Humans Are Not GREEDY By Nature

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Many of the negative trends we see, such as avarice being prevalent, were the result of massive cultural conditioning, rather than of some natural, evolutionary force beyond our control. Thinking about this, do you assume that human beings are essentially greedy, struggling to compete and survive, and that more cooperative societies were nothing more than utopian dreams?

Those who espouse this are essentially parroting the narrative of industrial/capital society; examining the situation with the sort of blinders that every culture employs in order to perpetuate itself. These values and understanding of history, these thought patterns all reflect a certain world view.

Mainstream Western thinkers from Adam Smith to Freud and today's academics tend to universalize what is in fact Western or industrial experience. Explicitly or implicitly, they assume that the traits they describe are a manifestation of human nature, rather than a product of industrial/capital culture. This tendency to generalize from Western experience becomes almost inevitable as Western culture reaches out to conquer, eliminate and influence all the earth's people.

We see this echoed in the putrid world of the self-help industry, another cog in the machinery of the industrial corporate mentality.

Every society tends to place itself at the center of the universe and to view other cultures through its own colored lenses. What distinguishes Western culture is that it has grown so widespread and so powerful that it has lost a perspective on itself; there is no "other" with which to compare itself. It is assumed that everyone either is like us or wants to be.

No wonder so many people turn aside any of the larger questions about institutional injustices and power relations and simply foist all the blame, and/or credit, upon the individual or the invisible- "It's just human nature". It's more of the same bullshit that says, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" conveniently ignoring that someone took the straps and makes you pay rent for the boots.

To paraphrase Stephen Gould, human history is contingent upon the self-evident truth that if anything can be called "human nature" it is the persistent and almost universal traits of compassion and cooperation.

The idea that we are basically cruel monsters by our nature is a by-product of the relentless barrage of propaganda telling us that we are all out for only ourselves - that we are all on our own, and that everyone is only motivated by base self-interest.

The manufactured and contrived "philosophy" called "libertarianism" actually attempts to elevate this cult of selfishness in our minds to the level of universal truth or a moral principle.

The fad of self-obsessed inwardly focused seeking after personal spiritual truths is another manifestation of this anti-human doctrine.

The ridicule by the right wing propaganda machine of "bleeding hearts" and any and all expressions of altruism or calls for cooperative effort or compassion is yet another.

All of this attacks our basic humanity and weakens us in the face of exploitation and tyranny.

[Mari333]

1. if you look for the best in people

you usually find it.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

4. Inherently selfish?

Humans are selfish?

Are we really self-seeking, self-centred and egotistical? Well, let’s begin with a few facts.

In Britain, as of March 2006, there were 167,000 registered charities (Charity Commission website) and in the USA there are 1.3 million charities (Independent Sector, a US coalition of non-profit organisations). These charities involve millions of people who give their free time, unpaid, for what they believe are worthy causes that benefit others. Some 85 percent of the British public give regularly to charities. According to a survey by Independent Sector, a US coalition of non-profit organisations, the percentage of volunteers in America is the largest of any country - almost 56 percent. The average hours volunteered per week by an individual is 3.5 hours. According to Charity America, donations to charity for 2002 were $241 billion, 76.3 per cent of this given by individuals.

Now let’s go back to 26 December 2004, when the Asian tsunami hit, killing upwards of 200,000. Overnight charities mobilised all over the world to get food, medical aid and other supplies to the millions left homeless in the disaster zone. The generosity shown towards the victims of the tsunami disaster by, say the people of the USA, were not Bush administration “values”, which Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, seemed to imply during his damage limitation exercise in Indonesia, but rather the basic values of human beings in America, indeed, the world over, who had been motivated by the sorry plight of their fellows overseas.

Unlike other animals, humans are endowed with the ability to sympathise and empathise with their fellow humans. Humans derive great pleasure from doing good, are at their best when faced with the worst and will go to extraordinary lengths to help alleviate the suffering of others.

<snip>

Socialists hold that because we can adapt our behaviour, the desire to cooperate should not be viewed as illogical. We hold that humans are, “by nature”, cooperative and that we work best when faced with the worst and that our humanity shines through when the odds are stacked against us. Today, world capitalism threatens the human race with extinction. The reason this obnoxious system survives is because we have been conditioned to accept it, not born to perpetuate it.

Rest assured: no gene inclines us to defend the profit system.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jul06/text/page10.html

[Mari333]

8. let me add

that I believe non human animals show incredible compassion and empathy also.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. That barn-raising pic is wonderful.

That's the true American culture.

[Blecht]

3. Awesome post

But the battle is a difficult one. That propaganda works, and they (the scumbags with the money) have billions -- well,now TRILLIONS thanks to the latest giveaways -- to pump into it. Their media onslaught does an excellent job of convincing us that we are all greedy snakes looking to screw the other guy to benefit ourselves, that we're stupid not to. The final result is that we are dehumanized.

[ananda]

5. Hurt and distressed people can be greedy.

But I don't think that humans are inherently
selfish and greedy.

