Memory and Survival
There’s a video on YouTube showing a father shielding his child from an out of control car careening from the street into a shop. The father turns and interposes his body between and the baby he is carrying just as the vehicle smashes the through the window. The entire event happens so quickly the action seems entirely instinctive; and it is behavior familiar to us. Tolkien, in the Two Towers, describes Sam’s charge on Shelob in defense of the fallen Frodo as driven by nature. “No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.” If so, nature must have a reason for it. Perhaps a species consisting of individuals capable of placing something above their own personal survival enjoys an advantage over that which does not. Darwin dealt with the problem of ‘altruism’ in his Descent of Man.
The idea that group selection might explain the evolution of altruism was first broached by Darwin himself. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin discussed the origin of altruistic and self-sacrificial behaviour among humans. Such behaviour is obviously disadvantageous at the individual level, as Darwin realized: “he who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature” Darwin then argued that self-sarcrificial behaviour, though disadvantageous for the individual ‘savage’, might be beneficial at the group level: “a tribe including many members who…were always ready to give aid to each other and sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection” Darwin’s suggestion is that the altruistic behaviour in question may have evolved by a process of between-group selection. …
The major weakness of group selection as an explanation of altruism, according to the consensus that emerged in the 1960s, was a problem that Dawkins (1976) called ‘subversion from within’; see also Maynard Smith 1964. Even if altruism is advantageous at the group level, within any group altruists are liable to be exploited by selfish ‘free-riders’ who refrain from behaving altruistically. These free-riders will have an obvious fitness advantage: they benefit from the altruism of others, but do not incur any of the costs. So even if a group is composed exclusively of altruists, all behaving nicely towards each other, it only takes a single selfish mutant to bring an end to this happy idyll. By virtue of its relative fitness advantage within the group, the selfish mutant will out-reproduce the altruists, hence selfishness will eventually swamp altruism. Since the generation time of individual organisms is likely to be much shorter than that of groups, the probability that a selfish mutant will arise and spread is very high, according to this line of argument. ‘Subversion from within’ is generally regarded as a major stumbling block for group-selectionist theories of the evolution of altruism.
But Martin Nowak, a mathematician and biologist at Harvard University, argues that membership in a society capable of altruism can provide a greater survival advantage over the long run than becoming a ‘selfish mutant’. Using game theory and the concept of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, he maintains that a group capable of cooperation provides a better better long term prospects. In the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma “two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so”. But in “the iterated prisoners dilemma (IPD) … of … N step[s] … (with N fixed) in which participants have to choose their mutual strategy again and again, and have memory of their previous encounters … greedy strategies tended to do very poorly in the long run while more altruistic strategies did better, as judged purely by self-interest.”
Interestingly the success of the IPD is contingent on the existence of memory, which in the human context is an awareness of history. History allows members of a society to understand their individual existence and well-being is somehow inseparable from that of the group. Therefore from the viewpoint of IPD models, acts of group memory, like Memorial Day, are not simply events held for ceremonial purposes but are sources that are vital to the group’s — and the individual’s existence. Without that history — without that memory — then individuals will eventually forget the benefit derived from the altruism of their forebears and become susceptible to the preachings of the ‘selfish mutant’. In a society without traditions the “free riders” may gain ascendancy and even suppress history to aid their increase. Gradually they may destroy a society’s capacity for mutual altruism and take it over for themselves. Yet even so their victory may be short-lived. Within their mutation lie the seeds of their own downfall. For “if the pathogen’s virulence kills the host and interferes with its own transmission to a new host, virulence will be selected against.” Eventually they kill the host and then themselves die.
It may take a while, but the demise eventually happens. And then the survivors gradually rediscover the benefits of thinking in terms larger than themselves and begin to act on that basis. And then the words, “truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” will become comprehensible again.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
Another winning strategy is tit-for-tat. In the annual(?) computer games of strategy, tit-for-tat almost always wins. This also is a memory-based strategy. You do to your competitor whatever he did to you the last time.
My mother, a somewhat frail 83 year old throws her arm out in front of me when she brakes in her car like she did when I was a toddler. All the more amusing because of my 270lb mass. It is a stark reminder that we used to rely more on the instinct of love than we did child car seats. Though not a bad idea we first give up liberties for our children then later cede those for ourselves.
In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, . . . . Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, but there was no one left to speak up for me.
—Martin Neimöller
I’m not sure I’m smart enough to get down to W’s core thoughts or conclusions here.
After reading and re-reading this, my thoughts go back to my learning and my experiences, like they always do.
While growing up I was poor and a rough and tumble kind of kid, with parents that protected me – yet allowed me to learn, live and experience not only defeat but pain and conditions that would most likely have them put in jail now for parental neglect or such.
They considered telling you something, warning you of the consequences enough. If you disregarded those warnings you were on your own. I remember my first brush with death at the age of about 8 years old. My Mama had told me to never, ever get in the pasture with our ever present, soon to be meat on the table, young bulls(and sometimes heifers) but that was hard because I had always helped raise them from calves.
But my Mama knew that someday one of those cute little grown up calves would or could be dangerous. She was right of course, after several stitches and a cast on my right leg, I learned that cute little boy calves grow up to be not so considerate young bulls, who play very rough. But she didn’t really admonish me that much, except to tell me that “she told me so”.
The fact that she had jumped the fence and saved my life didn’t even enter the conversation.
