Along the lines of :

“Why is the human race dominated by greed, anger and hate? Why didn’t kindness, mindfullness and honesty win?”.

Kind of tracking the demise of civility and truth, from whenever we last had any.

Kind of tracking the demise of civility and truth, from whenever we last had any.

Demonstrate how this assertion is correct. ‘We’ are generally more civil, at least superficially, than ‘we’ have ever been. One can’t/shouldn’t always believe the headlines…

Not a general reference or a philosophical paper as such, but Primo Levi’s ‘is this a man’ is worth a read. The questions around humanity after surviving the concentration camps asks a lot as a reader.

Pretty much what Three Fish said, the means and methods of attacking one another have become more effective but the will to do so has always been there.

Maybe check out some of Jared Diamond’s books, Guns, Germs and Steel in particular, but anyone who tells you we’ve pooped on paradise will sooner or later ask you to join their cult.

“Why is the human race dominated by greed, anger and hate? Why didn’t kindness, mindfullness and honesty win?”.

false premise. global living standards have never been better. practically every state provides or aspires to provide basic sanitation, education and healthcare to its populace. and so on.

“Why is the human race dominated by greed, anger and hate? Why didn’t kindness, mindfullness and honesty win?”.

Being a decent human being takes effort, even if you have a natural predisposition to being a good sort.
And many people just can’t be arsed.

Much easier to care only for yourself and behave like a ****, especially when times are hard and you can justify almost any kind of behaviour.

Kind of tracking the demise of civility and truth, from whenever we last had any.

It’s all been downhill since the 3rd of May 1979.
🙂
Legitimise greed and place the individual above society and there is nothing to hold you back from being as hateful as you like.

In a state where individual wealth and personal success is lauded as the ultimate expression of human achievement, there is very little incentive to behave altruistically.

have a look out for “Guns, Germs & Steel” by Jared Diamond.

not bang on what you are looking for, but answers some of the questions you raised without setting out to do so.

highly recommended.

The OP’s post is a bit vague:

Some books and films that have influenced my outlook on life are

* The Thin Red Line (Film)
* The True Believer (Book)
* Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Book)
* The Origin of the Species (Book)
* Candide (Book)
* Woodcutters (Book)
* Cool Hand Luke (film)
* Solaris (book and both films)
* Guns, Germs and Steel (book)
* John Locke

Just read all the greats. If you really want to get an inkling of an understanding of humanity (I certainly don’t), commit your life to reading everything worth reading from Plato onwards. Be a sponge, forget what others think about you bumbling around the supermarket off in your own world trying to create a perfect utopia in your head. Be the guy who sits in the corner of a pub with a good book and reads.

Everything else is superfluous, there’s shit to learn, great people of history who have something to say that is far, far more interesting than most of the shit on tv. Read books in your break at work, ignore the dickhead colleagues who don’t get it.

cfinnimore – Member
Along the lines of :

“Why is the human race dominated by greed, anger and hate? Why didn’t kindness, mindfullness and honesty win?”.
Do you want something to educate yourself or just to reinforce your beliefs?
Possibly something from Dawkins on evolutionary biology, The God Delusion tackles some of the issues as to how society forms and works.

But sounds like you just want the Socialist Worker annual

Agree with others that it seems you’re starting out with an assumption/worldview that you maybe wish to reinforce (?)

So I’m going to recommend you read Steven Pinker’s ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”. I’ve seen a few of his lectures and he makes an interesting case.

Tom_W1987 > * Woodcutters (Book)

Read this earlier in the year, utterly mystified as to why it’s so well regarded – in a ‘would like to know’, rather than a put down way.

Tom_W1987 > * Solaris (book and both films)

Does the Cluney/Soderberg version add anything to Tarkovski’s take?

Tom_W1987 > commit your life to reading everything worth reading from Plato onwards.

And the rest: Gilgamesh, the Vedas, Where’s Wally…

In a state where individual wealth and personal success is lauded as the ultimate expression of human achievement, there is very little incentive to behave altruistically.

I’ve read this a few times and there’s something about it that’s fundamentally wrong*. You seem to be suggesting that altruistic behaviour or acts are incentivised by how they’re perceived through the eyes of the population at large. Or that an act of selflessness is only worthwhile in a society that can relate to or recognise it as such. Surely altruism is simply reacting spontaneously with compassion and selflessness regardless of who’s watching or judging or assessing?

But I have a theory – all acts, even those considered completely selfless, are really acts of self-aggrandisement; a way of making you feel like you’re leading a good life or that you’ve completed a good act and as a result are a good person. But that’s just my cynical side…

*Unless I’ve completely misunderstood you, so correct me if I’m wrong.

As suggested above Steven Pinker best meets your needs if not your initial request!