I believe that we are born to love and connect
with each other in wonderful and caring ways.

When that is lost, we have lost our humanity.
That's why, on some level, I feel so sorry
for the racists and the rightwing hatemongers..
including, gasp. all the Bushes.

[glowing]

6. but there are still so many afraid to walk away.. they still look to the wall street

ticker as if it were God or a shrine.... too afraid to realize that if we stop looking at the ticker as a God and decide to take care of one another, no one would have to fear that they would grow old and be left behind to rot and die. Fear of changing the bonds of a me, me, me world is hard... Distrust of people is deep and has been fed. Propaganda does work well in a society that says you are free, but chains bind you at every turn.

[The2ndWheel]

7. The cheaper the energy, the less people need each other

[KittyWampus]

9. Humans all have a primitive Reptilian part of their brain, so you are incorrect

Our Reptilian Brain is self-serving and sees life as an Us v. Them competition. It's the "fight or flight" response.

So your thread and its thesis isn't well thought out.

What you might consider is that humans ALSO have a Higher Brain that we can cultivate.

That's the part of our brain that channels empathy and organized activity and connectedness.

Another point, when we are subjected to deprivation and frightful conditions our Reptilian Brain will almost always dominate unless we've spent a lot of time working on our responses.

It's hard to be guided by our Higher Brain function when we are not secure.

Ultimately being greedy or compassionate is a choice

[Orwellian_Ghost]

11. Again

By your statement "That we can cultivate" we see once again that not only is the entirety of social circumstances dismissed and ignored but the onus of one's "nature" is placed exclusively upon "the individual."

"If only one can cultivate the higher parts of their brain" is little different than "if only one would pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and such similar propaganda.

[KittyWampus]

23. that isn't "propaganda" it's freaking BIOLOGICAL FACT. And you failed to read the part

where I go further and explain that cultivating ones Higher Brain functions largely depends on having a safe and secure environment.

You are the perfect example of how humans almost always refuse to acknowledge facts that don't fit into their preconceived conceptual framework.

Human beings have a primitive brain and a higher brain.

The former will dominate unless an individual cultivates the latter.

In order to cultivate the latter, an individual should ideally have a secure environment.

This is all pretty basic biological, sociological and psychological information.

[Mopar151]

26. It's all in how you use it

My friend (the psycholigist) and fellow hillclimb driver have discussed this regarding our sport. If you want to excel behind the wheel, you need to manage both sections of the brain, because they are different tools for different purposes. The lizard brain is much faster, but it won't run complex or buggy programming and it's kinda mean.. the "executive brain" is much better at driving out at the horizion, saving the tires and the like.
And then ther's the guy who rightly said "The best run is when you get the little guy in the back of your head to SHUT UP!"

[I Have A Dream]

10. You had me until this part...

"The fad of self-obsessed inwardly focused seeking after personal spiritual truths is another manifestation of this anti-human doctrine."

How does that at all compare to the selfishness of libertarianism? Do some narcissistic people gravitate toward such things -- yes. However, what you're stating is an unfair generalization about many people who I know to be extremely compassionate, caring people. My own spirituality makes me much less likely to be selfish than I would be otherwise.

[MADem]

14. Compassionate, caring people aren't spending all their time looking INWARD

for "personal" spiritual truths to benefit theselves--not others.

I read that sentence as being critical of the "me, me, MEEEEE!!!!" types.

[I Have A Dream]

16. Yes, that would be narcissistic people who...

are going to do that whether religious, spiritual, atheists, agnostics, believers in the Flying Spaghetti Monster :), etc. Why the emphasis on "spiritual" people? It's not spirituality that makes them the way that they are. It's the way that they approach everything in their lives.

[MADem]

17. Generally, people who want to tell you all about their swell spirituality are pains in the asses.

Do what you will, don't involve me, thanks anyway! I could give a shit about anyone's "self-actualization!"

They are every bit as obnoxious as those assholes who ring your doorbell with their stupid leaflets on a Sunday morning!

[I Have A Dream]

18. I never push anything on anyone. Have a nice day. nt

[MADem]

21. I never suggested that YOU did. Do read in full context, and take things a bit less personally.

You have a nice day, too.

[mudesi]

12. Yes They Are

You don't need capitalism to see that humans are, by nature, greedy. Think of the monarchies of human history. The dictators, the despots, the theocrats, the people in power who kept on clinging to power for as long as possible.

A capitalistic society simply moves the accumulated wealth from kings and queens to CEOs. There was always a small minority of wealthy people at the top who made certain to keep that wealth at the top. And everybody wants to be them, but are held back by them.

[surrealAmerican]

25. It seems to me, the most accurate model to use ...

... would be small, stone age tribes of people. They account for by far the longest stretch of human history (or should I say prehistory).

[MADem]

13. The manufactured and contrived "philosophy" called "libertarianism"

is actually nothing more than a bunch of REPUBLICANS who want to SMOKE POT.

[HereSince1628]

15. 5000 Macedonians in full-battle array requires co-operation

Humans are gregarious and we are well known to order behaviors differently depending upon whether we are interested in our "in-group" or oriented to interact with "out-groups."

The range of variability in behavior from selfishness to altruism is huge. I suspect personal interactions along that spectrum depend upon how inclusive one's "in-group" is. The manner in which we evolved has predisposed for most of us a nervous system with capacities that promote living in a group. But that doesn't mean that each individual will orient to group rather than personal interest.

Humans are also wanderers. We are one of the most vagile of all species on the planet. Migrating often means getting up and leaving a group. It might also mean that within-group conflicts motivate migration. Expansion and survival of our species probably depends more upon getting up and leaving than it means sucking up and being a good member of an old group.

Humans surely are cooperative and compassionate. Certainly there is fossil evidence to suggest that even in pre-history humans were cooperative within groups. But sexual dimorphism in body size of humans, as in other vertebrates, suggest that aggression (probably competitive) is also a part of our species.

But what does being cooperative mean? Joining armies and battling for OUR side is seen as cooperative and good. Attacks against OUR side (by a group exhibiting what they see as cooperative and good) are seen as bad by our side.

Does being cooperative and compassionate eliminate the need for an individual to concentrate wealth to serve his interests?
Doing good as in a barn-raising depends upon concentrating wealth and labor. A man with no money could not build the foundation or buy the lumber needed to build a barn atop that foundation. Many men have been "barnless" over history.

I'm not sure there are any nice little answers to human selfishness. A pile of money is just like manure. It can be a stinking pile everyone in its vacinity resents, or it can be fertilizer that will feed not one family but an entire community. On the other hand, its selfish collection could create a methane generator that well serves the energy needs of a single household.

[NashVegas]

19. It's the Calvanistic Approach.

Using a hyper-rationalized moralism as an excuse for plundering the Other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

In the absence of such assurances from religious authority, Weber argued that Protestants began to look for other "signs" that they were saved. Calvin and his followers taught a doctrine of double predestination, in which from the beginning God chose some people for salvation and others for damnation**. The inability to influence one's own salvation presented a very difficult problem for Calvin's followers. It became an absolute duty to believe that one was chosen for salvation, and to dispel any doubt about that: lack of self-confidence was evidence of insufficient faith and a sign of damnation. So, self-confidence took the place of priestly assurance of God's grace.

Worldly success became one measure of that self-confidence.

** look up Esau in relationship to Calvinism, and connect its relationship to Scottish capitalism and Adam Smith.

[Critters2]

20. Wrong. Do a search on "mimetic theory". nt

[CrispyQ]

22. Wonderful photo & post.

I think you'd like this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Hours-Ancient-Sunlight-Revised/dp/1400051576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240066824&sr=8-1

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
by Thom Hartmann

[tabasco]

24. Overpopulation creates more competition.

Hopefully we do not breed ourselves out of existence.

[MedleyMisty]

27. So there weren't any wars before capitalism?

Absolutely no murders, no prisons, no torture, no starving people, no homeless people, no slavery, no one was oppressed and exploited by anyone else, everyone had equal rights, everyone was treated as a human being worthy of respect by everyone else? I admit I'm not an expert on history, but from what I know I'm fairly sure the human species was not a vision of utopian perfection before capitalism.

That would make us extremely different from other primates, who sometimes go on raids and kill all the males and babies of a neighboring tribe and take the females for themselves - rather like the ethnic cleansing described in the Bible. Which, note, was written pre-capitalism.

Actually. judging from the dress and the carriages and that it seems to be a photograph rather than a drawing, I would say that the barn raising picture isn't old enough to be pre-capitalism.

I found this.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bonobos/dewaal.html

"There's an enormous amount of cooperation. Indeed, among hunter-gatherers, peace is common 90 percent of the time, and war takes place only a small part of the time."

90%. Not 100%.

Also:

"I would say there are people in this world who like hierarchies, they like to keep people in their place, they like law enforcement, and they probably have a lot in common, let's say, with the chimpanzee. And then you have other people in this world who root for the underdog, they give to the poor, they feel the need to be good, and they maybe have more of this kinder bonobo side to them."

Everything is complex. We are not completely selfish and violent and evil. We are not completely generous and peaceful and good. There isn't a static human nature that applies completely and equally to 100% of humans.

I've encountered this argument before, and I think that it stems from different ways of looking at the world. Like we're not talking to each other, but rather at and across each other.

Most of the posts that I see on here about greed and humans are not shrugging and saying that capitalism is inevitable because humans are a lot like chimpanzees. Rather it seems to be those of us who are more like bonobos raging in despair against those who are more like chimpanzees and who seem to have an iron grip on control of our society at the moment.

I don't know - to me, there's a big difference between "Lalalala, we have to just accept and deal with capitalism because humans are just naturally greedy evil mf'ers and it's all cool and good, lalalala." and "WTF is up with these greedy assholes?" I don't understand how raging against capitalism is the same thing as accepting it.

[MedleyMisty]

28. bumping because there's some people that I'm surprised haven't found this thread