There were many other experiences I had growing up that would define altruism in a manner that is totally unknown to the last few generations. Or at least the majority of people in them.
My next lessons were when I was in my little war and far from home. I had of course, my betters, those with more experience than a young 18 year old who had grown up around guns and killing for food but never killing for any other reason.
Those lessons were at first shocking and unbelievable but as my experience and time moved forward, they became not only the norm but motivated or you might say hardened me to where I was not surprised much anymore. But I was still impressed and remember that one time I did something that others thought mentionable (with much harassment and kidding to follow) which made me wonder if I had lost my sense of self preservation and fear.
Not to worry, I reverted back to being alternately scared shitless and being bored out of my mind soon afterward.
OK, forgot my point if I ever had one.
Chores await.
Papa Ray
Dang, forgot to include this link…Please read.
“Modern Meets Primeval in Gulf Oil Spill”
Life is tough, and Mother Nature is (right now) is tougher than our Technology, and maybe will always be.
Don’t forget that.
Thousands are injured in the fight for oil and gas every year, hundreds are killed. Nobody notices. Just like they don’t notice that thousands are killed and maimed on our highways and streets every year, unless they are kin or friend.
Where is the Obama ban against driving?
Papa Ray
Annoy Mouse (2):
What a wonderful comment!
Jamie Irons
Ayn Rand best addressed this subject in Atlas Shrugged. But I’ll make my attempt to paraphrase.
Making a decision to sacrifice your life is not necessarily altruism, if by that you mean sacrificing yourself “for the greater good”. For some, this “sacrifice” is no sacrifice at all, if it means preserving what they most value in life (Sam attacks Shelob). Associating this kind of behavior with altruism confuses our thinking and may make some think altruism is a good and noble thing. I would advocate that it is not.
Altruism is defined by Webster’s as “Selfless regard for the well-being of others”. This then would be the moral reason to subscribe to “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” would it not? Living your life in the service of others is a good definition of slavery.
On Memorial Day, this subject is particularly worth thinking about. But I would advocate that the sacrifice of one’s life for what one considers a worthy cause is not altruism in most cases, but is an act of affirming one’s highest values.
Not the act of a free-rider. But then that brings us back to altruism and the false morality that encourages what Ayn Rand called the sanction of the victim.
What is the group whose protection can lay claim to an individual’s sacrifice? All change happens at an interface, so defining just where those boundaries are is always the bedrock problem.
In a prior post I began to explore how different draw competing boundaries around something as basic as the Constitution, resulting in different loyalties. On the last thread I noted how American Jews, one among many immigrant groups, can be divided by their history into smaller groups with differing patters of political, exploitive or altruistic behavior.
In 2008 the grandchildren of assimilated Liberal American Jews went to Florida to urge their elders to vote for Obama. In 2010 Rahm Emanuel is in Jerusalem for his son’s bar mitzvah, and is subject to public castigation. The reckless and feckless descendants of the survivors of the Shoah did not rest content with transferring their loyalty from the shtetl to America, a thing worthy of their altruism. They further offered their loyalty to an aspirational international order. It is secular or Islamic in content, universal or Gaia base in scope, Socialist in origin, and Totalitarian or genocidal in its consequences.
What will the bright sincere children who traveled from Brandies University to Florida do when the dead cry out to them? Perhaps they expect that Jennifer Love Hewitt will come to them as The Ghost Whisperer and make the problem go away. After all the advertising says, “Love is kind.”
The best part of Darwinian sociology is that you can explain every aspect of human behavior by making up any story you want. The scientific rigor of “group evolution” is about as sound as having a burning bush as the other party in a conversation.
Personally I vote for the Moses story. It’s had 3,000 years of scrutiny and is still going strong. Think anybody is going to be talking about Martin Nowak’s Ns in 5,000 AD?
Love God. Love your neighbor like yourself. Wisdom begins by knowing there are consequences to denying an order to the universe. Being fully human requires your active participation in preserving what is good in human society.
This Age of Idiocy shall pass and the idiots along with it. The communities of character that live by the two greatest commandments will survive – again.
No sh*t, there I was, a young battery exec, riding lead vehicle on a 200 vehicle convoy up Highway 1, from Nha Trang to Dong Ha. Two days before, a 700 vehicle convoy had been ambushed and wiped out. The SeaBees and Engineers had bulldozed the wrecks out of the road enough for our convoy to get through. I opined that the attacking forces had probably used up most of their munitions (or at least I hoped so), so I decided to go now, before they had a chance to restock. (We had, as an airborne unit, airlifted from Pope near Bragg the week before on a special mission to provide certain intelligence gathering support for the Marine units in northern I Corps.)
We had several trucks equipped with ring mounted .30 cal and .50 cal machine guns. I dispersed these throughout the convoy and asked the NCO’s to put their most reliable gunners in each one. I placed a .50 cal equipped truck as second vehicle in the convoy behind my jeep. As we were getting ready to pull out, one of the troops came up to me and asked permission to be the gunner on this truck. This particular guy and I had a history. He was a permanent PFC if ever there was one. He was a biker from Philly and while at Bragg, was constantly in trouble for bar brawls, insubordination, etc. I asked him why he wanted to ride “shotgun” for my jeep, so to speak. He answered that he had found out I was from Pennsylvania also and us Pennsy guys had to look out for each other. I thought about it for a microsec or two and then said sure, go for it.
