Are all humans overall selfish sponges?

Are all humans overall selfish sponges?

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I notice groups showing so much sympathy and compassion towards fellow members of their group yet complete coldness and cruelty to outcasts and those outside their group. Bullying is a major element here. Are people like this because their selfish and the dont see the benefit of showing kindness to an outsider when they can just take the Mick out of them to elevate their status within their group? Is it because there�s no reciprocity?>>

So now i ask you are individual human beings overall extremely selfish.>>

Also do you believe the majority of humans are social cowards!

 

Originally posted by Mila It's why women wear make-up, just a modern version of caveman face painting to emphasize the lips, eyes, and other things that are very obvious naturally in women with high estrogen (and consequently fertility) levels.

I might as well say it before someone else does. "Except in Bosnia, where caveman face painting is still the norm."

It has much to do with education. In most tribal societies individuals are of little importance and the collective is most important. Humans (and occasionally other animals too) have instincts of solidarity that compete internally with those of cowardy and egoism (mere individual survival): result: people risking their lifes to save others' even if unrelated - sometimes but more often that it would be expected if we were just "egoist sponges".

Said that, and displacing the discussion to a more rationalist speculation: egoism implies solidarity. We are social ciratures that can hardly even survive without the others. We need the others and we need structures of solidarity.

One problem is that our Capitalist model enhances the individualist instincts and despises mostly the solidarian ones. This makes us feel sad when we work and consume because it's totally unnatural. That's one of the aspects of the famous "alienation" of producer and product. Capitalism makes all structures to go through by its individualist molds - yet humans need more than that - and therefore we are always unsatisfied even if we have so many things and so much money. It is because we lack of social solidary networks that work effectively bayond just talk-talk.

 

     I think selfishness is sometimes just a side-effect of our survival instinct. Those who are selfish beyond what they need to survive and be comfortable, are the real selfish ones.chemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />>>

I agree ArmenianSurvival
. The problem is that some people view the definition what it is to be comfortable as being directly derogatory to others so to raise one's self esteem. This is true selfishness to me. >>

One problem is that our Capitalist model enhances the individualist instincts and despises mostly the solidarian ones. This makes us feel sad when we work and consume because it's totally unnatural. >>

That�s quite interesting Maju.>>

All of this, I think, is the reason we do many things. It's the reason women wear high heels, to basically cripple themselves and appear constantly as ladies in distress, delicate, etc.>>

Yes I agree in some occasions this certainly is the case. Clothes tend to act as power symbols or as a sigh that I can do this. Each job has its uniform. (I HATE UNIFORMS in some places.) For example if a politician were to make a speech in shorts and a flowery shirt, few will take him seriously. I find this very sad, that the clothes a person wears measures their ability rather then  other actions they make.>>

 

Edited by Pieinsky

Can you tell me how rescuing a non-relative child (or maybe even an animal such as a cat!) can be selfish? Let's assume that nobody ever knows about it and that the rescuer takes a serious risk him/herself.

People and some other animals have altruist instincts too. Communication skills, language included, are part of those social instinctual base pack - that is altruist at least on occasion.

Originally posted by Kalevipoeg I believe that saving a child for example comes from simply keeping your conscience clean...

Well, that conscience... what is it but conscience of the world, concsicence of the existence... of oneself maybe but of The Other too. Why would it bother my conscience if a child or a cat die or suffer if I'm just an egoist crit. I think that some people suffer from such an illness and, sometimes, they can evolve into child-molesters and other kind of criminals precisely because they suffer from some lack... severe emotional damage I would say. Emotional damage that tries to reprodduce itself causing damage to others, while making the victim/criminal egoistically insensitive.

But wahtever the cause in these abnormal people, the majoriy among us is much more social, empathic and has innate and cultivated social values.

You can call conscience as a tool of "goodwill" in some way then, but man doesn't control it, he only does good deeds to not lose his mind or lose mental stability, it is a completely selfish defense mechanism in a way. There are no good deeds that i have seen in my life that come from the heart, it is quite impossible.

Are you saying that due to the instintive nature of emotions, even if they are social emotions that are (for the most part) possitive for the egoistical needs of the bearer, each one of us only acts altruistically because the teddy bear inside us forces us to behave that way?

In this case, I'd say that a normal or, at least, a well developed person has gathered along his/her life the knowledge and has meditated and taken "moral" or "ethic" decissions sufficiently as to construct his/her own opinion on why not just they do it instinctively but why he/she likes to act that way and doesn't want to alter that instinct substantially.

Remember that we humans have some power to mould our instincts as we desire. We can "correct" or even "supress" those instincts - yet the fact that they are holistically useful and that they make part of our best natural self makes us to prefer following them as much as possible instead of sabotaging them.

