Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Capitalism Short Circuits Our Moral Hard-Wiring
In a recent New Yorker piece, Naomi Klein astutely observes that "The crash on Wall Street should be for Friedmanism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for authoritarian Communism, an indictment of an ideology." One hopes so. The financial system's collapse in 2008 offers a rare opportunity to question certain underlying assumptions about our state capitalist economy and its neoliberal ideology.
For the last few years I've been writing about neuroscience research which shows that the human brain is hard-wired for empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's shoes. This is the discovery of the mirror neuron system or MNS, a finding some scientists believe rivals what the discovery of DNA meant for biology. The technical details showing how morality is rooted in biology, hardwired into our neural circuits via evolution rather than handed down from on high, lie beyond this article. But our understanding is increasing at an exponential rate and it's compelling. Earlier this year, UCLA neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni's superb book, Mirroring People (NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2008, paper) made this important research accessible to the lay public.
However, this is not to underestimate the barriers to the public's appreciation of these findings. At the apex of misunderstanding is the cynical, even despairing doubt about the existence of a moral instinct for empathy. From doctrines of original sin and Ayn Rand to Alan Greenspan and David Brooks, certain intrepretations of human nature have functioned to override empathic responses. In the words of famed primate scientist Frans B.M. de Waal "You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions."
We know that cultures are set up to reward some people and disadvantage others. Capitalists maintain domination, in part, through subtly but actively creating society's prevailing cultural norms. Antonio Gramsci's writing reminds us that this control is achieved through the mass media, education, religion and popular culture as subordinate classes assimilate certain ideas as "common sense." It isn't that individual deviations don't occur within the interstices of society but generally they don't threaten elite control.
If we assume that the human brain or more specifically, the aforementioned mirror neuron system, is the implicit target of elite propaganda, then the current economic meltdown provides an almost unprecedented opportunity for us.
Perhaps not since the 1930s have our citizens been more skeptical of received wisdom about our socioeconomic system. That is, the carefully manufactured narrative of market capitalist identity and its assumptions about human nature are now thrown into sharp relief.
Not only has economic reality made a shambles of the canonical model of Homo economicus but robust empirical evidence offers promising alternative responses to basic questions about human nature. Parenthetically, other highly regarded cross-cultural studies reveal that the self-interested behavior predicted by the selfishness axiom simply fail to materialize and cooperation is the norm.
Of course there are also predatory and cruel urges within our nature, complete with their own neural correlates and evolutionary origins. But now we know that organizing an alternative to our vicious system of "natural" hyper-individualism will enhance the opportunity for the empathic aspect of our nature to flourish. Social historian Margaret Jacobs captures my optimism with her insight that "No institution is safe if people simply stop believing in the assumptions that justify its existence." Therein lies both our challenge and responsibility.
62 Comments so far
Show Allthis is old but it says it for me
WE AND ME
TONY 9/3/05
SITTING HERE WONDERING WHAT I CAN SAY TO OTHERS AND TO MYSELF ABOUT WHAT "KATRINA"HAS EXPOSED ABOUT US AS A COUNTRY AND A PEOPLE.I'M BEGINNING TO THINK THAT THE NEW DEAL UNDER FDR WAS AN ILLUSION AND THAT DEEDS DO NOT MATTER AS MUCH AS WORDS.HOW,I WONDER,CAN THIS COUNTRY BE A NATION OF ME'S,A COUNTRY THAT THINKS IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO HAVE THAN TO SHARE.
THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE STEPPING UP TO HELP AND HAVE DONE SO IN THE PAST.BUT AS SOON AS THE CRISIS IS OVER EVERYTHING REVERTS BACK TO THE ME.I'LL BET THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD IS HOPING THAT SOMEONE YANKS US OFF THE WORLD STAGE.OTHER PRIMA DONNA'S HAVE COME AND GONE AND I'LL BET MY ASS IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN.
THE WE LASTS AS LONG AS THE CRISIS DOES AND NO LONGER AND NO COUNTRY,NO HOMELAND (I HATE THAT WORD,IT SOUNDS SO NAZI)NO PEOPLE CAN LAST IF IT IS "ME" THE PEOPLE.
IF IT IS NOT WE THE PEOPLE THEN WHAT?
richardwb1
Tony: i could read this if it wasn't so CAPITALIST!
Please...