For the next two long, tense days, every time I looked back, there he was in the ring mount, constantly scanning the surrounding terrain, poised to go into action as needed and when he caught me looking back, he would flash a big ol’ smile and give me a thumb’s up. He had my back.
Peter Boston (#9):
Excellent. And where you remark:
This Age of Idiocy shall pass and the idiots along with it. The communities of character that live by the two greatest commandments will survive – again…
I pray that you are right.
Jamie Irons
Richard Dawkins’ failure, and the source of his rabid atheism, is his inability to apply his own concept of memes to himself. If one takes the theory of memes to its logical conclusion then humans are just memes way of making more of themselves. That is, from the point of view of memes, individuals are expendable and the process of Darwinian selection is being acted out in the realm of memes, not in the physical world of individual humans and their societies.
Another example of apparent altruistic behavior as a survival mechanism is the “sentry crow” phenomenon. A flock (or murder) of crows moving into a new area will be preceded by one or two birds who expose themselves to danger before giving the rest the all clear sign. Then, as a flock feeds, one or two will perch on a high branch or circle overhead to watch for hunters or predators.
It would seem we have a vivid illustration of the selfish mutant variant outpacing the altruistic one in the West. Not only have many forgotten history, those best educated among us have deemed history is over, and millions of years of evolution can be tossed in favor of indulgence.
This is manifested in many ways. On example is the near universal assertion among Westerners that a fundamental right for women is to indulge in the motions of procreation without any of the consequences attendant. While America may still have reproductive rates which maintain sustainable populations, half-a-billion Westerners in Europe do not. They produce women who are not willing to endure the burdens of child rearing, and moreover, produce men who are not willing to fight and die to maintain their sovereignty.
In America, most of those who are willing to carry the burdens of rearing offspring or to fighting for sovereignty don’t hail from the greedy and selfish Babylons of the East and West coast strongholds, but from the vast unwashed interior of America. Our great cities are infested with countless parasites who think of little else but how they can indulge themselves in comforts and materialism. They despise the communities that still believe, that still reproduce, and that march off to wars to die.
One wonders how long those despised outer communities will continue to serve up their sons and daughters to protect and replace the selfish cowards and sybarites who inhabit America’s “great” periphery?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqxdX_pHFW8
full 10 minute news segment on story of father from aussie TV
we don’t like people who cut in line, there are many psychological observations that we are on the lookout for freeloaders in order to protect all sorts of social benefits. the trick is to find similar behaviors even in apes, the better to fasten it on biological darwinism – even though the evolution of social “memes” is a powerful idea too, if we are evolved enough to support such things as memes.
http://blog.2sparrows.org/2008/03/09/the-law-for-the-wolves-rudyard-kipling/
traditionally, people were cynical and skeptical of all politicians, too. what mystifies me is the utterly excessive credulousness that so many today express towards Obama. on a dozen different counts, I would reject him, expect nothing of him, and be unsurprised by even malignant actions from him. how then did he get elected? what is going on with people? it’s like immune system breakdown. that, or even worse weaknesses were perceived in the alternatives, Hillary and McCain. I suppose both could be true.
Somehow this clip seems appropriate today:
A Blaze of Glory
and a special tribute to General Buford:
The Devil to pay
A comment from the above Youtube posting about Buford;
******************************
I can think of no better example of a covering force operation by a cavalry commander. Buford literally won the Battle of Gettysburg with his identification of the key terrain and forcing Lee to deploy his main body prematurely. Without his actions on the first Day the Union position would have been untenable.
******************************
What should Americans be doing on Memorial Day?
Papa Ray @4: But my Mama knew that someday one of those cute little grown up calves would or could be dangerous.
And there, in a very homespun way, is the inverse definition of a Liberal. A Liberal thinks the cute little calf always and forever remains a cute little calf, good natured and just looking for a handout. They never recognize that calves grow up to be territorial bulls, ready to gut you to protect what’s theirs, or take from you what they want. The Liberal thinks as long as I go over with a big smile and a bottle of milk, everything’s going to be just fine.
And OT: speaking of bulls, did ya’ll see those photos from a few days ago of the bull fighter that got the horn into his jaw and out his mouth? One of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen.
Wretchard, the Judeo-Christian moral ethic carried this along generation to generation. The “Progressives,” have long worked to eradicate its continuance a various ways.
How do I know my assertion is true?
There is our experience as we lived it. We have witnessed the lengths the “Progressives” have gone to to allow any small grievance be amplified by court order to suppress the continued mention of anything related to God and the institutions that were formed in His name. That concept of the Creator, even flying in the face of horrid misapplications, has influenced many a man to comprehend the natural law of the universe with an eye towards justice — not simply personal advantage.
And there is the evidence provided us by C.S. Lewis in 1943. He saw what the “Progressives” were up to and forewarned where they were taking us. I summarize “Men Without Chests”
And we living in the postmodern world are its product, although the Left and its propaganda arms constantly denies there is anything wrong with the product — except for those [insert ad hominem here] who disagree with it.
And that suits those who hunger for power over us. They aim to be the supermen who remain — after what we might recognize as men have been abolished.
An essential reason to think back of our heroes on Memorial Day — in contradistinction to Obama dissing it — is to think of why those gave up their futures for our future.
In that thought nurtures the seed to carry on the Golden Rule. “Do unto to others what thou would not have done unto you” is anathema to those who wish to rule all the world. “Hah, what can you puny people do to me, the Great One? Morals are for lesser men.”
Those better “puny” men that we honor today wound up to beating back the nasty things that men can do in the pursuit of what many of our enemies believed then, and still believe today, is Utopia.
The Left continues to try to impress the gullible that man is perfectible, and is thus naturally good. It’s a nice wish, but it is a lie. The Left in the service of Statism needs us to forget, forget. FORGET!
Mankind must from time to time arise to beat back tyranny, sometimes against great odds, and these heroes showed us how it can be done.
So we do not forget. Yes, it is in their honor and it is for their sacrifices. It is our duty.
It imbues in us an understanding that our “individual existence and well-being is somehow inseparable from that of the group.”
“The Amriki country is exactly in the right place. Everything good is to be found there. There is no country like the Amriki country.”
But are the Amriki worthy?
“Poor is the Nation that has no Heroes, but beggared is the Nation that has, and forgets them.”
“Selfless regard for the well-being of others”.
Now is the time to read of Milton Olive.
THE MEN OF OLIVE COMPANY; FOUR SOLDIERS SURVIVED VIETNAM BECAUSE MILTON OLIVE DIDN’T
http://www.mishalov.com/Olive.html
But of course Dawkins is lying…or stupid; it can be difficult at times to tell which a liberal is. He is not describing altruism, but pacifism, the dream of the leftist thug that his aggression will never be met with anything but a smile and an outstretched hand.
Sometimes, of course, he’s right. Other times he’s wrong…but with his brain splattered all over the wall, he’ll never realize it. That’s the real failure of history; the thugs either succeed or die, and we must remember for them.
The discussion of self-sacrifice can be understood in terms our animal nature – as expressed in Darwinian natural selection. I believe this attitude falls short because self-sacrifice is more than anything else an expression of love of one’s battle mate, love of family, love of country, love of human liberty. Love is not a part of our scientific natural animal existence. Love is spiritual – a manifestation of God’s Spirit alive within our animal nature.
Last night my husband and I saw the instinctual “altruism” firsthand. We live in a wilderness area and as we arrived home at dusk a nightjar flew up from the gravel road we call our driveway. Instead of flying up into a tree she landed about fifteen feet ahead of where she had been. We then saw a very small bird trying to fly about five feet from her. It finally got a little ground and moved up about ten feet. The mama bird then started making injured bird movements such an many birds do to protect their young. They both continued moving forward in fits and starts until the young bird was able to actually fly into the brush and not be on the road. Mama bird then flew up into the bushes above the baby. A very interesting display.
Annoy Mouse @ 2 said:
“My mother, a somewhat frail 83 year old throws her arm out in front of me when she brakes in her car like she did when I was a toddler. All the more amusing because of my 270lb mass. It is a stark reminder that we used to rely more on the instinct of love than we did child car seats.”
My mother still does the same for me and I’m over 50 years old.
I’m reminded of those old child car seats that they had back in the 1950s. They had a propeller on the front that the kid could play with, were setup high so the kid could look out the windows and had a pair of hooks that slid over the top of the front seat (very convenient for loading and unloading the kid from the car). Of course these old car seats were perfectly positioned to launch the kid through the windshield in the event of an accident.
I still remember riding around in that car seat with my brother next to me in the family’s blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air. When ever we came to a abrupt halt, Mother would reach over and try to keep us from being launched from our seats. After I got a little bit bigger, I would stand next to mother on the Chevy’s bench seat with my brother and we would jump up-and-down on that seat like it was a trampoline (Mother was not amused). Those old cars were fun to ride around in as a kid. Unfortunately, I suspect a bunch of kids were killed due to minor accidents.
Oh, they incur costs. Like being taking out behind the wood shed and not brought back.
The selfish mutant only benefits as long as everyone else allows him to. The problem with Western society is that Leftists have made it increasingly difficult to deter free riders, with their endless welfare and legal rights that ignore the safety and welfare of the group.
Peterike @ 19 said:
“And there, in a very homespun way, is the inverse definition of a Liberal. A Liberal thinks the cute little calf always and forever remains a cute little calf, good natured and just looking for a handout. They never recognize that calves grow up to be territorial bulls, ready to gut you to protect what’s theirs, or take from you what they want.”
Peterike’s comment triggers my “bull story”. A zillion years ago, a classmate and I were driving around in a farming area near Goettingen, Germany and became lost. My classmate saw a farmer driving a tractor and stopped the car to go and ask about where we were. I was standing around waiting for him to come back and noticed a bull with two cows in the pasture next to me (we were separated by a a bob wire fence). For no good reason, I thought to myself:
“I’ll go pet the bull”.
So I went over, reached across the fence and started scratching the bull behind the ears and rubbing him on the forehead. The bull loved it and started prancing around like a puppy. This animal must have weighed over a ton and the ground literally shook as it pranced around. Then the bull stuck his head over the fence and started licking me. It was like being licked by a Mac truck (it could almost lift me off the ground with its licks). Anyway, the bull and I got along famously. Eventually my classmate came back and we had to drive away. I’ve always thought afterwards that bulls have an unwarranted bad reputation.
Eggplant, my parents never let us kids in the front seat of the old 56 Chevy, and I suppose more than once, at a sudden stop, whatever we were doing in the back seat, we ended up catapulted into the front seat.