Listen to your body, listen to your animal inside: your "superior mind" will thank you for it. Instincts are essentially good (egoistically and altruistically - holistically).

And how are everybodys experiences with fakesmiling, i must say i suck at it, i don't know if some people are too afraid to tell me that or are they too polite. chemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />>>

I don�t fake smiles unless I am acting in a local play. In my other situations I don�t consider it healthy. >>

I believe that saving a child for example comes from simply keeping your conscience clean, it doesn't matter what others think, although being a hero is kneat too. If i wouldn't feel anything directly bad or mentally crushing in my head after letting a child die, i would hardly save him/her. So if a persons conscience would not be so easily altered by events such as this, one would also not care lifting a finger to help another.>>

Its ironic how greed is what can save people lives and is the basis of that ever-prevailing concept we call love.>>

I have come to a conclusion that humans and greed have a symbiotic relationship. Greed is not always a form of evil and in some cases can illuminate and stimulate a good world. Without greed we could not have aspirations, we could not eat or reproduce. We would inevitably die. However as said previously not all greed is good. Greed is more the medium or key that opens the doors that allow us to want. It is a valuable tool, which we can�t discard or throw away. Removing it from oneself would be an act of suicide. Is the basis of Buddhism to rid of aspirations? This is insane to want to rid of aspirations is an aspiration itself. >>

I believe that saving a child for example comes from simply keeping your conscience clean>>

The strange thing is animals have shown to help other animals in need even if it is no benefit too them. Is compassion built into or formula because of that constant echo of kindness that is beat-ed into are head so we just instinctively do it, or is it because the animal helps the other because there is a benefit, the feeling of helping. That feeling that has the capacity to elevate one�s self esteem to new levels. 

 Ha

But most people don't decide politically to act heroically. Some may but for most it's just part of what they must do, they would never do otherwise unless paralized by panic or other means...

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Sociopaths have not defeated conscience: they haven't developed it... at least in a normal/healthy manner. Repressing something is not defeating it. Emotions can only be conquered by embracing them, by expressing them in the adequate contexts. Else you just become nuts.

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Empathy is no fault. It's very useful for survival, both physical and emotional survival. Without projecting ourselves through empathy (and recieving alsop the friendship of others) our lifes become arid and meaningless. What's the meaning of life for a human that only cares for him/herself? That's humanly meaningless.

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It is not actually a teddy bear, it is the basic, crule human monster that we all are inside who fights for survival.

The main difference in our viewpoints seems to be one of perception of animality: to me animals are not "cruel monsters" and humans aren't either: they/we are life in action, with all its complexity and richess, including emotions and impredicatbility.

People has been able along history to kill others or let them die. Infanticide is pretty common way of population control among those human societies that know no other remedy (some use anti-conceptives instead: these don't kill their young - they don't need it). War and human sacrifice may also be a common practice among these people and yet they remain human and relatively healthy emotionally. The reason is that they still have a meaningful society (and maybe a religion) that gives sense to their existence.

... a basic human is a machine that operates on conscience

I don't accept the hyper-simplification of humans (or animals) being mere machines. Even a unicellular being such as an amoeba or a coral are extremely more complex than most of the machines that we can create if not all. Complex criatures as us can't be considered mere machines: you wouldn't be able to describe our behaviour in all the books of the world.

You are (for whatever rason) too much in the element Earth and you're ignoring all the other three elements - "magic" explanation. You must particularly take a better look at the so called humid elements: water (emotions, perception, sensibility, conscience) and air (sociality, communication, lanaguage, ideas). Sorry for the magicalization of the explanation but for me it's clear that you are firmly installed in a too "earthy" attitude that denies the socio-psychological dimension of reality.

It is selfish of us to stop from obeying such an instinct because we know the guilt we will get after such an act surpasses the pleasure.

Are you making sense here: your reasoning seems "damned if you do, damned if you don't". If you do something that avoids your supposed "guilt" and if you do exactly the opposite (what makes feel you guilty) also, in both cases you say that the person is acting slefishly. You just assume that selfishness is the basic code and try to explain all in those schemes.

Also, I think you have a problem with guilt, what coming from a person from beyond the former iron curtain, where religion (the creator of guilt) used to be repressed... it's at least surprising.

I think that you should adress first why you focus things in a negative manner (guilt), then sabotage that guilt, via punktherapy, and finally start focusing things in a possitive realizative and holistic way. That's my opinion: I can't see that guilt nor that extreme egoism as something natural - much less in humans. People, when not psychologically damaged, tend to be spontaneously altruist - though excessve importance of private property and class division, based in extreme egoism distortion of our nature, doesn't help much here.