they will eventually knock heads or make deal-wrecking assumptions about the other’s intentions. Failure on any one of these aspects can destroy the alliance.

In the rare circumstances when all these obstacles are overcome, partnerships can become not just effective in accomplishing the mission, but personally rewarding — sometimes intensely so. Researchers call this “mutuality,” a phenomenon when a natural concern for one’s own welfare transforms into a deep satisfaction in seeing one’s counterpart do well. Those who have reached this level say such collaborations become among the most fulfilling aspects of their lives. It is one thing to have accomplished a great goal alone, they say, but these individual achievements cannot compare to doing great things together.

Ultimately, the same cooperative instincts that allowed our distant ancestors to survive can bring greater success and happiness to us if we apply them in our most important undertakings.

“Behind this phenomenon is a principle: Build on your strengths. To mitigate your weaknesses — and we all have them — partner up! Find your complement.”

Everyone faces challenges where success is anything but certain. If you overcome them, chances are, you won’t do it alone.

by Rodd Wagner and Gale Muller

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