A very nice piece by Seth Godin .. Insightful!! Culture and selfishness One person selfishly drops a piece of litter on the ground, the other selfishly picks it up. Everything we do is done because its better than not doing it. Better is the complicated term. Better might mean, gives me physical pleasure right now, for some people, while better might mean, the story I tell myself about the contribution I just made gives me joy and satisfaction. Society benefits when people selfishly choose the long view and the generous view. The heroes we look up to are those that sacrificed to build schools, to overcome evil, to connect and lead--even though it didnt necessarily help them in the short run. Culture, then, provides the bridge between childish, naive instincts to only do what feels good now, to only help ourselves and maybe our kids. Culture makes it too socially expensive to brag about not giving money to charity or, to pick an absurd example, to kill the infirm and the less fortunate. We reduce sociopathic behavior by establishing norms and rewarding those that contribute while shunning and punishing those that dont
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 11:42:20 +0000
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