Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Zero Sums and Mondays always get me down

I was reading this post over at Pandagon on the problems with thinking of Feminism as a zero-sum game, and it occurred to me that most of the issues I know of could probably be tied to zero-sum thinking.

Once you have the belief that you can’t gain unless someone else loses, you have an excuse to lie, cheat, or steal to get ahead. You have the impetus to screw over your fellow man. You have the drive to establish a hierarchy and make sure you stay on top, and then to justify that hierarchy by “othering” those at the bottom, whether by their race or their gender or their brand of jeans. And isn’t that the source of most of societal problems?

More to the point, doesn’t it invalidate the very reason we form societies to begin with?

If we could survive just as well on our own, we wouldn’t have evolved as social creatures.

Five or six humans are more able to fight off a predator than one. Likewise, a group of people can care for children better than one person alone; taking turn allows the caretakers to rest and the children to broaden their experience and knowledge. But these social groups only work if everyone benefits: if there is no benefit, no payback for each individual, the group members would never have succeeded over individuals and groups would never have evolved.

And those ancestors who first formed tribes and bands survived only because they didn’t screw each other over. When facing a predator, any human who hamstrings a fellow tribe member to enable his own escape would never be trusted again. The person who dumps a child on an unwilling caretaker violates the social contract, and that person–and that child–wouldn’t be welcome in the group anymore. If all of the group members betray each other, the group loses cohesion, and again, social behavior would not have been passed down through our genes.

Now, we haven’t always done a good job of looking out for all the members of our human tribe, but we usually at least made gestures towards community: we use to try.  In the past 15 years or so, though, it seems that zero-sum thinking has become the norm, and self-centered behavior has become not just tolerated but respected. When? Why?

What happened to this genetic understanding that everyone in a group should gain some benefit from belonging?

When did selfishness replace charity as our most defining virtue?

When did our social motto change from “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs” to “I got mine–the rest of you can fuck off”?

One Response to “Zero Sums and Mondays always get me down”

1. teh l4m3 Says:
   April 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm

   When did our social motto change from “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs”…

   SHHH!!! The commie fighters at the National Review might hear you…

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