I suppose that is not necessarily a good thing, but hey. Anyway I view modern child seats and child seat laws with the greatest disdain, all seems drastically overdone and likely to traumatize children and give them all sorts of neurosis about safety and parents and restraints.
Josh @ 30 said:
“Anyway I view modern child seats and child seat laws with the greatest disdain, all seems drastically overdone and likely to traumatize children and give them all sorts of neurosis about safety and parents and restraints.”
I have similar feelings but I’m also very protective of my children.
I guess that makes me a hypocrite.
When I was a child, we were pretty much free and loose after the age 6, e.g. we’d walk to school without adults and mobs of us would play out in the streets or cruise around the neighborhood on bicycles or homemade skateboards. It seemed a healthier and happier childhood than what kids have today. Of course back in my time, a pedophile was like a bear wading in a stream during salmon spawning time. It’s horrible to think about how many kids must have been victimized or murdered (although one almost never heard about this happening). Is it possible the pedophile thing is a recent phenomena? That’s hard to believe.
Altruism & the Real Cost of War —
Actually believing in the Domino Theory, I am one of the ones who actually volunteered for Vietnam… Infantry.
I learned a lesson that seems to be missed by most. A lot of the really good people who made things happen and got things done didn’t make it back. They never got the chance to have families, jobs, or start businesses. They never got the chance to instill their values into their offspring. The same cannot be said for the legions of draft dodgers or evaders who, fathered families and did instill their “let those other suckers do it” values in their offspring. Now a lot of them seem to be running things. This is an unmentioned horrific true cost of war. Society as a whole is affected. Memorial Day, for some of us, is a day of mourning.
W: Is your title Memory and Sur
vivala sly introduction to a rival human threat, or are you cutely hinting your opinion of our survival’s diminishing chances?
Speaking of old-time child-rearing, did you folks see the story about two parents arrested “on felony warrants charging them with forging a doctor’s note to excuse their third-grade son from school.” (I’ll admit that I did not initially pick up on Den Beste’s observation.)
But sometimes running away is not even the best strategy for survival.
As described in the Dogfights series, on 8 May 1942 Lt Swede Vetjsa was leading a formation of 8 SBD dive bombers from the carrier USS Yorktown, trying to intercept Japanese torpedo planes. They were attacked by 9 Zeros and Vetjsa was the only one to turn into the attack. Alone, he engaged in a dogfight that lasted over 20 minutes, got 3 Zeros, one by mid-air collision, and made it back to the carrier. Most of the SBDs that did not turn into the attack and engage the enemy fighters were shot down.
My personal belief is that there is no such thing as “courage” in terms of fearlessness but rather simply different kinds of fear. Being more afraid of what will happen if you fail to act than what will happen if you do is what makes the difference.
32. DWB
Great point. Stupidly limiting ourselves and then giving up on the Vietnam war cost us much, much more than Liberals will ever be able to acknowledge.
And along that line, here’s a most sincere ‘well done’ to all of us who wore the uniform but most especially those who had it harder than I did.
On behalf of my grandchildren–thank you for your service.
RWE / 34: “Being more afraid of what will happen if you fail to act than what will happen if you do is what makes the difference.”
One metaphor for “liberal fear” is that of cancer. Who in their right mind is more fearful of a trained, skilled, knowledgeable and dedicated cancer surgeon than of the cancer its self? Rhetorical question – liberals are fearful to act – even in self-defense. Here’s another metaphor: Liberals fear and hate the guard dog, and have a Stockholm syndrome of love for and cooperation with the wolf. In a nutshell, liberals are becoming afraid of life; and they are often unable or unwilling to distinguish good from evil.
Sorry Wretchard, you opened the door. Race matters in relatively altruistic settings. Finland, mostly mono-ethnic, can afford a fairly socialistic society because everyone is basically a distant cousin. Thus the “selfish gene” seeks to protect the genes shared by distant cousins.
Transport say, Sudanese into Maine, and the genes of Sudanese are far more distant than that of the Maine folks. Thus, the Sudanese will feel no loyalty, nor will they as a group be capable of loyalty, to people who are obviously not their very distant cousins. Instead they will exploit the system of welfare to the maximum.
Memorial Day doesn’t matter to Josh Howard. As he tells you he is Black, that’s why it does not matter [His statement came IIRC during a Memorial Day charity event]. Neither does it matter to Barack Obama’s neighbor Louis Farrakhan or of course, Rev. Wright, who drew standing room only crowds at Trinity United.
You could plunk a bunch of Frenchmen down in Senegal. They wouldn’t give a fig for Senegal, its traditions, or be willing to die for that nation or its people. Why would they? They are not Senegalese.
Sam would not have fought for a guy who wasn’t his distant cousin. Would he have fought for say, Faramir? Some random Dwarf? An Elf? Nope. His cousin, yes. Because Frodo shared his genes. And some random Dwarf didn’t. Dawkins description of how evolution works (via propagation of closely related genes) in general explains the sacrifice of Torpedo Squadron 8 at Midway — you’ll note the names. None of them Black. Or consider the Port Chicago Disaster, where 50 Black men mutinied. True, 320 were killed and 390 others injured. But unlike Peleliu, there were not around 6,000 casualties, in brutal fighting over three months, with no hot food, almost no potable water, flies thick on corpses and feces everywhere, constant night infiltration attacks, and constant sniper and mortar and artillery attacks by dug-in Japanese. It was called the “bitterest battle of the War for the Marines.” E.B. Sledge called it hell in “With the Old Breed.” Reading his descriptions, I can agree. Later, in Okinawa, Marines with almost no training were slaughtered in terrible wastage. Yet the nearly all White Marines did not mutiny, as did Black sailors loading munitions at Port Chicago.
