Lots of people retain the notion that our self-interest is not hard-wired into us in the same way that our physical attributes are hard-wired into us; many people suppose that with just the right upbringing or education, or with enough self-discipline, a human being can be made non-self-interested.
This notion is bunk. It has no more validity than the belief that, say, a man can run as fast as a cheetah if he trains with sufficient diligence, or that a woman can grow an extra set of arms if only she tries hard enough to do so. Nurture plays a role in conditioning who we are, physically and mentally, but our fundamental phenotype and mental attributes are hard-wired into us.
The depth and the naturalness of self-interest is illustrated by Rebecca Stern, the adorable seven-year-old daughter of my colleague Dan Klein and his lovely wife Lotta Stern. A few weeks ago, Dan and Lotta found these ‘Ruls’ taped to Rebecca’s bedroom door. These rules clearly indicate a child’s sense of mine vs. thine — of a person’s desire to have protected personal dominion over space and things.
(Note that Rebecca’s mother, Lotta, is Swedish and so Rebecca spends much of her time in Sweden with her mother. The ‘Swenglish’ is interesting, too!)
Share
{ 7 comments }
That is a word *.doc file, but is not saved to the server that way so you can't open it. You have to save it to disk, rename it with a .DOC extension, then use word to open it.
PDF might be better than word (even though PDF is evil), HTML would be even better.
In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has, to put it mildly, a fatal design flaw. – Frank Zappa
If it's alive, it has the urge to survive.
The core of a human is emotive in nature.
It sounds to me like the little girl is engaging in some ultimately self-destructive individualism.
Each of my children has tried something similar, only to become chagrined at learning that they were attempting to exercise rights over property which wasn't theirs. It never occurred to them that their rooms and furniture were actually owned by their parents, and that we are just letting them use them. Each incident has provided fodder for a number of thought provoking conversations.
Apologies, can't remember who said it and to paraphrase:
"Even dogs in fields understand the concept of property. Why do you have such a hard time understanding it?"
I don't know man, what about cults where people are brainwashed to do everything for a leader? I mean, you could make an argument that they're being selfish by wanting the promises of the afterlife that the leader gives. But then couldn't you also make the argument that by giving into doing what's best for society you would selfishly aim towards utopian socialist promises?