(Seriously, capitalism brings out the worst in people. We must evolve beyond the lizard-brain mentality. Right-wing "think" tanks know this, and try to keep us dumb and selfish.
Best Wishes,
World Peace.
Salinas, California, usa
I hold it to be self-evident that there is no ME without WE.
and if you flip ME upside down, you get WE
Actually, you get 3W
Actually, you get 3W
3W . . . as in George Herbert Wanker Bush, George Wanker Bush and Jeb Rancid Wanker Bush.
Capitalism has always held some appeal for those who were motivated to most benefit their own small group, e.g. the individual (group of one), the nuclear family, or the extended family, often at the expense of outsiders. The empathy was felt for members of what one thought of as one's own group, not for the outsiders. Partly as a result of new scientific understandings and new perspectives on ethics, and through the advances in modern technology, most of us are increasingly making connections with others around the community, the nation, and the world, and our deep-felt sense of what constitutes our group is expanding, even for many to a group consisting of the entire human race. The motivations and effects of capitalism conflict with this sense of an expanded group as capitalistic behavior can have negative effects on those we empathize with.
It appears that some of the ultra-elites are countering this trend (not so much by conscious conspiracy but by following similar and related interests) by actions that tend to develop a somewhat cohesive and separate, by a wide gulf in wealth, ultra-wealthy group, whose members will only identify with and feel empathy for others in that group. And I suspect that many are hoping to use genetic engineering to consciously create a permanent and wide chasm, so that there are two clearly separate groups with different interests and different destinies.
So recognizing the importance of and ubiquitousness of empathy is helpful, but we are still stuck in a swamp of greed, malice, and intrigue.
You certainly dont need science to tell you this.
Darwin was used to justify vivisection and social darwinism.
I wish science would investigate the sadism urges in humans-especially why scientists are so detached from concepts of morality and use torture chambers.
That really would be worth studying.
You might be interested in the work of Alice Miller - an Austrian psychoanalyst.
Books include "Thou shalt not be Aware" and many others.
I think that when you put something out there, some part of you, how it is taken by others dictactes what you do from ther on.
One can not be a predator if the prey is ready to eat you up as well.
The systems in most capitalists markets have been set up such that there are a few predators, and the prey can never see their downfall coming.
Well its time to get some transparency, so we can bite back.
Love
Zero
"One can not be a predator if the prey is ready to eat you up as well. "
Yep, that's rigged and unfettered-for-the-elite capitalism no doubt. Taking what you said, back in the 1930s when Cannabis was first obscenely taxed and then banned out right, most people, even those on the left, do not realize or dismiss as a "conspiracy theory" the indisputable fact that the vested business interests who wanted no real competition somehow had to get government to put a ban on the industrial hemp just because their piss poor quality cotton, timber, and petroleum crap would never pass the smell test.
"The systems in most capitalists markets have been set up such that there are a few predators, and the prey can never see their downfall coming. "
And that's why America is stuck in Iraq fighting resource wars for oil. In a real capitalist society, the idea of growing hemp for oil would have been given a chance in the market and given the consequences of our begging the Saudis for oil, petroleum would not be enjoying the "freedom" it got from Big Oil RIGGING the market. Do a google search on hemp, stevia, grass fed vs corn fed meat and diary, etc ... and you'll be amazed as to how the term "free" market is a phoney.
Hard-wired for empathy doesn't mean we're all empathetic. Like all human hard-wires, there are degrees - some people are very empathetic, others not so much.
The problem is, those in the not-so-much category have no problem repressing and/or eliminating those in all other categories, seeing as how their empathy volume knob is turned way down (IOW, they truly just do not give a shit.)
And, since replacing the hard-wiring is impossible, our goal should be the ability to identify the least empathetic among us and do what we can to keep their hands off of our money and power.
Hard wiring does, though, mean there is at least a nascent characteristic which can be nurtured. The root is in good parenting, but one has to be relatively healthy in order to provide that and we are spiraling in the other direction.
Yes, narcissists and sociopaths should be identified and barred from positions of power.
