Illustration by Jed Dunkerly

I racked up enough miles on Northwest last year to get elite status, but here’s a confession: I hate flying. The up-close interaction with 150-odd plane-mates, especially with the 17 inches of personal space you get in Veal class—surely this is inhuman!

The irony is that for most of the, oh, let’s say 72,000 years we’ve been human, close contact like this has been much more normal than our modern conceit of “personal space.” In fact, we’re supposed to be highly tuned to live in groups of 50 to 150 people. The Right ripped Ms. Clinton when she wrote It Takes a Village. While I agree she missed a bit on the particulars, socio-biologically speaking, she was spot-on.

As my seat-mate launches into a sneezing fit and the baby in the seat ahead fills his drawers, I think about the roots of our communal living. Big meals would’ve been shared in common. Domestic disputes would’ve all been public. Sex? With little to no privacy (hey, where’d Og and An sneak off to?), intimate moments would’ve been more Bacchanal than Barry White. It must have been like your college dorm or Burning Man 24/7.

The real political challenge for our communitarian brains is getting beyond that 150-person limit. We’ve evolved with a built-in ability to define a clique: “This is our group; these are our resources.” You see this even on a plane—after we land, I always feel a little like I’ve shared a deep, personal experience with my fellow passengers.

Our political institutions are just not well designed for our biology. Most of them are based on the Lockean idea of a small freeholder and his nuclear family protecting their rights and property against all comers. But biologically speaking, the individual doesn’t really exist except within the context of the group. Political and legal systems based on tribal ties would be very different … albeit it’s tough to imagine modernity without the concept of the individual.

So maybe our brains haven’t evolved for the specific purpose of being strapped into an aluminum rocket with strangers, but the fact that we can tolerate the experience at all says a lot about where we as humans came from—and maybe just a little about how to look at the problems we’ve created for ourselves.

Now, would you mind moving your elbow?

For more Matski, check out brunoandtheprofessor.com.