Altruism?

[NORM]

 

That difference could be a more or less trully altruistic nature, but it could also be somelike like a difference in self-confidence levels, the quick responder may simple be generally more confident of success in taking risks than another..

 

You may be right about that. I am somewhat prone to risk-taking. I'm not sure where I got that trait - my parents were the exact opposite, however, I have no doubt that my father would have dove in to the river to pull me out. But that would be another dynamic - parental instinct.

 

I enjoy going to the zoo and studying the primates. If you watch them for several hours, you can definitely see "human" tendencies - particularly among the larger primates; chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans.

 

It is interesting, given this discussion, to note that many animals display altruistic (as defined herein) tendencies. Dolphins will swim for hours underneath a wounded companion even though this exposes them to danger from predators. Chimpanzees will sound an alarm for other members of the community when dangerous predators threaten - often to their peril. Wild dogs and wolves will bring back meat to weaker or injured companions. Even dogs will nurture orphaned cats or puppies.

 

I think there is more evidence to support altruism as an innate instinct for the survival of the species rather than some special "gift."

 

Of course, it's also possible that animals have "souls"

 

NORM

[NORM]

Here is a question. If you were in need of emegency assistance, would you want only one or two present to assit you or 10 or more? The answer might surprise you.

 

Myron

 

I know the answer to this one! You would want one person to take charge and give orders. I learned this in CPR training. They tell you to order bystanders to do things like call 9-1-1, get blankets, help with compressions, etc... They tell you to be very firm in your commands. Most people just kind of freak in emergency situations.

 

NORM

[NORM]

 

I know the answer to this one! You would want one person to take charge and give orders. I learned this in CPR training. They tell you to order bystanders to do things like call 9-1-1, get blankets, help with compressions, etc... They tell you to be very firm in your commands. Most people just kind of freak in emergency situations.

 

NORM

 

I should add that this works very well. When someone takes charge, many people are more than willing to help.

[minsocal]

 

I should add that this works very well. When someone takes charge, many people are more than willing to help.

 

Norm,

 

Yes, that it how it seems to work. The interesting thing is that, in a large scale disaster, when the first people to take charge wear out, others will step in to take over ... very often the same people saved by the first responders.

 

Myron

[JenellYB]

Myron, Norm, both some good thinking!

 

Myron, yes, I had those social-psych studies in mind, wondered if that's where you were going, but there's actually several different things at work here. Certainly it has been shown that when there are many people, there's the tendency for everyone to stand back waiting for someone else to react, when the result is no one acts.

 

Norn is correct, too, for even a single person to step up totheplate to take charge, better yet, responsibility', for directing others makes a huge difference. Consider the very "structure" of that word, responsiblity=response ability. For any variety of reasons, some people are more "response able" than others, some having to do with the matters of risk taking, self confidence...there is also a psychological state called "learned helplessness", that can be at work in the opposite way of self confidence in one's ability to succeed in a risk situation.

 

What Myron notes, how it is that the more people present the less likely any will quickly respond, is at work in human society at many levels, not just an immediate emergency scenario. Consider how in traditionally small, isolated communities of people, everyone watches out for everyone else, looks after each others children, help them rebuild the burned barn or whatever, in contrast to our "rat race" lives most of us live today, high population densities, neighbors don't even want to know neighbors.

 

The smaller the group of people, the more each member tends to be valued as important by others within the group, the larger the group, the opposite effect. While this phenomenon may make most sense applied to the example ofthe close-knit community where everyone is dependent upon one another, the same dynamic is actually present in most any group, even how many people may be waiting together at a bus stop. If there's only "you and me", you become very important to me and I become very important to you. But if there's 20 people, all that importance that you and me shared before the other 18 showed up has to get spread thinner among more people.

Though, oddly, if the first two, you and me, over even just a few minutes waiting together, have acknowledged one another's presence, struck up a conversation perhaps, something quite interesting sometimes happens as the other 18 show up. You and me are likely to still stay close to one another, rather than mingle with the late-comers, even enter the bus and chose to sit next to one another. Further, if someone among those other 18 starts picking on one of us, the other of us is likely to feel defensive, protective, toward the other. If someone starts shooting into this group of 20, you and me, the first two, are likely to even grab or touch one another as we seek to take cover together, act responsible for one another. It seems just recognizing and acknowledging another's individual humanity is a powerful bonding agent.

 

Jenell

[JenellYB]

One other thought to add about the effectiveness of a single person stepping up to take charge and issue commands....Criminal profilers know that most people automatically responsive to someone that acts like they are in charge, gives them instructions and directions in a firm voice and confident demeamor, in a way less comforting than in an emergency disaster scenario....many many victims of crime express their disbelief at how easily they fell into line with what the perpetrator told them, ordered them, to do, as if in a trance.....wondering even to themselves why they did so, or why they didn't 'snap out it' sooner and faster than they did. They may even look back on the event and see how they really had plenty of time to react and perhaps get away or call for help before they became isolated with the perp...but they didn't.

Is that tendency of a victim instinctive, or conditioned? Good question.

