It's All Relative by A. J. Jacobs

 Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

Interspersed with the more serious books I read, I try to keep some lighter fare on my nightstand to balance things out. Plus, my kids can sometimes enjoy this sort of book and we can talk about it. 

 It’s All Relative isn’t fluff, to be sure. Rather, it is a non-fiction account of the author’s exploration of genealogy, his acquaintance with people who are trying to put together the family tree for all humans, and a giant “family reunion” he held based on the truth that we are all related. By “we,” Jacobs mostly means “homo sapiens,” but with the clear understanding that all life is related. 

 

Jacobs’ reunion project and the book are in significant part driven by his desire to see the concept of “we’re family” broadened beyond the immediate tribe. It is hard to blame him for this. The last couple of decades have seen the rise of nasty tribalist movements determined to dehumanise and persecute those humans who are less like us than was prefer. To push back against that is a noble cause, supported by science, empathy, and humanism. It is also thoroughly Christian, although not exclusively so - Jacobs is a secular Jew, and my experience has been (unfortunately) that “Christian” in modern America has nothing to do with Christ’s teachings and everything to do with fear and hatred toward outsiders. 

 

The book isn’t a bunch of serious philosophy, though, but rather a collection of humorous stories about Jacobs’ planning of the reunion, the people he meets, and a bunch of fun rabbit trails along the way. He writes in a breezy and self-deprecating manner which makes the book fun and compelling. Because the book goes all over the place, a summary beyond that is pointless. It is best experienced, not described. 

 

There are plenty of great lines along the way, and, as usual, I made a few notes….

 

First up is an observation about who our family is, if we truly embrace humankind as related, an epiphany when he starts exploring online genealogy sites. 

 

Here I am, sitting in my home office in New York City, subjected to endless Internet headlines about our world’s seeming descent into disaster - wars, racism - and up pops this startling news about how I’m connected to thousands of other humans across the globe. These newfound cousins would likely come in all shapes, sizes, and ethnic backgrounds: tall cousins and short cousins, white cousins and black cousins, carnivorous cousins and vegan cousins, gay cousins and straight cousins, cilantro-loving cousins and cousins who believe cilantro tastes like Satan’s unwashed tube socks. 

 

I particularly included this quote for my, um, “cousin” Sara, who does not like cilantro. (I’m the cilantro-loving cousin, by the way…) 

 

Next up, this observation from when Jacobs attends the Eighty-Fifth annual Lilly Family Reunion in West Virginia. (The current Guinness record holder for reunion size.) 

 

I pass an exit that features two signs, one for Southern X-Posure Gentleman’s Club and one for Appalachian Bible College. Highly efficient: You can sin and repent at the same exit. 

 

This reminded me a lot about our trip to western Texas in 2019. Here are my own observations at that time: 

 

We chose the route through El Paso to get to Carlsbad. The way they are coloring the overpasses terracotta and turquoise is quite nice. My kids noticed a few things about Texas which is pretty much a microcosm of its excesses: The number of gigantic megachurches that likely cost mid to high eight figures to build and the number of aggressively anti-abortion and fundamentalist billboards are only surpassed by the fireworks and gun shops - and the dozens of strip clubs. In other words, Bakersfield but bigger and louder. 

 

It does not seem accidental that the more aggressively religious a place is, the more the strip clubs thrive. 

 

Jacobs can’t resist poking a little fun at the Lilly clan - they pretty much give him all the hillbilly jokes first anyway. And the nicknames. They sell T-shirts with the nicknames of legendary Lillys from the past. However, the one that cracked me up the most was this line. 

 

Many of the Lilly men sport big beards, suspenders, flannel shirts, and trucker hats. Give them a glass of absinthe and a Zadie Smith novel and they could pass for hipsters in Brooklyn.

 

I laughed long at that one. Speaking of reunions, he also attended Twin Days - he has twins, after all. The theme that year was “Twinstock,” so hippie stuff everywhere. 

 

We buy Lucas and Zane tie-dyed “Twins Days” T-Shirts, which they put on right then and there. 

“Peace, dude!” Zane says, and holds up his fingers in a peace sign.

“Peace back at you, dude!” Lucas says, and holds up his fingers in a peace sign. 

Then they begin to poke each other in the face with their peace signs. Sort of Three Stooges meets Haight-Ashbury. I’m impressed that they can take an age-old symbol for peace and somehow turn it violent. Love and conflict - an excellent summary of family. 

 

That would totally be my kids. On a more serious note, Jacobs gets genetics professor George Church to speak at the reunion. Church opines that while the reunion is a fun idea, it will take more to actually unite humanity. 

 

He also told me that if we really want to unite the world, we should take advantage of human tribalism and have us all come together to fight a common enemy. In other words, if I can threaten an alien invasion, that would help.

