Dear Friends and Family,
I've been brewing on this for awhile now and sadly I'm beginning to form conclusions.
Over the past summer I've gotten more irritated with driving and traffic and things people do on the road that's bothersome or simply unsafe. And, I've wondered if it's simply stupidity that's driving the behavior or selfishness. In other words, are the people unaware that their behavior puts others in harm's way? Or are they fully aware and simply too selfish to care?
Stupidity is easy to solve, relatively. It's a matter of educating people. Then, the problem is solved. But, selfish, that's a much harder problem to solve. There's three ways that I can come up with. You either convince people to not be selfish, which I sadly don't think is possible in today's world. Or, you can set up the motivations so that selfishness pays off. But, that just makes people more selfish which at some point will create a total breakdown in society. Or, you punish the bejeezus out of selfish behavior so that selfish behavior doesn't pay off.
But, where does selfish behavior come from? I don't believe people are inherently selfish. I really don't.
On a societal level, historically, survival depended upon some amount of cooperation. A village can produce enough to survive. But, take the occupants of a village and ask them to survive independent of the village and they can't. Each person can't produce enough to survive on their own.
On an individual level, scientist's have done studies that shows babies are empathetic. They will try to help others when they perceive there is a need.
So, if selfishness is learned, where does it come from? Well, not to put it all on the parents, but I think that's where it starts. Then, it comes from friends. Then, it comes from society at large. And, finally, it comes from work. It's not like the FedEx driver double parks because they want to. It's because that's what they've been told to do.
So how do I raise P to not be selfish? Well, I suppose we need to not be selfish. We need to introduce her to friends who are not selfish. Then, when she gets older, we need to talk about society and selfishness. We need to let her know that there are selfish people in the world. We need to also show why we don't want to be selfish even if the short term gain seems to point towards being selfish. And, then, we need to foster enough confidence that she can walk away from bad behaviors and learn to be a generous person even if selfishness abounds about her.
Perhaps I'm being naive. But, I do believe the world is a better place when everyone's not out for themself.
The other thing is I think selfish people believe the world owes them something and they're just taking their due. And, I don't believe the world owes you a darn thing.
Cheers!
mouse
I've been brewing on this for awhile now and sadly I'm beginning to form conclusions.
Over the past summer I've gotten more irritated with driving and traffic and things people do on the road that's bothersome or simply unsafe. And, I've wondered if it's simply stupidity that's driving the behavior or selfishness. In other words, are the people unaware that their behavior puts others in harm's way? Or are they fully aware and simply too selfish to care?
Stupidity is easy to solve, relatively. It's a matter of educating people. Then, the problem is solved. But, selfish, that's a much harder problem to solve. There's three ways that I can come up with. You either convince people to not be selfish, which I sadly don't think is possible in today's world. Or, you can set up the motivations so that selfishness pays off. But, that just makes people more selfish which at some point will create a total breakdown in society. Or, you punish the bejeezus out of selfish behavior so that selfish behavior doesn't pay off.
But, where does selfish behavior come from? I don't believe people are inherently selfish. I really don't.
On a societal level, historically, survival depended upon some amount of cooperation. A village can produce enough to survive. But, take the occupants of a village and ask them to survive independent of the village and they can't. Each person can't produce enough to survive on their own.
On an individual level, scientist's have done studies that shows babies are empathetic. They will try to help others when they perceive there is a need.
So, if selfishness is learned, where does it come from? Well, not to put it all on the parents, but I think that's where it starts. Then, it comes from friends. Then, it comes from society at large. And, finally, it comes from work. It's not like the FedEx driver double parks because they want to. It's because that's what they've been told to do.
So how do I raise P to not be selfish? Well, I suppose we need to not be selfish. We need to introduce her to friends who are not selfish. Then, when she gets older, we need to talk about society and selfishness. We need to let her know that there are selfish people in the world. We need to also show why we don't want to be selfish even if the short term gain seems to point towards being selfish. And, then, we need to foster enough confidence that she can walk away from bad behaviors and learn to be a generous person even if selfishness abounds about her.
Perhaps I'm being naive. But, I do believe the world is a better place when everyone's not out for themself.
The other thing is I think selfish people believe the world owes them something and they're just taking their due. And, I don't believe the world owes you a darn thing.
Cheers!
mouse
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