No doubt, Port Chicago was tough. Pretty much every Marine on Peleliu would have traded places with any of the Black sailors after the explosion and called it the deal of the lifetime.
This has profound implications for America. As America declines from nearly 90% White in 1940, to only 66%, expectations of patriotism are absurd. Nearly all the “tip of the Spear” is White, and the tough conditions of Special Forces along with tough qualifications produces uniform White (with a smattering of Hispanic) officers and enlisted men. Most of the casualties (not all) in Iraq and Afghanistan are White, because that is who has enlisted to fight, in a volunteer military.
America did not react to 9/11 the way it did Pearl Harbor, because Americans are not the same. About 34% are non-White, and like Josh Howard don’t “care about that” … stuff. This is why TWO mosques will open on the Ground Zero site at the former WTC … on September 11, 2011. Triumph. Over a deeply divided society.
America just can’t react the way it did during the Greatest Generation. No multi-racial society can. Genes are just too different. Mono-ethnicity is not of course the sufficient, just the necessary building block of a prosperous and independent nation. But it is necessary. Without it, all you get is folks like Mr. Howard. Saudi Arabia is mono-ethnic. That alone does not make a fit nation. But is absolutely necessary, as any examination of recorded history shows.
Let me add, that Ancient Egypt, with very inefficient Pharoahism, survived for approximately 3,000 years or so, relatively intact culturally and politically and economically, despite a stagnant technology and horrific bureaucracy.
Because it was blessed with mono-ethnism and the Nile River, up which it could retreat when hard pressed and with the isolating desert protecting it by both sides.
Eggplant @ 31: Is it possible the pedophile thing is a recent phenomena? That’s hard to believe.
I’ve wondered about that, a little. I suspect it’s partly an improvement in mass communications so we hear about the ones there are, plus a lot of abuse went unremarked, back in the day. Certainly all the Catholic kids in my neighborhood traded stories about the dirty priests, way back when. And for the most part, parents kept much closer track of their kids than today, even if they let them run loose as you describe.
@ whiskey (39): “Transport say, Sudanese into Maine, and the genes of Sudanese are far more distant than that of the Maine folks. Thus, the Sudanese will feel no loyalty, nor will they as a group be capable of loyalty, to people who are obviously not their very distant cousins. Instead they will exploit the system of welfare to the maximum.”
That experiment has already been done. The facts don’t really support your hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_and_Bantu_migration_to_Maine
“In 2010, several former Somali refugees, now citizens of the United States and residents of Portland, filed to run for the Maine Legislature. Mohammed Dini is running for District 119 in a Democratic Party primary; Badr Sharif is running in the Republican Party primary for District 116, both of which are located in the city of Portland.”
Whiskey said: “Memorial Day doesn’t matter to Josh Howard.” Josh Howard is an ignorant fool who happened to be able to score an average of 12-20 points per game for the majority of his career in the NBA. His views were abhorrent not just to white Americans, but an affront to all Americans. Notably, not even black sports casters tried to defend his remarks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8yQ1BVDaIk&feature=related
What shall we infer from this?
Whiskey said… Most of the casualties (not all) in Iraq and Afghanistan are White, because that is who has enlisted to fight, in a volunteer military.”
At first glance, the facts appear to support your assertion. Scanning the US and Coalition Casualties page for Iraq (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/index.html)
we can see from the first page of pictures that the overwhelming majority of faces are white. Blacks and Hispanics are there but, as you suggest, they number fewer. However, with out knowledge of the base rates, i.e. the proportion of non-whites in tip of the spear positions, it’s not clear whether non-whites make up an inordinately lower proportion of the casualties. But even if they did, I’m not quite sure how that reflects positively or negatively on their patriotism, or by extension, the patriotism of non-whites as a whole.
And to return to the Josh Howard matter again…why do YOU think the video you linked to of JH disrespecting the National Anthem has only 75K hits while the one of another NBA player, Jerry Stackhouse, singing the national anthem at a Dallas Mavs game have 378K hits?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ2GVnJQ7QA&NR=1
If you follow the link, ask yourself why all of Stack’s black teammates have their hands on their hearts and earnest looks on their faces?
39. whiskey
Er, you need to rethink using this example if you consider it to be about “race”.
It’s true 50 black sailors were courts-martialed as mutineers….. but a fair and careful reading shows a prejudiced navy attempted to cover its butt by trampling the rights of men who had just survived an explosion later compared to a small atom bomb, and who had not, in fact, mutineed. They simply refused to load munitions again in the same manner as before. A method the navy quietly changed at other magazines. But it couldn’t be the fault of the brass, so it had to be caused by enlisted men. Sound familiar, anyone?
All of the men had volunteered to join the navy and serve their country. Who’se to say some of them might have preferred to have been in Peleliu?
#13 Ernie,
Yeap, I’ve done some crow shooting. My uncle has a recording of a crow giving its death cry. He has an ammo can stereo system he blasts that out with. It is important to get the first couple of crows that come.
