What about apathy?
Ever notice how people seem to be super passionate about something (a cause, a person, a job) and that passion seems to lead them to do super selfish things?
Consider the following anecdotes:
Case One
Jeffrey is being considered for a position for district manager for his company, and could desperately use the promotion. However, he is in the running for this position with David. Jeffrey knows a couple of secrets concerning David though, that if spread, could ruin David’s chances of getting the position. Jeffrey realizes that for both of them, this job is important, but he decides he needs it more, so he decides to spread the secrets and management catches wind. As a result, Jeffrey gets the promotion, and David’s life is ruined.
In this case, the egoistic action is taken as a result of self concern or consequentialism bearing the greater benefit as the benefit to the self.
Case Two
Jeffrey is being considered for a position as district manager for his company, but is also being considered for a handful of other positions internally and externally, with a few that have already guaranteed that they would hire him and pay him better wages. However, David is looking for the specific position as district manager. Despite knowing that David is incompetent, he decides not to share that as it does not negatively affect him to lose this position to David.
In this case, the altruistic action is taken, not because it is altogether consequentially beneficial, but just because it is merely not inconvenient to do so.
So what do we make of this phenomena? Are humans intrinsically selfish? Well, no. Not necessarily. There are exceptions to this case, but I think it has to do with the competitive nature of survival. We just won’t do things that impede our ability to survive. We do things for others for reasons that in some cases lead to helping our ability to survive, which is fine, but is there more? It is incredibly hard these days to find someone who will go out of their way to be generous. No, I don’t mean getting off part way to work to give food to a food bank. I mean going the opposite direction for 2 hours to help a friend paint their house before getting to work, risking being late.
This is probably better evidenced in animes/mangas. Dragon Ball Z, a popular anime, is the perfect example (spoiler alert: spoilers after the jump for those who haven’t seen the anime yet).
In the Cell Saga of Dragon Ball Z, one of the characters, Gohan, finally reaches Super Saiyan 2, a level strong enough to beat Cell, the main enemy of the saga. What set this ascendance into motion was Cell stepping on the head of someone Gohan got to know, an android who cherished life and everything about it. Gohan’s rage was triggered, as it has been many times before, by the need to protect those he cared about who were in danger. Basically, the character only plays hero when someone he cares about gets hurt.
This is much the same for every anime ever created. The so called “true power” or “ascended power” of the characters is only ever revealed when someone that said character cares about is attacked, and it is only then that the character’s power evolves. It makes you think that that kind of generosity or altruism is only ever borne when it befits the person giving to give. It only made sense for Gohan to become stronger when he needed to, and as a consequence, when it felt okay for him to. Of course, this is a bit of a technical feature of the plot, but writers wouldn’t have given him the power to reach Super Saiyan 2 earlier because they wanted to fill out the plot rather than just have Gohan turn SS2 right away and defeat Cell within frames of encountering him. It was a matter of creating the need and allowing the action to happen when it was convenient for the plot, and when such actions would be beneficial to the protagonist.
I guess the point of all this ranting is that people will be nice when they can be; otherwise, it’s dog eat dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment