Hey OneSheep! It’s Sunday, over here!
But the Sun isn’t out…
Because, I’m just a survival machine for my genes. And my family are carrying my genes, at least part of them… My friends are close enough to be considered family, as they share some of the same behaviors and values that I have, that my genes direct me to have.
(I’ve been reading Dawkins’ Selfish Gene book and some of it may have rubbed off!)
Oh Dawkins, he puts forth a logical arguments in terms of the selfish gene, but he exaggerates too much the facts. In reality, people are much more altruistic than he depicts. We are not so naturally tied to our “genetic selfishness”, as many psychologists and evolutionary scientists have pointed out (and not just the “religious ones”
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The natural response has evolved to concern the tribe elements.
Nowadays, the tribe has lost a bit of meaning… we belong to a country, typically a damn big country (compared to a tribe) and full of lots of people we don’t know.
We are led to apply that natural response to our countrymen.
And, in a global village, we are to apply it to the whole world.
- Destroy those harming good, innocent folk.
- Destroy those who are preventing good, innocent genes from thriving.
Given that chimpanzees and a few other tribal species also have this natural response, and given that pre-humans studied have all been tribal, these natural responses have probably been around a very long time.
I can’t say what I’d do for certain, but I’d guess that I would kill under some circumstances.
Within my society, I see no reason to do so… but, if I ever find myself in another kind of society… who knows?
I doubt he saw any value in them, except as discardable play things…
People can learn anything.
“big experiment”? why do you say that?
It’s an experiment in terms that we have a set of genes that compel us to protect our own tribes and resources by blinding our empathy and destroying the competition and/ or the enemy (as you admit). We have a set of genes that operated on the great motivator of death-by -ostracism, but ostracism no longer means death. (By ostracism, I mean that we naturally resent and see negative in those who violate our rulebooks).
Since the world has become a smaller place, we have weapons that can annihilate all humanity, but we can still have our empathy blocked in our minds, it is possible that we self-exterminate. This is one reason why fostering forgiveness is so important.
Shouldn’t we then try to teach people to realize when they are seeing negative value in a fellow human?
Thanks. You’re making me think a bit
Yes, I think we’re almost on the same track here… but you let them monsters get away with more than I do.
Pocaracas, you’ve got me scratching my head a bit here (wish there was an emoticon for that!)
First of all, remember the definition of forgiveness? Understanding and forgiveness does not mean letting people get away with something. Cheryl Ward Kaiser, for example, (a person I have speak to groups because she is local) forgave the people who raped her daughter and killed her husband, but did not hesitate to do all she could to get them imprisoned. She did convince the judge not to give death sentences, and she has reached out to all four of her attackers in prison, trying to restore justice in a different way.
restorativejusticeinternational.com/2013/npr-radio-interview-with-crime-victim-cheryl-ward-kaiser/
Secondly, are you kidding me? In one sentence you are confirming that we need to teach people to realize that they are seeing negative value in a fellow human, and in the next sentence you refer to a fellow human as a monster.
It may very well be that you no longer see negative value in Charles Roberts, that you are using “monster” as a description of a person who does very evil things, but you no longer see him as having negative value. (i.e. "he is a monster, but he is human just like the rest of us, ignorant and capable of blocked empathy)
If this is the case, it is probably important to point out that when we describe a fellow human as a “monster”, “evil”, “bad”, “wicked”, “a jerk”, or any other set of negatives, we are in fact encouraging people to see negative value in someone else because the standard definition of all of those words involves resentment and perception of negative value by the communicator. There are plenty of emotion-neutral words such as “conservative” “liberal” “atheist” “Muslim” that can take on a different meaning when delivered with resentment, and when we deliver with resentment, it is because we have yet to understand and forgive, right?
It seems to me that the average human carries around so many resentments that we are largely desensitized. The ones that we deal with are the ones that bother our lives the most, like resentment of a spouse or other family member. To deal only with these is stop-gap; there is a path to a deeper love and appreciation of humanity, and I testify that the path is one of understanding and forgiving everyone, and every part of ourselves, that we resent. It is not an impossible task; the resentments we hold are finite.
Thanks, pocaracas. You know, I miss Granny. She had a way of making me express myself that made everything more clear in my mind. You are now providing that opportunity, and I appreciate that. It is so different and refreshing, to be conversing with someone like yourself who is not trying to discredit me.