Darwin says that men and apes
Are cousins after all
With silverbacked and silver haired
Old men who can’t recall
The days of yore when they were young
And pretty as you please
They swung all night and then by day
They slept high in the trees
Those days are gone for Darwin man
Today he lacks the strength
To fight for what is his by right
And so, in time, at length
A stronger horse will come one day
And take the weak ape’s tree
The bell does toll for apes and men
And yes it tolls for thee
The altruism discussion is complicated by the possibility that different members of the population have different interests. In other words there may be a principal/agent problem.
Do our leaders, going hat-in-hand to persuade Chinese leaders to buy more US bonds, have incentives fully aligned with those of the people who elected them? I would say not. It may be in most voters’ interest to reduce our national debt and to constrain Chinese power, while at the same time it may be in the politicians’ interest to borrow recklessly (by voters’ standards) because that is the best way they know to get reelected.
For this reason, proposals to tie politicians’ salaries and/or perks and pensions to measures of national economic well-being may have merit.
Saw a tv show the other night that compared submarine warfare in the atlantic and pacific during WWII. In the Atlantic Allied surface ships and German submarines constantly changed their tactics and technologies to grapple with each other. The war ended just as a new generation of Germans super subs –for the day–were in their sea trials. They had to be called home to surrender.
In the pacific the Japanese didn’t learn. They didn’t change their tactics or technologies at all. American subs just sank nearly their entire merchant marine. They could not get any oil to Japan proper by the end of the war.
Why didn’t the Japanese learn? Beats me. Or why did Germans constantly evolve their technology whereas the Japanese did not? Beats me again.
Perhaps not coincidentally both Germany and Japan are export driven economies today. Both–usually–balance their oil imports with industrial exports. Both stay on the cutting edge of technology. (Though I’d be interested in reading a story on the internals of how they do it.)
Donitz explicitly stated that WWI and WWII U-boat strategy was based upon America vs Britain circa 1812-1814….
That is the Royal Navy was so awesome that it was impossible to defeat directly….
But that John Paul Jones demonstrated that the RN was vulnerable to an attack against her commercial fleet, and ONLY that.
The Bushido of Nippon did not permit such a low status offensive, period.
Warriors were to sink warriors — not cashiers.
A good layman’s book on the subject of evolution, game theory, and cooperation is Robert Axelrod’s The Evolution of Cooperation. As part of his research, Axelrod ran iterated computer Prisoner Dilemma tournaments, in which game theorists were invited to submit programs to the competition. As it turned out, the winning program was one called Tit For Tat. Its strategy is given by its name. By no coincidence, it is also isomorphic with the Golden Rule.
49. blert
Donitz explicitly stated that WWI and WWII U-boat strategy was based upon America vs Britain circa 1812-1814….
That is the Royal Navy was so awesome that it was impossible to defeat directly….
……
Never hear that, but I did see another tv show the other night that mentioned that Donitz submarine fleet wasn’t fully funded until after the Bismark was sunk in 1941.
John@7,
Thanks. I’m glad to have read your comment before I launched into my attempt, which would surely have been inferior.
Rand also defines things; just so everybody knows what they’re talking about. Much of the confusion about selfishness comes from the generally accepted connotation. Selfishness is looking out for one’s own interests. It’s envy to add the connotation AT EVERYONE ELSE’S EXPENSE; thereby placing a moral claim on anyone looking out for their own interests. Let’s not conflate voluntary cooperation and selflessness or altruism.
Sacrifice means giving up a higher value for a lower value. Getting a higher value for a lower value is called a gain. I admire and appreciate their patriotic service to US, so I don’t believe our military is sacrificing. We need more positive, non-contradictory terminology to describe it.
Now, I agree that when we impose ROEs that threaten their survival on the battlefield, or go to battle frivolously etc., we begin their sacrifice.
Selfishness is not “looking out for one’s own interests.” Selfishness is looking out for one’s own interests with no regard for others – not loving your neighbor. The Bible doesen’t command that you love your neighbor ahead of yourself and your family, it says “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Bible does not command that you give half of your property to the poor, it says “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger…” The Bible does not say, as Karl Marx has said in the Communist Manifesto, that one must be partial to the poor (through coercive Marxist Government); it says “You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty.” Self-love is good and necessary, and is the basis for self-esteem and the pursuit of happiness; but it must be balanced by love of neighbor.
Marxists will never rest in labeling an individual “greedy” when one labors and desires the fruit of one’s own labor. What they must conceal is that the labor-challenged Marxist ruling class, and the labor-challenged proletariat class with whom they form an alliance, are greedy for property for which they have not labored.
John Lock made it clear:
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s… God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho’ all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man… Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.” John Locke
http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111locke1.html
Here’s a challenge for Randians.
What Marx provided the Leftists, Rand provided the Statists: a false flag behind which they hide their true intentions from the gullible. (The members of both camps contain power lusters and misanthropes. Whatever else they have done, and will do yet, to achieve their goals, their results prove to be devastatingly misanthropic. (So what element is truly in charge?))
Consider that Rand’s pièce de résistance was titled for a bloodless titan.
Consider that she kills, without any sense of loss, the two most identifiable and likeable humans in her novel. Taggert’s wife commits suicide out of frustration and despair.
Eddie Willers is torn apart by the mob while doing his job beyond the call of duty (like the men we remember today). He did it in habitual defense of the property of Rand’s “heroine” who had herself abandoned the field without telling him, her long-time loyal friend. Dagny (Rand) displayed no gratitude.