The average person in the US if almost illiterate. Advertisers have taken advantage of our natural tendency to pay attention to moving objects - that's why TV, movies, and the like capture our attention - they once presented life-or-death situations. Now that humans have the ability to destroy the planet, it is all the more important that we use logic and reason to defeat those who would corrupt our natural tendency to be empathetic. The self-defense mechanisms that once protected an isolated group of humans now threaten to annhilate all of us - yet we have not (can not) evolve fast enough to develop new traits that will protect all of us from those old survival traits. We are the victims of our own proliferation - overpopulation. Even if we could properly feed, house, and care for every human being on this planet, we cannot cope with the problems created by overpopulation. We did not evolve to exist in this manner - and our 'survival' skills, developed over millions of years, now threaten to destroy our species. Only the capacity for logic, reason, and learning will save us. The 'capitalism' gene is an anachronism - it has to be suppressed or we will all die - extinction is Nature's answer to those who fail to adapt to changing conditions. We are on the road to extinction now - and capitalism proves it.
I find that we reward the assertive, the extroverted, the "go-getters." If they have a square jaw, well, even better then for us to relinquish our power to so that we will be "safe." Sure, we have empathy, but we do not want that quality in our leaders, at least not over the last few years. Empathy has successfully been branded as weakness by the powers that be. We sign over the instinct in our supposed best interest every time we vote for a "tough" candidate. Thankfully, this fallacy of protection by these people is being exposed as Bush's people's birds come home to roost.
You're right - incentives and rewards are important. Unfortunately, most people vote based on emotions, rather than logic and reason - and look what we get. We get those 'leaders' that abuse power because they're not interested in OUR welfare - only their own. Those 'tough' candidates treat us like dirt - because we're stupid enough to believe their lies. Well, what do you think of people who are stupid enough to harm themselves - jump off a cliff just because someone tells them to do so? Common sense says you shouldn't trust them to make good decisions - so why should you trust the people who they choose to lead them? Goebbels had this all figured out too - and look where it took the Nazis...
We can end authoritarian systems by having no leaders but our collective self.
A leader is authority. Without leaders, there is no authoritarianism.
http://ni4d.us/
Leaders do not have to be 'authoritarian' - if they respect those who follow their lead (fear them) they will lead responsibly. However, if the followers cede their rights, then the 'leader' is justified in doing whatever he/she pleases. All social groups have leaders - without them, you have no 'society' - it can't happen in human societies, or even in most 'higher' animal societies. (That's why communism doesn't work.) This doesn't mean that a single leader makes all decisions - usually there are specialists in particular fields of interest. This is true among most mammalian social groups - that includes us. Authoritarian leaders think they are gods - they have a fatal flaw in their mental processes and should NEVER be allowed a position of power. Our 'fatal flaw' is that those are exactly the kind of people we have been choosing to 'lead' us - right into hell.
Why do we need corruptible leaders when with our technology we can today lead ourselves in a decentralized direct democratic way? All we need to follow are good examples.
That we no longer need to follow a leader, like other mammals do, may seem unnatural. But so do the facts that we can fly in our airplanes, cruise in our ships, drive in our cars and rocket to the moon.
BTW, the opposite of "liberal" is not the nicer sounding word "conservative", but "authoritarian". If we must have leaders, never vote for conservatives. Unfortunately, that does not ensure liberal leaders will not turn conservative once in office and endowed with money-power.
Hmm, may sound crazy to most, but I'm not so sure about the "moon" part.
Remember, America has written the book on perception & is the universal master of it.
How would you feel now if we really never made those trips?
Curious.
I take it a step further. Leaders must love those they lead, really care about them, in order to lead appropriately, effectively, and to pursue a humane trajectory. The world is currently "led" by people who seek to exploit the masses for personal gain, power, etc.
DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP IS ESSENTIAL.
Most moderate size groups (over 5 people) will, if left to themselves, fall prey to power struggles. "I" want to be heard, obeyed, respected. The result is either 1) that the group devolves into chaos and accomplishes very little, or 2) an individual or an oligarchy seizes control. Is this a biological or a cultural product? I don't know, but it is what I see around me; the well known dialectic between anarchy and dictatorship.
SKILLED DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP is the way out. There are people who are more interested in hearing every point of view than in winning for themselves. There are known techniques. Go around the circle; insist that everyone be heard; ask more questions to stimulate thought than assertions to control it. If enough of us learn these techniques, and study to learn more; if we practice listening and appreciation, THEN we will be able to challenge capitalism and all of the other systems of domination.
We can not create economic or political democracy unless we first know how to practice it within our own movement.
armybrat wrote:
communism doesn't work
COMMENT:
That depends what you think is/was/could be communism.
