How Society Overrides the Selfish Gene
By: Tica Darius
Tags: Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Social Justice, Life

How Society Overrides the Selfish Gene

And why it can be both fantastic and catastrophic

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay.

If you have lived for a total of at least 2 hours on this Earth, you are bound to have heard the idea that humans follow their own self-interest because it is a biological imperative.

Even more than a simple concept, this is the basis for the way our society functions, from free-market capitalism to corruption, from hiding away that last slice of pizza from your pals to the sinking ship dilemma, in which most would choose to save themselves rather than the others.

Let’s explore this latter idea a bit more: you find yourself on a ship that is sinking, and you have the option of taking a lifeboat yourself and have a 100% chance of survival or the option of taking an additional 3 people with you, but halving your odds in the process. Chances are, you would take the former.

Don’t get me wrong, I would probably do the same, or strive to find a middle ground (taking only 1 person, for instance), in order to prioritize my life. Nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong, however, is to justify this behavior as a constant so deeply embedded into our thinking and genes, that it is impossible to moderate. This has given birth to ideologies such as eugenics or social Darwinism, which state that aiding those who are vulnerable or unfortunate is unethical, as the scope of existence in society is the survival of the fittest.

These may sound very radical, but a certain degree of such thinking is applied by surprisingly many people today, from politicians to criminals and business owners, maybe even by your libertarian uncle (you know what I’m talking about).

Many would say that human compassion is the only solid counterargument to this mentality, as humans are incapable of acting based on rationality alone. But, if a proper analysis is done, we can observe that even the rational foundation for it is severely flawed.

First off, as far as we know so far, humans do not have an inherent purpose in life. The universe does not dictate that we must become the wealthiest, or the most popular, or beautiful. Life is perhaps too silent when it comes to that matter. Therefore, it is impossible to say that society must assess the worth of individuals according to their fulfillment of a purpose when there is none, to begin with. The victors of this imaginary race are simply people who have chosen material sustenance and career success as their scope.

This means that imposing a constraint of living on other people is illegitimate, as everybody has a different perspective about his/her existence, so they should all be entitled to choose for themselves. Neither would the powerful like it when we collectively state that the meaning of life should be to have as little money as possible.

Instead of censoring each other, we have chosen to construct the idea of freedom, in which all can pursue their own passions autonomously. And yet, since most of us have to work to access the basic facilities of sustaining life, and countless other examples as such, we have yet to implement this concept coherently.

Secondly, the basic premise that we have is the idea of equality of opportunity, namely that everybody is free to make his/her own choices, without any type of constraint whatsoever. As we know, this is true, as far as the formal denotation is concerned.

If I want to eat at McDonald’s rather than to cook my own food at home, no institution will force me out of my decision. But when we consider the psychological dimension of decision-making, things get a tad bit more complicated.

There are some types of information that we receive since childhood, from our parents, neighbors, peers, teachers, and so on, that have been consolidated in certain cultures. Henceforth, we will refer to them as cultural imperatives.

If your first thoughts that stem from these are religion, beauty standards, or gender roles, you are correct. Many of them are not actively processed by the individual, to see whether he/she should believe them or not, but are rather ingested directly into the subconscious mind.

So, if the information that we believe bypasses the rational filter that we generally use, is it a legitimate use of information, or rather more similar to propaganda? I would personally incline towards the latter.

From the looks of it, this so-called biological imperative starts to look more and more like a social norm than an inherent aspect of humanity, doesn’t it?

This shows that, instead of being free in thinking and actions, humans are conditioned by their context concerning how they will behave. This is both good and bad news.

The bad we have seen throughout history. Wars, crusades, torture, absolutist ruling, all were thought of as normal and humane merely because, over generations, we have tricked ourselves into believing it.

The good news, however, is that the 21st Century brought immense access to information worldwide. All we have to do is to encourage our children to think information through, to document themselves on every opinion that they have, and to actively decide what to believe. Boom, society is optimized for liberty, or at least for its ideological fundaments.

The problem is, of course, convincing a generation that has lived with cultural imperatives to abandon them while raising the next. It’s like trying to convince a 16th Century monarch that people should choose their leader democratically.

In other words, absurd.

Luckily, there is a way out of this loophole, namely that, even though we have been raised with cultural imperatives as a large part of our belief systems, we can discipline ourselves to override them consciously.

I have personally done it, and I can assure you that it is difficult, like going against your own self. It will be hell to go through, but the satisfaction at the end is immeasurable.

Here is a simple guideline:

Understand that this belief comes from the outside, not inside. Comprehend what desired/logical behavior you want to have instead. Transform this thinking into a habit that you practice every day until it no longer feels unnatural.

Ultimately, this is also a way to scientifically (broadly-speaking) test the fact that we are all simply the products of our surroundings, of what others have told us, of what culture tells us is right or wrong, and so on.

It is not part of you. It is not a selfish gene. It is a parasite. And expunging it means purifying your heart and truly embracing humanity.

Who would have thought?

To improve our society drastically, we simply have to talk ourselves into doing it.

*The phrase ‘Selfish Gene’ was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book with the same name. Credit where credit’s due :)