Everyone is always so wrapped up in themselves that they really do forget about each other. Steven Pinker wrote an article dealing with morals and rationalization. At one part he discusses how "Stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress." So why do we not carry this trait into adulthood? Indeed, there are some (few but some) who still would be willing to drop everything to help a stranger in need, but as I said, very few. Honestly, I think society plays a large role in this. Society always focuses on being the best and competing with your peers to be number one. Just the other day in my anatomy class someone had asked about how we would be graded and the professor word for word actually said you are competing against your peers. It is a common thought in the mind of college students. As long as you can get a better grade than the rest of your classmates, you will be fine. Many have heard people say if you were being chased by a bear or a shark, you don't have to be the fastest, you just have to be faster than your friends. And this mentality stays with us throughout life. If we could just have a more expensive car, a bigger house, or a better job than our neighbor we have ultimately become the best. But is this really the way we should be living?
Pinker opens his article comparing Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, and Norman Borlaug. He discusses how the majority would pick Mother Theresa as the most admirable of the three. However, is this because this idea has been so engraved in our heads that we believe it is true, or is it actually? Pinker also discusses what are known as memes in his article. Memes, rather than genes, are ideas that are passed on between generations, friends, and others. For example if one of your parents is extremely health conscience, you most likely will become health conscience as well. So could this be why we think Mother Theresa is the most admirable, because that is what we have been told and think we know, or is it really the best answer?Pinker goes on to discuss how Bill Gates actually invested a lot of his wealth into helping developing nations with malaria, diarrheal diseases, and parasites. Yet, most of us simply associate Gates with being one of the richest men in the world. As Pinker quotes "As for Norman Borlaug... who the heck is Norman Borlaug?" Which was actually the first question that went through my head when reading this article. Norman Borlaug actually was the father of the "Green Revolution" and yet most of us have no idea who he even is.
We have come to a time where we believe ourselves are the most important thing so we tend to bring down others to make ourselves look better. For example, instead of seeing Bill Gates as doing great things for developing countries we look at him as "infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death." So why do we do this? Why do we turn some great people such as Mother Theresa into saints while we turn others into simply people who are just rich for inventing something, when really they did do a lot of great things with their money. And most importantly why do we recognize names like Jay-Z, Brett Favre, and Kate Hudson, yet have no idea who Norman Borlaug is? Everywhere you look there are commercials for GOING GREEN and saving energy all of which, whether they know it or not were inspired by this one man. He is the man who brought attention to the fact that we need to save the only planet we have, and the majority of us have not a clue who he is.
Everyone has rules on what they believe is morally correct, but few know how to explain why they think something is right or wrong. Pinker gives an example of a brother and sister who are on vacation and decide to make love. The sister is on birth control and the brother uses a condom, they promise never to tell anyone. So many might say this is wrong because they could have children with birth defects, but they used protection. Others might say its wrong because it would hurt their family, but it became a secret so no one else ever knew. So why is this wrong? As Pinker explains people simply respond by saying "I don't know, I can't explain it, I just know it's wrong." So why do "they just know it's wrong" -- society. Now I'm not saying its okay to go and sleep with your brother or sister, I'm simply trying to show that society has a huge impact on how we think and how we act. So why don't we carry the sharing and caring aspect to adulthood? The answer is simple. Because the older you get, the more competitive things become, and the more competitive things become, the less people care about others.
So what will it take to really change the world? Not only do we need everybody to work together, we also need everybody to break a lot of their current habits in order to do this and as we all know this is not simple. Imagine if we did work together, if everyone, even just in the United States somehow cooperated to make a global difference, how huge of an impact it could have. Currently, according to the US census Bureau, there are over 300 million residents in the United States alone. If each person give or take donated ONE dollar a year, just one, for 5 years, a total of five dollars over five years, we would have more than a billion dollars to put towards research and funding, or even to help a third world country. So why hasn't anything like this happened? It's hard enough to get five students together to work on a group project let alone 300 million. However, if somebody, somewhere found somehow to achieve something like this, the results would be outstanding. We simply need to go back to our roots. Go back to a time when sharing was a good thing, not something that was viewed as being weak or giving in. In the end, we just need to go back to a simpler time.
- The Moral Instinct by Steven Pinker - January 13, 2008
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