What Marx wrote has never been tried. If you talk about what has been tried that was called communism like the Soviet Union, that wasn't communism nor is what is called communism in North Korea. These very totalitarian states were not the bottom-up "Dictatorships of the proletariat" nor the democracy that Marx and others called for.
The Soviet Union did work in some ways for a large percentage of the proletariat; one only has to look at the poverty, the reduction in health care, the homelessness, street crime and organized crime of capitalist Russia today to appreciate that the Soviet Union did make some things work that capitalism isn't making work.
What exists in North Korea is hardly communist by any reasonable definition. What-ever the system is, it certainly isn't working well for the majority. However, for reasons going back to the Korean "Police Action" and its aftermath, any form of government would have had a difficult time in the north of Korea. When Korea was one piece, the south with decent soil was the bread basket, the north with its poor soil was the industrial part of the country.
The US destroyed virtually all industry in the north and most in the south by leveling them with bombs. After the war the north was politically isolated, got little help from outside, and had a difficult time providing adequate food for the population.
The south in contrast was virtually rebuilt by the US, turned into an industrial giant with its cities and industries surrounded by good farmland to feed the people. Therefore, even if the North had become capitalist and everything else had remained the same, the North couldn't have had a government that worked well.
Cuba calls itself a communist state and it can't really qualify either, however it takes some kind of blind love of capitalism to say that the Cuban government doesn't work: in health, education, literacy, sustainability, and in many other ways it works far better than the capitalism of otherwise similar "Third World" countries. In fact, in those areas just mentioned it works better than the number one capitalist country on the planet: the United States.
Gary Olson reports, "cooperation is the norm" for humans. Capitalism's very nature is anti-cooperative. In business the owners don't cooperate with workers, they are historically at odds. In government capitalists fight for everything they can get for themselves and take away from the workers.
Capitalists wherever they are want everything in their country and every other country to be privatized. When the means of production are owned cooperatively, the capitalist can't take a share of all the workers wages and thereby live in luxury from the fruits of their labors.
Thus, the capitalist tries to crush public ownership in his own country and looks for any means possible to crush it in other countries. Through institutions such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization the capitalists have tried, and had considerable success, in forcing other countries to privatize. If that doesn't work, then they get their country to force other countries to open up for exploitation via subterfuge, bribes, covert and overt military actions. In November of 1998 on CNN the head of the CIA stated that the sanctions (in truth a siege resulting in a million deaths) would continue until the Iraqi government opened up to "free trade."
In these ways capitalism works very well: for the capitalists. For the workers they exploit, not so much.
Capitalism has been tried and found wanting. It can't be said in all honesty that communism doesn't work until some country actually tries it.
What can be said is that various publicly owned enterprises have worked well for most people who have had access to them such as Medicare, public ownership of public utilities, public health care in those countries that have it such as Cuba.
Perhaps true Marxist communism would not work anywhere in any country. But the common ownership of institutions such as those just mentioned are the essence of communism which is socialism, and cooperation. Cooperation has proven to work for all, capitalism has not.
You say that you can't have a society without leaders and that is why communism doesn't work? Really? And just which country is it where communism didn't work that had no leaders? None. Which would seem to prove that no country has truly been communist.
i agree with this.
communism - at least in what capitalists often deride as its "failed utopia" - has not EVER been achieved yet. its failure in china , russia, etc.....-- if anyone has noticed - is not only because of the reality that these nations largely , despite their professing "communist - proletariat revolution" , were really functioning in a DEFENSE mode WITHIN a global capitalist structure already in place -- and capitalism ITSELF had not yet "failed" in contrast.
what marx predicted actually is FURTHER AHEAD -- that FIRST capitalism - as it has spread - will have to establish itself, then EXHAUST itself - globally , in fact, and then ONLY THEN will a true socialist structure , and THEn a communist structre evolve.
his prediction was that capitalism lays the foundation of ITS own demise to be eventually replaced by socialism which will ITSELF be replaced by communism....just as capitalism replaced mercantilism which replaced feudalism.
Very interesting article by Gary Olsen. What Gary is doing is confirming the existence of "the spirit" of empathy with biological research. I guess we need that hard physical evidence in our materialistic culture.
But all along, many people are aware that American capitalistic culture is the destroyer of spirituality/empathy/compassion/fairness/justice and the destroyer of American democracy itself because democracy is an exercise of the human spirit as well.