 

Alas, not even Covid seems to have done that. Sigh. Also on point is a paraphrase from Richard Dawkins. 

 

In his book, The Ancestor’s Tale, Richard Dawkins talks about the “tyranny of the discontinuous mind.” What he’s saying is that reality often lacks hard boundaries. Species blend into one another, as do the differences we interpret as races. The world does not consist of tidy cubbyholes. Almost everything is on a continuum. It’s not only incorrect to reject the nuanced view of the world; it’s dangerous. It can lead to racism and fundamentalism, to us-versus-them thinking. 

 

Um, hello there White Evangelicalism and Donald Trump…

My journey away from Evangelicalism was driven in significant part by their refusal to embrace a nuanced view of the world. EVERYTHING had to be us versus them, black and white, good and evil. And Dawkins is right that that kind of thinking leads to nasty consequences. 

 

Oh, and Jacobs interviews the late Barbara and George H. W. Bush. Who are, as always, gracious. Jacobs makes an astute observation:

 

I’m a Democrat, as is legally mandated for those who live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but I’m also a fan of the elder Bush (who, by the way, seems like a free-love Trotskyite compared with today’s Republicans.) 

 

Yep. Pretty much. The era of reasonable and non-reactionary Republicans appears to be over. Also nice is the Bushs’ response to the usual question of “what’s the secret to your long and happy marriage?” 

 

Mrs. Bush answers: “I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends.” 

 

That is so true. In my experience as a divorce attorney, I can say that I would have a lot less business if spouses simply treated each other with the same kindness, courtesy, and decency they treat their friends. On a related note, if people treated their friends like many do their spouses, well, they wouldn’t have friends for very long. (I have seen this too, actually…) 

 

I found that I agreed with Jacobs on a number of unexpected things too. He isn’t particularly hung up on burials and funerals. 

 

When my kids are a bit older, I plan to tell them that I don’t particularly care what happens to my body after I die. If they want to save money, they can bury me in an IKEA dresser or keep my ashes in a Ziploc bag under the sink. Doesn’t matter to me. 

What I would love, though, is if, every once in a while, they could look at a photo of our family playing Marco Polo, or read a letter I wrote to them at camp, or watch a video of our family attempting and failing to play a didgeridoo. 

 

And that really is the way I feel. My body can return to the stardust from whence it came. Keep my memory alive in your hearts. Know that I loved you. 

 

Another thing that I noted with approval is the chapter on privacy. “Do we have more privacy now than our ancestors had?” The answer, of course, is “yes.” In recent history, believe it or not, if you were anybody at all, the freaking newspapers would print that you were hospitalized and what the diagnosis was. (Ah yes, that’s why HIPAA exists…) Busybodies ruled the world. Jacobs was shocked when he researched his ancestors and found all kinds of embarrassing and private stuff on the public record. But that’s how it was. Google may know a lot about me, but my neighbors aren’t constantly up in my business. 

 

And another one: ancestry is a double-edged sword. Back in the day, it was mostly used by the aristocracy in their “hand” measuring contests. And now, while it connects people to each other and their ancestors, it is also wielded by white supremacists, who even use DNA testing to show just how “white” they are. Yuck. Jacobs again makes an astute observation. 

 

This conundrum reminds me of the Internet as a whole. It’s an open question whether, in the end, the connectedness offered by the Internet will be good or bad for society. The comedian Kumail Nanjiani is on the pessimistic side. He recently wrote this assessment of the Internet: “Hope: Internet will allow people from different backgrounds to communicate and understand one another. Reality: All the racists found each other!”

 

Yes to both. For many of us, it HAS enabled us to be and stay connected with people from different backgrounds. My own experience of social media has been one of connections made, in some cases around the world, and has helped me to get useful feedback on my blind spots as a white American. On the other hands, good lord, all my racist acquaintances and family have “come out” so to speak. 

 

I’ll end with a couple of people who contributed good things to the project. First up is Cass Sunstein, an actual close relative of Jacobs. Sunstein shares the goal of using the reality of human relatedness to further the goal of human harmony. Sunstein has long been one of my favorite legal writers, so it was nice to see his name here. 

 

Second was Henry Louis Gates, who actually spoke at the reunion. Jacobs gives a brief quote, which is a good way to end this post. 

 

Every schoolboy and schoolgirl now knows that we descended from a small group of people in Africa. From Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam. But it’s one thing to know it. It’s another to see it demonstrated fifty thousand years later. Despite all our differences - differences in geographical origin, skin color, hair texture, nose structure - despite all these differences, we are all related. We are all cousins, whether we like it or not. 

 

We are indeed. Some of y’all need to go stand in the corner until you are done with your tantrum and ready to stop hitting your other cousins. Just saying.