Wired - Douglas E. Richards [36]
“To survive,” continued Kira, “Homo sapiens evolved intelligence, and a ruthlessness and selfishness hardwired into our genes. That’s one side of the equation.” She paused. “But a cunning and ruthless intelligence alone wasn’t enough. Along with intelligence we had to use teamwork to bring down the mastodon. And our brains were so complex they still needed to develop long after birth. Human infants were helpless for far longer than any other animal on Earth. So our selfishness had to be tempered. We had to evolve some sense of teamwork and fair play. We had to sacrifice for our children and put the clan’s survival above our own.”
Desh was totally drawn into the conversation intellectually now, temporarily forgetting to remain suspicious of Kira’s every word and action.
“So those who were only selfish,” she continued, “died out in the long run. Those who were wired to be totally ruthless, but could also cooperate and work in a pack, survived to have offspring. To this day, a delicate balance of pure selfishness in some respects and pure selflessness in others is hardwired into our genes. For the sake of discussion, let’s use extremes. Call this selfishness sociopathy. Call this selflessness altruism.”
“So you believe there is such a thing as altruism? That Abraham Lincoln got it wrong?”
Kira Miller titled her head, intrigued, and gazed at Desh approvingly, impressed that he was familiar with the apocryphal story attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
In the story, Lincoln was traveling on a train and discussing human nature with a fellow passenger. The passenger insisted that such a thing as altruism existed, whereas Lincoln maintained with great vigor that all human acts were purely selfish. During the discussion, Lincoln noticed a baby goat lying across the tracks far ahead. He immediately called for the train to stop, got out, and gently lifted the goat off the tracks. The train started up again and the passenger said, “Why Abe, you just proved my point. You just committed a totally selfless act.” To which Abe replied, “Quite the contrary. I just proved my point. The act was totally selfish.” The passenger was confused. “How so?” he asked. To which Lincoln replied, “If I would have done nothing to save that poor animal, I would have felt just awful.”
Kira’s eyes sparkled as she considered her response. “Insightful question,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I actually think Lincoln was right. But for the sake of this discussion, this is more semantics than anything. Altruistic behavior exists and is hardwired into our genes. Whether it is merely another facet of selfishness isn’t germane to my point.”
Desh raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”
“Which is that this delicate balance between the competing poles of sociopathy and altruism can be shifted in one direction or another very readily. Granted, some people are born with a strong genetic predisposition one way or the other, but most of us are balanced on a razor’s edge. An average man who is the recipient of acts of caring and kindness will often perform charitable acts in return. This same man, given a slight push the other way, will pursue his self-interests even at the expense of others—even at the suffering of his own friends and family. In order to ensure that civilization can exist, that the scales are slightly tipped toward altruism, human intelligence had to invent religion.”
Desh frowned. “Invent religion?”
“That’s right. There have been thousands of different religions through time. And the followers of each of these religions believe that their founders received the divine answer, and that the religious mythology of all other religions is delusional. Almost everyone agrees that all the other religions were invented by man, just not the particular one into which they were born.”
Desh decided not to argue the point.