By the way, capitalism and private enterprise can be okay on a local level, but once capitalism is institutionalized it becomes an uncontrollable and unsustainable beast. Institutional capitalism seeks only its' own perpetuation through any means whatsoever. It becomes an acceleration system without breaks and blinded by greed, it eventually drives off the cliff and at great public expense.
I agree with Gary Olsen, our economic current crisis is now the opportune time for deep national introspection. It may be the last evolutionary opportunity for humankind.
Sioux Rose
STEPHEN: Your meditations must be rich lately, for you're on an evident eloquent roll, and I tip my (virtual) hat to you, sir. Great post.
Did you say, "Beast"?
The Anti-christ...if you're into mega-stories of the Rev...is not a WHO.
It's a WHAT.
The Corporation.
I totally agree. Free enterprise or capitalism on a HUMAN SCALE (i.e. small, local) is wholesome. The "too big to fail" model of capitalism is dangerous, self-destructive, shallow, and inhuman. It is the size and scope of corporations that need to be limited (Sherman antitrust anyone?). In India, there are practically no chain stores (A Walmart could only have one location, for example); this encourages choice, competition, and a more level-playing field for enterprise. American capitalism is anchored in "winner take all" mentality and its goal is to devour all competition; it doesn't give a damn about improving the widget or raising quality of life. It just wants to win at all cost$!
Not all capitalism is bad. Regulated capitalism is what is needed and I remember the days my parents and relatives could rest in peace back then. Unfettered and rigged capitalism, on the other hand, is what we need to get rid of.
The fable about the devil not being able to come in unless he is invited is apt here. Decency toward others, and therefore oneself, does not allow one to buy at a price which is unfairly low, and then sell for a price that is unfairly high.
Who is to say what is fair? Each person must determine this for himself. People sell themselves at different prices. If my business makes a profit which is neither too great nor too small, it is fair.
I suggest that making money as a measure of success is morally incorrect, and can never bring satisfaction.
I believe that those who have more than they need, and who don't share the wealth, develop a kind of mental illness which manifests as narcissism and greed.
I've wondered this for a long time: what exactly is so "Christian" about capitalism? If Marxism hadn't adopted atheism as a sideline, would Christians feel the same way about it? 'Cause it seems to me that the Church, particulalrly its more evangelical sections, is firmly in thrall to Mammonism...
The Anti-christ...if you're into mega-stories of the Rev...is not a WHO.
It's a WHAT.
The Corporation.
CAPITALISM and USA being synonymous - and declared by the USA as the "only way" and for that as "righteous" by the Christian nation ....it's instructive to remember an instance , after the second world war...when the USA was "the leader" of everything under the sun ...and naturaly prominent people across the globe were asked by US magazines to intone glorious remarks about how GREAT the USA is .
TIME magazine sent reporters all over -- and one asked Mahatma Gandhi ...expecting obviously for the famous man to also join in the global chorus of singing the praises of the USA...and asked:
"mister gandhi - what do you LIKE about the USA?"
Gandhi: "I do not like your christians...they are so....unchristlike".
this in response to the question above:
what is consistent between Christianity and capitalism?
NOTHING. even if both are CLAIMED by the USA.
it is called by psychologists : "COGNITIVE DISSONANCE"...
"the ability to hold two opposing concepts at the same time and accept them as both valid".
that is the same as "WAR IS PEACE". .....
"spying on YOU preserves your freedoms".
"lowering wages produces prosperity".
The Megachurch industries seem to be the only industries we have left...and they are hyper-profitable. In fact, some of these churches preach idolatry of the golden calf, even at the expense of the struggling worker. It has become a strange cocktail mix of religion-capitalism-militarism, where the $$$ are recycled ad infinitum in a closed loop.
To the editors of Common Dreams: More like this one please.
Anybody heard of David Graeber's work? He's an anthropologist who is also trying to expose the pathological assumptions of capitalism
Capitalism is by nature exploitive, which puts people in the position of choosing to profit by causing harm. This erodes the fundamental sense of connectedness that is every human's birthright and produces narcissists and sociopaths who seek to further control etc. which is what we have now; sociopaths in control.
