There is, if one is inclined to pessimism, ample opportunity to indulge these days. The political world alone offer a variety of depressing trends. Around the world, democracy seems in retreat, nowhere more disturbingly than next door. And speaking of next door, our formerly friendly neighbour has suddenly turned into an existential threat.

At such times, one can wallow in gloom, or one can reflect with some satisfaction on the vigorous democracy we are enjoying in our own country at this very moment. And we Canadians enjoy much more than democracy.

We enjoy a civil society, a society in which people resolve their differences through rational dialogue, negotiation and compromise. A society with some of the best public services in the world, including a universal health-care system that ensures us very high rates of life expectancy and very low rates of maternal and infant mortality; and an education system that ensures us of one of the highest rates of literacy in the world with colleges and universities that attract thousands of foreign students. A society wth public services that are delivered with great efficiency and minimal corruption.

And one can reflect on how unlikely it is that one is even able to live in such a society. After all, our species—Homo sapiens—is not designed for it. We were designed for something quite different.

We are a communal species. We were designed over the great span of time to live in small groups of hunter-gatherers, no more than a few dozen members. Not until 10,000 or so years ago did we start to develop larger, more complex societies.

We were designed to be loyal to our groups or tribes, not to humanity. We are essentially no different than other communal species such as, for example, wolves. Wolves live in small groups, in packs. They all raise the young, males and females. They hunt as a unit, and they submit to a hierarchy. They are loyal to their pack, not to wolves. Indeed, if a strange wolf appears on their territory, they will drive it off, even kill it.

We are no different. We are loyal to our tribes and look with suspicion upon members of others. We quickly become hostile if we perceive a threat to our own.

In our hunter-gatherer societies, loyalty was easy because our society was homogeneous. We all held the same spiritual beliefs, the same moral principles. We were ethnically identical. There was only one, simple political structure. All men followed the same occupation as did the women. Disagreement was ameliorated by all members knowing each other intimately. A rough approximation of one big happy family.

Modern society could hardly be different. It is vast in number and multi-tribal. We are, each of us, members of many tribes. We are members of and have loyalties to our family, our community, city, province, country, our ethnic group, our religion, our political persuasion, our profession, our favourite hockey team, and so on. We feel closer to our fellow members of each tribe as opposed to the members of other tribes.

We might expect that such a society would be in a constant state of tension and hostility among the myriad tribes. Chaos might be expected to reign. Throughout history, order has generally been maintained by coercive authority. An emperor, a king, or some other authoritarian individual or group has imposed its will and its rules to maintain order according to its design.

A number of societies have in recent history escaped the imposition of authoritarian rule and developed the ability to choose their own governors. Canada is one of those fortunate societies.

Most surprisingly, we not only choose our own governors, to maintain order by the rules we dictate, but we have maintained the communal advantages of a tribe. We care for the education, the health, the welfare of every one of over 4o million souls. That a species designed to live in small, homogenous groups can maintain with great success this most heterogeneous of societies where we are mostly strangers to each other is extraordinary.

There have been few such societies past or present. That makes this place rather special and that isn’t patriotism talking, that’s fact. That’s the truth.

Can it last? Or will the internal stresses imposed by conflicting tribes eventually fracture our peaceable kingdom and force us back into some simple authoritarian system? What is happening to the south of us, as the “world’s leading democracy” slips with ominous ease into autocracy, does not bode well.

Obviously we can take nothing for granted. In the meantime, we can enjoy our truly remarkable achievement and get on with choosing our next government.