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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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Effectively be definition, society is altruistic. It can’t exist if everyone is perfectly selfish. There needed to be a balancing act between selfishness and selflessness, including some mixture such as “selfish altruism.” Help me I help you. That’s quite possibly the basis of civilization in general.
That being said, as beings subject to natural selection as well as self preservation and wants, we are generally selfish by nature. Whether we can override that or not depends on both our nature and our nurture. We did so far enough to form communities and eventually civilizations, of course.
Light on details this article. Not convinced.
If you want a detailed look on the topic, there’s “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity”, a book by Graeber and Wengrow, which also talks about the huge diversity of social models in old communities of humans.
huge diversity of social models in old communities of humans
Do they claim that any of the humans in these communities live their lives not trying to get what they want?
It’s impossible to say what prehistoric people were thinking or wanting. You can only look at how they lived their lives, or how later peoples organized their society. The main thing is that there isn’t one way of living, some societies were hierarchical and probably materialistic based on grave goods and burials, some societies clearly had prosocial tendencies based on remains of people with disabilities showing care and nourishment.
some societies clearly had prosocial tendencies
All societies must necessarily be prosocial, it’s how our species evolved to survive, just like prosocial tendencies are necessary for ants.
But that’s different from saying we didn’t evolve to be selfish like the post’s article claims. Humans are always trying to get what they themselves want, even if that’s just a drink or a blanket to keep warm.
Mutual Aid: A factor in evolution is a book on the topic
I’m not convinced by any mass society that is altruistic, but it’s very simple to see that the natural state of human small groups is quite communal.
What mother has a ledger for the child’s share of food?
We have an entire feeling brain that’s dedicated to relationship building that’s very much the core of most small group relationships.
I’m also very convinced that this model does not work past Dunbar’s Number (~100-150 individuals), and most attempts at building communal society outside of that without some cohersion and some better way of organizing incentives is not possible.