If,
“neuroscience research which shows that the human brain is hard-wired for empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's shoes. This is the discovery of the mirror neuron system or MNS, a finding some scientists believe rivals what the discovery of DNA meant for biology,”
then how is it possible,
“Capitalists maintain domination, in part, through subtly but actively creating society's prevailing cultural norms. Antonio Gramsci's writing reminds us that this control is achieved through the mass media, education, religion and popular culture as subordinate classes assimilate certain ideas as "common sense." It isn't that individual deviations don't occur within the interstices of society but generally they don't threaten elite control?”
Certainly sympathy, not just the more limited experience of empathy, is a human trait, else society would be impossible. Surprisingly economists acknowledge this, David Colander conceding,
“Different sciences have various explanations for why people do what they do. . . . Economists . . . argue that if we want an analysis that’s simple enough to apply to policy problems, . . . heavy psychological explanations are likely to get us mixed up. At least to start with, we need an easier underlying psychological foundation. And economists have one—self-interest. People do what they do because it’s in their self-interest.” [David Colander, Microeconomics, sixth edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2006) 188.]
Accepting “heavy psychological explanations . . . get us mixed up” because considering more variables than the “easier underlying psychological foundation” of economics, it is difficult to understand how economic resolution of “policy problems” can be successful since considering fewer variables than apparently more accurate “heavy psychological explanations,” they must fail more often than not.
Still, sympathy being wholly determinant, how is corruption possible? How can conceivably, “people simply stop believing in the assumptions that justify its [an institution’s] existence?” Only if humans are not wholly sympathetic. Ignorant of the literature on the, “mirror neuron system or MNS,” I must wonder if less than a complete depiction is presented in this article.
Sioux Rose
PHILANDREL: Just as your physical body is organized into systems where the stomach does not try to do the heart's function, the sympathy-empathy aspect is a counterbalance to what some have termed "the selfish gene."
In astrology, Venus and Mars are compliments and rule the opposite sign/seasons (and related equinoxes)of autumn and spring. Venus is the part of our natures that seeks love and community, and is willing to share. Mars is the portion that thinks ONLY of self and can be unbelievably aggressive in acting to support its perception of self-interest.
These principles are personal, collective AND universal. We answer for all of them, just as we are not just an ear or a thumb. Systems, it's all about integrated systems, on energetic and tangible planes.
My friend, you take it apart and look at it but you don't put it back together: ANALYSIS EVALUATION SYNTHESIS.
Of course we act out of self interest, but the thing looks different when the 'we' is collective.
You, better than anybody, know that we ARE each other. It's not a view available to everyone, especially those with power; but who knows? Things could change. Especially if we make sure it is 'one of the ideas that are lying around.' And God knows this is a crisis.
Sioux Rose
NIETZSCHE: I was saying they both relate... the I principle within the WE (circle). Not sure what you are reacting to?
My guess, SIOUXROSE, is NIETZSCHE is responding to me, not you. Assuming so, here goes. An open universe unconstrained by a limit must be assumed, where knowledge does not converge as individuals move in separate directions. Inescapable ambiguity sends them off on different paths which increasingly diverge, as new ambiguities born of initial choices are resolved. People grow more and more apart, with supply and demand never coming into equilibrium.
Profit being always possible only on the assumption of an open universe in which equilibrium is nonexistent, entrepreneurship tends toward increased human estrangement. Common understanding continuously decreasing, disorder continuously increases in an evolution toward entropy whereby, "they are in the condition which is called war . . . . and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." [Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by John Plamenatz (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1969) 143.]
Humanity surviving as a species, on evolutionary assumptions, humans must exhibit a "moral sentiment" whereby,
"As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation." [Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, eds. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984) 9.]
Note the author of this quotation.
Assuming humans converge in their existential understanding, as classical and contemporary Liberals do, nature need be constant. This is most plausible hypothesizing a benevolent supreme being. Most plausible not so hypothesizing, nature need be inconstant. Now optimally species values must converge in part and diverge in part. Convergence provides for species adaptation in the predictable current environment, and divergence provides for species adaptation in the unpredictable future environment.
So, yes, I consider humans both "good" (convergent) and "bad" (divergent) to no predictable extent.
Please Don’t Jump
Mr Sugarstein please don't jump
there's room for one more engaging hump
like Trumps that don't take their lumps
just stump for ‘An act of God’... please don’t leap
Begger thy neighbor still has plenty of feet
like the ones that compete
since....
Rational Homo economicus man is so upbeat
and he’s got the whole world as his teat
Is failure the host for success we need?