TED Talk on The Myth of Violence

John Hersey – Hiroshima

Surely altruism is simply reacting spontaneously with compassion and selflessness regardless of who’s watching or judging or assessing?

That’s my understanding. If it’s incentivised then in isn’t altruism. Although if you believe Dawkins true altruism dosn’t exist anyway.

I think you will not get that from one book and I don’t think it’s actually one question.

There is a question about people generally, about societies, about power and about people who become powerful.

You would need to look at philosophy, theology, politics, economics, psychology, sociology …

If you read a book then you will get someone’s potted take on it – ultimately you have no chance of getting a simple answer – just read widely and be open to what you read.

… altruism is a funny one. People act altruistically because we feel a connection to whatever we are helping, and I think on a fairly basic level.

The ability to feel such spontaneous compassion outside of immediate family, friends, country, species even is arguably one of the evolutionary benefits that allows us to create societies. But it is held in tension with the more competitive stuff, which is important to survival when things are really tough.

That’s my understanding. If it’s incentivised then in isn’t altruism. Although if you believe Dawkins true altruism dosn’t exist anyway

Depends what you mean by incentivised – it may make you feel good because we are programmed b evolution to get pleasure from helping people or may make you feel not bad if you walked away. Does that make it less altruistic?

‘Altruism = a benefit to the self/selfish gene’ is the one thing that messed with my head a lot when studying psychology at college – and I used to argue vociferously as a young idealist that not all altruistic acts are selfishly motivated, whether unconsciously or otherwise.

Now, much later on in life, I still find it a difficult subject as it’s most often framed in terms that (if not wholly subjective/projected) are Darwinian. We tend to overlook that altruism itself can be (at least) differentiated between biological (selfish gene etc) altruism and psychological (real?) altruism.

If you help that little old lady across the street are you unconsciously trying to impress: Her? Yourself? The pretty girl watching? Or the public at large?

Or are you just helping because you wish to help, motivated simply by empathy/genuine concern?

We can definitely overthink stuff. I think!

… I think that empathy and concern are both genuine and a product of evolution. The fact we care/empathise allows us to build relationships and societies. I don’t usually push the point though because people think I end up sounding like I don’t believe in real altruism, which I do, I think it is innate.

But then again the devil quotes Darwin to his own ends… 🙂

“Great compassion is the root of altruistic action. It really is a source of wonder. There is no greater source of help and happiness. The capacity to devote yourself to the welfare of others yields otherwise unobtainable power and potential for good. Generate great compassion and you become a friend of the world and a companion of the warm-hearted.”

– The Lama Bloke.

I suppose that is roughly what I understand to be psychological altruism – something motivated by compassion.

Tim Kasser The High Price of Materialism

Richard Wilkinson’s TED lecture on Youtube

David Stuckler The Body Economic

This would be a good one.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-w12bmh4SW4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=dalai+lama&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bZzsU96eLaPN7AbauoDIBg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=dalai%20lama&f=false

As above, I think the origins and benefits of altruism are complex and debatable.

However, I do believe that the change in perception of overarching greed and acquisition from a negative to a positive, along with the relentless promotion of cult of the self leads to a less altruistic society overall.

Human nature is a fluid and changeable thing.

OP here. Will dedicate myself to reducing & defining my position later but I shall clarify this:

For me, right now, it’s a matter of perspective. less to do with genocide on the news, more about perceiving the world to be less empathetic and more destructive than a few years ago. Which depresses me greatly. I’m not nihilistic, I want to want to be hopeful and for that positivity to be vindicated by some source of useful information that proves that “we” are progressing towards unity, not complete annihilation.

By “we” I mean everyone on earth. People will say to me “people are shit”. I don’t believe they are, but it looks that way.
For those who wonder: I don’t watch tv news or buy newspapers, no Facebook, no Instagram, not a socialist, not a capitalist, not yes, not no.

I’m well read, if the above is a guide, reading Foulcault & Marx in the early days through Orwell, Bradbury and Golding and the God delusion and Origin of species and latterly a lot of spoken word stuff: Allen Ginsberg, Benjamin Zephenia etc.

Someone mentioned Dawkins up there..for me the Selfish Gene that deals best with altruism and human behaviour, and game theory in terms of which strategy is best for passing on genes – selfish or altruistic, rather than some of his later stuff.

plenty of examples given of individuals in some species which care for young which are not theirs, but it turns out they have a high proportion of genes in common, so survial and reproduction runs at the level of the gene rather than at the level of the individual animal. the selfish or altruistic strategies or variations of both may be beneficial at different times within different societies.

Someone who hasn’t read Selfish Gene may be surprised to find a mention of the concept of a “meme”, which isn’t actually about pictures of cats on the internet.