[GeorgeW]

While i think the primary influence on a heroic response is innate, as I think more about it, there is also an important social component as well.

 

Heroism is socially conditioned from the time we are young. We read stories about heroic actions. We see movie heroes. Heroic soldiers are given medals and recognition. police and fire persons are afforded great respect for putting their lives at risk.

 

So, I suspect that heroism is a hybrid. We have an innnate predisposition which is given much social conditioning and support.

 

George

[NORM]

While i think the primary influence on a heroic response is innate, as I think more about it, there is also an important social component as well.

 

Heroism is socially conditioned from the time we are young. We read stories about heroic actions. We see movie heroes. Heroic soldiers are given medals and recognition. police and fire persons are afforded great respect for putting their lives at risk.

 

So, I suspect that heroism is a hybrid. We have an innnate predisposition which is given much social conditioning and support.

 

George

 

While I believe it is true that we idolize heroes in our culture, I don't think it has much bearing on "who" will be a hero in the moment. Someone will either react or they won't. In an emergency situation, there simply isn't time to ponder "hmmm, should I be a hero today?"

 

I think your comment bears more on how we respond to the heroic act. I think that we impose heroic motives (the kind we see in movies and read in novels) on those who do heroic acts. I know in my own case, the police and the little community where the girl lived held me up as a hero (though the newspapers ignored it because it was "just another shooting in the hood") even though I didn't feel like I was particularly heroic. Sure, I could have been hurt, but I was simply in a convenient place to act. The police were too busy keeping from getting shot themselves. The whole thing happened in less than two minutes. Those lengthy street battles you see on TV are largely fiction. Thugs are lousy shots in general. Stoned thugs are even worse. And bullets will go through walls - apparently contrary to what the druggies thought. Oops!

 

NORM

[GeorgeW]

Norm,

 

I don't think we need explicit instruction in order to be socially conditioned. By observing behavior and cultural artifacts we learn about what is valued and devalued by society. We may not even always be aware that we are learning these values.

 

George

[minsocal]

If everyone were a hero, there would be none to be saved.

 

Myron

[GeorgeW]

If anyone is interested in the subject of altruism, here is a link to an interesting article in the NYTimes titled "The Pathological Altruist Gives Till Someone Hurts:"

 

http://www.nytimes.c...pagewanted=1

 

This may fit under the category of 'too much of a good thing.'

 

George

[JenellYB]

"Pathological Altruism" is an oxymoron. I agree with Dr. Oakley as cited in this article.

 

The type phenomenon that is topic of this article isn't altruism, and it most certainy isn't "selflessness". It is at both the very core and the end result, utterly, entirely extreme selfishness.

Many other things masquerade as, are commonly mis-identified and mis-labeled as, altruism and selflessness, when they are exactly the opposite and counter to that. The doctor in the opening example wasn't patholgically devoted to 'helping' or'saving' his patients,but to inflating his own ego, self-esteem, and professional status at the expense of his victims, er, patients and their families.

 

Jenell

[JenellYB]

In some of my psychology as well as philosophy courses in school, I encuntered some very convincing evidence and arguments that true altruism doesn't exist at all. There is ALWAYS a payback, a gain, for the 'giver', even if it is just feeling good (better) about themselves, and as compared to how they see others in that regard. To even CLAIM one's act as being altruistic negates any true altruism in that act.

 

Jenell

[soma]

Jenell I think you are right about the mind. The bird on the lower branch who needs to survive, but the bird on the spiritual branch "just is" so has no needs. It watches unattached. I feel the bird one is coming from depends if you think you are a mind with a soul or a soul with a mind. Maybe in the instantaneous act of heroism one is coming from a soul with a mind.

[JenellYB]

And we all have both birds within....even if we feel we've moved more toward responsing out of the one than the other. I think you are right, too, that it is most likely that spiritual bird is more involved when an action arises out of a spontaneous, split second emergency, without premeditation.

Isn't it a kind of amazing thing, if you think about, the central goal of our meditation is much toward being more able to act and react spontaeiously, without premeditation?

 

Jenell

[JennyD]

Interestingly, the research outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink suggests that our immediate and spontaneous reactions to a situation are often as good as if not better than our carefully considered reactions. As a Quaker, of course, I would see that as 'that of God' in every person responding to 'that of God' in the other, but there is also the thought that there is an evolutionary basis to it. Richard Dawkins certainly espouses that idea in his book The Selfish Gene - but then he would, wouldn't he?

[Mike]

That's an interesting article, but it seems that one who attempts to give an account "as an engineer" of selflessness and kindness bespeaks a worldview in which it is assumed that there is nothing spiritual about our existence in the first place. Likewise the thoughts about "indignation" being a kind of addiction certain may be true (and most likely is true in the case of some), but such an interpretation could also be reversed to say that a lack of indignation betrays an amoral and uninspired worldview (which, again, may actually be the case for some). Either way I think everyone should be quite open about their metaphysical presuppositions, because they will always color how one interprets the world.

 

Peace,

Mike