In Reply to: Re: Each one a king posted by Not Nambla on June 12, 2006 at 18:51:37:
I thought that's what I did but I will try again.
For what I read, the human being is selfish to start with. We don't get better as we grow up and gradually become unselfish. All of our decisions are based on two notions we are either doing something for the positive reward or we are doing it to prevent a punishment.
That is the old behavioral pshychology I know you are familiar with. As the paradigm moves towards cognitivism, the issue of values comes to the forefront. In the previous paradigms behavior was assumed to be initiated by something internal. Current thinking places the environment, including the values, as the motivating energy that changes behavior.
Regardless of how we see it, in the end, decisions come from an interplay of the environment and the other individual differences, including values. What seems to be difficult to touch is the hegemony of ego, which is a natural component of the human being.
At the bare levels of human nature, ego resists influences and humans continue behaving based on outcomes. Since the most basic instinct is survival, the most basic force is selfish.
In a society where individualism is not only rewarded but enthusiastically praised and continually reinforced, the needs of the community are relegated by the ego to a secondary plane. This is not binary because there are degrees and probably many factors to consider in each case.
In an individualistic society, each person will strive to have as much control as possible and want to be a king. The values the individual has adopted come from the society but also comes from their own human needs. When these two support each other as selfishness and individualism do, every one wants to be a king.
The important component is the values, which may come from reading or from their family or from the people they associate with. If a person has values that fight selfishness they may turn out into a community champion of one sort or another.
In the Family there is a lot to say for communal living but there is a lot to say for individualism. I think that explains why so many of us have left. While trapped and through a struggle, we were able to look after ourselves and leave, either SGA or FGA.
Those who stay may not have worked out the individualism issue or don't want to just because they are comfortable.