Another helpful survey of literature in this respect is Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goldman. It describes the research that indicates that much of what we do is driven by instinct.
Jonathan Haidt, Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion also has some empirical research that is leaning this way.
It must be noted that everything here is a "predisposition", not a "predestination". For example, we are an aggressive species, but we can control and manage that. It takes some work, and sometimes a level of civilization, but it can be done. The things I am describing are strong tendencies. They are instinctual reflexes which can be managed with some work. But it is important to recognize these instincts, because a very high percentage of the population respond in this way most of the time. It has been my observation that these tendencies probably account for 80% of human behavior. Some of us have conquered one or the other instinct, but it is relatively rare that anyone works in the reflective mode all the time.
This is one of my basic rules of life: "Most of us are not paying attention". See a fuller explanation of this here: Rules of Thumb for Life
The people who seem to understand this best are our politicians. There is a wonderful novel that expands on this idea. It is Interface by Neal Stephenson under the pseudonym of Stephen Bury. The presidential candidate in the story is wired for real time sampling of how various segments of society respond to his speeches. His words are tuned until the audience is madly supportive.
Kohlberg understood this, and it seems clear to me from casual observation. We start off as infants totally focused on ourselves, on "mine". We have this drive just to survive, but it lives on. Our family generally socializes us at an early age, so that we understand the rules of politeness and connectedness - we become family members and then part of a tribe.
It is important to note that some individuals do not make this transition - they have a "personality disorder". The accepted theory for this is that if an individual does not have a meaningful, caring relationship by the time they are two years of age, they never form connections with others. They remain egotistic, they operate for themselves alone. This is important because we have to be on the alert for them. We need checks and balances, we need audits, we need policing, just to keep these 'selfish' individuals from taking advantage of the rest of us. Gross surveys indicate that about 10% of us are out there solely for ourselves.
This is a survival mechanism. Our lower brain stem has a fight or flight reaction to the stranger. We decide instinctually whether something is a risk or not. There is a fine exposition of this by Daniel Goldman in his book Emotional Intelligence. This is survey of the current literature, but it does a really fine job of showing how much of what we do is driven by the genetics.
We can work to overcome this, but the tendency is strong. Most people do not grasp the subtle nuances of a moral discussion. They want a simple yes or no, a simple up or down. Are you with me, or against me? Anything in the middle is not tolerated well.
Jonathan Haidt explains this instinctual response quite well. I like his general thinking, but I find his categories to be overly complex - it doesn't fit into the black and white framework very well! He calls this one "intuitive primacy but not dictatorship". Works for me!
Those tribes who responded well to strong leadership tended to dominate in battle over the loosely organized rabble, and their genetics survived. You can see this play out in politics and in economics. It helps explain our constant tendency to follow totalitarian leaders. This is especially true if they are black and white types, who also deliver a message full of meaning and purpose. Wilson found this tendency to be one of the deepest traits of humans. He stated this in an essay published in the New York Times on January 1, 2000.
This is Wilson again. We are social animals. The group that could bind together could defeat the others. We identify with our peers, but not just any peers - they are OUR peers, OUR tribe, OUR group. Haidt calls this "loyalty", but I think "tribe" is more descriptive. Some of us even rise to the level of a national identity. In the US, the European immigrant population never really had tribes. We all came with immigrant histories, and most of us left that behind in favor of the nation. In Europe, the linguistic differences and cultural enclaves of centuries still have some sway. I was visiting with old friends in Florence in 2001. I was telling them how amazed I was that Germans and French and Italians have dropped their borders in favor of the European Union. They agreed that this was an amazing accomplishment - and they were also similarly amazed that Pisa and Florence and Venice were not fighting!
As Wilson said, this often culminates in a commitment to national soccer teams. Whatever works!
When we get something working right, like how to build a house that will stand, or how to raise cattle or crops, we tend to keep doing it that way. The ones who go off and change it, or who can't remember the song, or the story that tells them how to do it, tend not to survive. The ones who follow the traditions are the survivors. I think less than 10% of us are innovators, and rightly so. When I walk into the bank, I don't want the teller to make up a new way to handle my transaction - just do it the way it's supposed to be done, thank you very much.
This means that moral traditions speak strongly to us. "It has always been that way." "You just don't do that." It bothers us greatly to depart from what has always been done. Some of our moral thinkers even use this tendency to point to something called "natural law". It was made by God to operate that way, and there is no way to depart from that without moral evil. But, of course, we made up this principle to capitalize on this need for consistency. See the last point here.
Even those of us who think we have moved beyond religion are still driven by uplifting goals. I would push them up a bit higher, to the level of the planet - the GAIA - and to all living, sentient beings, wherever they be or however they are created or manufactured.
This is not an innate tendency in our genetics. It is a revolution in thinking, similar to the agricultural revolution. We only discovered the idea that we could actually cultivate crops about 10,000 years ago, after hundreds of thousands of years of hunting and gathering. It changed everything, giving us the ability to form cities, armies, nations. Civilization came from agriculture - a change in how we thought about ourselves, and our dependency on the planet. We are now in charge of it, not at its mercy.
Just so, the idea that rights can be created, identified and constructed, was a major revolution in social thinking. Initially, authority delivered what rights we possessed, God and / or the King. The revolution came about when Locke and company stood society on its head, and decreed that the state is the product of the people, at the service of the people. From that point on, rights are something we create, not something granted by authority. We create these "rights" and "privileges" and "laws" to make things more consistent and adaptive as circumstances change.
You might think that a highly directive society, a dictatorship, would work much more efficiently and effectively than a loosely organized democratic squabble. Efficiency perhaps, but creativity, energy, commitment - not likely. Amartya Sen in his book, Development as Freedom makes the case that our societies prosper in what really counts when humans are "free", when we control our own destiny to some extent. Freedom or democracy is not the result of affluence, but the other way around. The human creativeness and energy that freedom unleashes is the source of broad wealth. He compares parts of India, and developing countries and China to make his point. Humans are amazing, and they are even more so when they are relatively free.
Created on ... 2007.12.12
Updated on 2010.03.07