What individuals — who are wary of ideologies but are disorganized — need to see is that the Marxists and the Statists are two ends of the same vise, with real humans in the middle.
Initially I very much liked Atlas Shrugged. It seemed a welcome antithesis to the Leftism that was whirling for the 40-50 years on either side of its publication.
So what first alerted me to the deceitful side of Rand? The actions and words of her most lauded acolyte, Alan Greenspan.
When Greenspan said “who in their right mind would buy a 4.5% fixed mortgage when a 3.75% variable is available?” I knew he either was intentionally deceitful, or someone had something terrible they used — and he succumbed — to get Greenspan to abandon those who trusted him. Like Rand did Willers.
I’d like to know: Am I the first person you have read to make this observation about Rand? I’ve not seen written elsewhere.
Could it be because those on the Left, who are more inclined to criticize her, would never make such a comparison? And certainly not from the libertarians who shun from their ranks any who did not conform to a certain level of coldbloodedness.
On this day of remembrance, where acolytes and apologists of Rand are among those who question the wisdom of willing self sacrifice, I’d like to hear a defense of her attitude to the common man.
Not the “man” she paints as a defiant titan like Galt or Reardon or Rourke, and of independent means, but a common man who is a success in his own right, in the decent things he does and the loyalties he demonstrates — like Willers.
For the rest of you, this day for remembrance of fallen heroes may be of aid when you decide it is time to jump out from between the jaws of the tyrants’ vise.
Eggplant @ 31: I have no evidence to support this theory, but I suspect pedophiles in the past were dealt with locally and extra-judicially.
2) Slightly OT. I would recommend to you all Sebastian Junger’s new book War, about time he spent embedded with troops in Afghanistan.
I was talking to an educated young man, about 35 years old, today. He had never heard of the Battle of MIDWAY. Simply never heard of it.
It’s Fleet Week in New York City, and we were talking about the ships and aircraft on view. He was very interested in all this, and seemed to have no anti-military animus, but … he’d never heard of the Battle of Midway.
I shouldn’t be shocked, with the Leftist scum designing the curricula, but I was outraged. I filled him in on it.
Eggplant @31
RE kids running loose around the neighborhoods: We did too (grew up in the 1960s suburban South). But we were unaware of the jungle telegraph the Moms had going. Our mother told us about thirty years later that they would keep an eye on us out their kitchen/den windows, and if the Kid Pack got too far afield, they’d give the other mothers a call.
But the feeling of freedom we kids had was Glorious. I feel so sorry for the kids today who’ll never have that Huck Finn experience of “lighting out for the Territories,” even if it was just the woods that lay alongside our neighborhood.
I commend to the community Matt Ridley’s elegant and entertaining The Origins of Virtue.
Below is an Amazon review that is better than what I could conjure having read it about six years ago.
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and quixotic arguments, but with rigour underneath, November 18, 1999 By David Gillies
… In this short, highly readable book he puts forward the evolutionary biologist’s theory for the existence of human cooperation and altruism, and he does it brilliantly. The depth and breadth of material covered is extraordinary, and this book well rewards repeated readings (always the sign of good science writing).
From an introductory description of the ideas of Kropotkin, through game theory and Evolutionarily Stable Strategies, to a discussion of free market economics as the ‘best fit’ to human models of social cooperation, Ridley introduces a wealth of meticulously researched material with sufficient digs at current bien-pensant wisdom on the acquisition of culture to make the average sociologist’s hair stand on end.
#7
I took Philosophy in collage. The first thing I learned was that Philosophy’s task was to try and figure out exactly what it was people mean when they use the more subtle words. So the Philosophical statement of work here is “What do people mean when they call an action altruistic?” Not, “how does Webster define altruistic”, nor “how does Ayn Rand define altruistic?” Ayn Rand wants to define Altruism away, because her worldview chokes on it. Webster isn’t a philosopher, so his definitions tend to be circular on the words used for difficult concepts.
Would the common person describe Sam’s defense of Frodo as altruistic? No, because Frodo was Sam’s friend. (“No greater love …”, etc). Altruism is applied to actions towards people you don’t know very well, or don’t know at all. Another key characteristic is lack of expected pay-back. Some vague notion of a making a better community doesn’t count, you don’t foresee any kind of direct pay-back to yourself, or your kith or kin.
Well put sir. And timely.
For instance, the “Progressives” would love us to believe they are for overall human progress simply because that is the primary dictionary definitions for the word “progressive.”
When you bring up the phrase “false flag operation,” all of a sudden they don’t understand English.
I’m currently battling a self-described Progressive (click my name) who tried that tactic.
I paraphrased your line at comment 18.
He changed the subject at comment 19.
Merci Beaucoup.
No discussion of altruism vs. selfishness is complete without discussion of one specific aspect of Christianity: its concepts of eternal salvation vs. eternal damnation. This, I would argue, is Christianity’s “killer app” – a metaphysical mechanism designed to give people an overriding, and utterly selfish motivation (namely, the good standing of one’s own immortal soul with God) to behave in a manner that would otherwise be considered quite altruistic. As I’ve argued here before, introducing eternity into any rational cost-benefit analysis invariably skews that analysis in one direction.
Of course, for this incentive to be effective, one must believe in such things as God and an eternal afterlife in the first place, and to the extent that this belief is fading away from Western life, so is the eternal-salvation incentive that it creates.