Is the chaff of sustenance a snake or a staff?
Do we compound the bull or cull the golden calf?
What is the footprint of desire?
Sugarstein is your limmo now for hire?
I'm sure the discovery of the mirror neuron system is a profound one for science, but much of our difficulty lies in how far behind the reality curve our social constructs lag behind the findings of science. Just think of George Wanker Bush. We're hard-wired for empathy but we're deeply brainwashed against it, and so most in the US, even those calling themselves progressives, still religiously believe that capitalism is by far the highest achievement in economic and social history. Arguing otherwise, among both highly and poorly educated Americans, can be like trying to convince them that reading actuarial tables is better than sex. The poor little mirror neuron doesn't stand a chance against the 24/7/365 onslaught of a hypercommercialized culture, beginning with the umpteen millions of TV ads, print and radio ads, and the braindead megaphone (as George Saunders brilliantly puts it) of all corporate media, including far too much of the internet, droning ceaselessly into our sensory systems that if we're not buying something constantly we're a total failure as a human being.
Maybe we don't have to 'get the word out'. When the time is right for an idea it seems to occur to thousands of people at once, like a flock of birds changing direction at the same time.
I don't know if it's parapsychological or what but it happens all the time: The enlightenment--all over all at once. The scientific revolution. The great religious awakening about 500 BCE.
I'd love to see it before I die, awareness dawning on enough people at once to make it the dominate paradigm the world over. It could save our planet and save our souls.
Maybe we don't have to 'get the word out'. When the time is right for an idea it seems to occur to thousands of people at once, like a flock of birds changing direction at the same time.
I don't know if it's parapsychological or what but it happens all the time: The enlightenment--all over all at once. The scientific revolution. The great religious awakening about 500 BCE.
I'd love to see it before I die, awareness dawning on enough people at once to make it the dominate paradigm the world over. It could save our planet and save our souls.
"The collective mind" - we are all one.
Ephraim wrote:
Arguing otherwise, among both highly and poorly educated Americans, can be like trying to convince them that reading actuarial tables is better than sex.
COMMENT:
Ouch! I must confess that while I can understand that reading actuarial tables may, at times, be more important than sex (although probably not to me) I doubt you could convince me it is better.
This article doesn't mention an even more important recent scientific finding- that monkeys exhibit an innate sense of fairness and equity
popular level article
http://www.primates.com/monkeys/fairness.html
scientific article
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/47/18854
Proponents of capitalism maintain that it is inevitable because innate human nature is greedy and self-centered. Now we have evidence that a sense of fairness and equity is innate in primate nature. Perhaps it's actually the case that dislike for capitalism is a consequence of innate human nature.
recent years-long studes conclusions , so far , have shown that even among the higher animal species (apes, tigers, etc.) -- while they are predatory in order to survive : once they are satiated -- seem to not care for "more" to consume, unlike humans or at least what capitalism seems to ENCOURAGE and promotes as "natural".
at least on youtube - it seems that there are plenty of evidence of observed behavior among animals, even of different species in which once a predator has a "sense" of security according to the necessities to exist , propagate properly , etc.. will even ADOPT the offspring of species IT has just eaten or is normally predating.
tigers have been known to adopt Piglets for instance, suckling along with their fellow "baby tigers" ...a cheetah or lion was observed - having just eaten a MOTHER gazelle, actually becoming curious about the orphaned baby gazelle and adopted it, until it failed to protect it from the "king" lion of the group that ate the gazelle when the "mother lion" of the gazelle wasn't actually looking because she had to go hunt some more.
social scientiests seem to have recently debunked the "capitalist" claims about the primacy of "greed and selfishness" by showing that in the brain -- PLEASURE CENTERS fire up like MAD -- if a human being is able to properly give "caring" to another human being....and one of their sharpest demonstrations was how MOTHERS who breast-feed -- during the time of breastfeeding actually go into what the scientists said was a "TRANCELIKE" state of pure satisfaction. ...that their eyes , if one observed sharply , and they were undistracted, and only involved in the act of "giving" (which also meant "giving UP" their milk and protein to be consumed by another creature as a life-giving substance) - their EYES would have a certain "look" -- like glazed or something, like being "high".
it almost makes one weep at the beauty of this and to think that THIS MIGHT be what we REALLY are...beings whose greatest pleasure is in GIVING rather than TAKING.