Someone who hasn’t read Selfish Gene may be surprised to find a mention of the concept of a “meme”, which isn’t actually about pictures of cats on the internet.

Same thing innit? The cute cat is just the content of the meme.

Yep my suggestion, but also never read something because you agree with it (see the daily mail reader for that one) read about then think

Altruism.

Think we might be on to a winner.

This is ALL Doug Stanhopes fault.

Colin Mortlock – Spirit of Adventure

Erich Fromm

Some interesting reading here: Colin Mortlock’s analysis of what makes for good character is very interesting – and he laments that it’s fast disappearing.

Erich Fromm’s chapter called Love And Its Disintegration In Western Society is also an interesting analysis. It feels like it has the 90’s and Noughties spot on, and then you realise it was first published 1957 (pre-Thatcher, fact fans :D)

1984 and Brave New World are obviously the best known of the Dystopian books, written in 1949 and 1932 so the idea of society falling apart is nothing new…

Personally if you want to look at what’s shaping the mood in the UK in 2014 you only need to look at the figures showing falling standards of living, lower incomes and no pay rises looking likely for the forseeable. Very few of us have adult experience of dealing with real economic hardship.

I remember powercuts in the 70s and we just got the candles out. Powercuts now, you get the feeling would lead to some kind of panic!

Some people have the character to deal with it and some don’t, but underlying a lot of our day to day lives at the moment I suspect is quite a lot of fear about our future wealth – we’ve become conditioned over the last 15 years to a very high level of material wealth which is likely to fall away now.

Some people will deal with this by being more co-operative, and more collaborative with their communities but the more scared people will be more angry, more selfish, more aggressive.

Hopefully the former will dominate – which seems to have been the reaction by the UK public during and following WW2, which was probably the last major national hardship in terms of economics and shortages of material goods

Personally if you want to look at what’s shaping the mood in the UK in 2014 you only need to look at the figures showing falling standards of living, lower incomes and no pay rises looking likely for the forseeable. Very few of us have adult experience of dealing with real economic hardship.

I remember powercuts in the 70s and we just got the candles out. Powercuts now, you get the feeling would lead to some kind of panic!

Some people have the character to deal with it and some don’t, but underlying a lot of our day to day lives at the moment I suspect is quite a lot of fear about our future wealth – we’ve become conditioned over the last 15 years to a very high level of material wealth which is likely to fall away now.

Some people will deal with this by being more co-operative, and more collaborative with their communities but the more scared people will be more angry, more selfish, more aggressive.

Hopefully the former will dominate – which seems to have been the reaction by the UK public during and following WW2, which was probably the last major national hardship in terms of economics and shortages of material goods

very well put !

For those who wonder: I don’t watch tv news or buy newspapers, no Facebook, no Instagram, not a socialist, not a capitalist, not yes, not no.

To the OP, genuine question: given the above, what are you basing your perception of the changing face of humanity on? If it’s Singletrackworld, I think I see the issue 😉

To the OP, genuine question: given the above, what are you basing your perception of the changing face of humanity on?

I suppose the same thing that happens to everyone, the more you live the more you learn. Having just turned 27, I’m hardly a paragon of experience. I look at all the perennial world issues: war, inequality, freedom from oppression, and wonder if everyone’s default setting was kindness, say the concept of greed just didn’t exist, wouldn’t it be better.

Then I get slapped for being a hippie.

On a personal scale, I interact with some wonderful, selfless people (co-op members, charity volunteers, civil servants, medical professionals) that makes me realise all is not lost. Maybe just seek out mpre positivity (and fellow hippies) to surround yourself with?

Maybe just seek out mpre positivity (and fellow hippies) to surround yourself with?

Best way to do this is to start with yourself – go around being really nice to people and in time, you find the nasty people drift away* and the nice people stay with you

* you do still have to beat some of them off with a stick though – you can be resented for having the strength to be nice…

An interesting experiment can be when you’re cycling – if someone’s driving towards you through parked cars where one or the other has to give way – give a pre-emptive big smile and a wave – more often than not leads to a wave back, and they let you through. Or when someone hangs back or gives you lots of space to pass – give them a thank you wave – and plenty of times you get a wave back… hey presto, your world’s a little better. Doesn’t happen all the time, obviously, but every little helps

In Stoner’s absence, I’ll recommend Walden. 😉

Rather thinking Wall-E.

On a simple level – go read Brant’s thread asking about Ton.

Maybe I’ve missed the point of your post and I know it’s not a book about humanity but to me it is a simple example of why I don’t think everything is rubbish and I don’t think people are intrinsically selfish.

PS it doesn’t mean I think everything is fine in the world either!