FEED YOUR HEAD

Science Finds Humans Aren’t Inherently Nasty | Gawker

solitaryforager:

socialismartnature:

See, humans are naturally inclined toward socialist behavior! That’s why the capitalist ruling class needs to make such immense use of various forms of ideological, economic, physical, and social coercion against us in order to keep its order in existence [i.e., prisons, media, police, politicians, scapegoating, racism/sexism/xenophobia, etc.]

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According to researcher Frans de Waal, new studies on animals from primates to mice show there is a biological basis for behavior such as cooperation.

Until recently, the common scientific view was that humans, inherently “nasty” at their core, had been forced to develop an unnatural veneer of morality in order to function as a society.

De Waal countered that human children — and most higher animals — are “moral” in a scientific sense, because they need to cooperate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes.

As evidence of his claims, de Waal provided video from laboratories which revealed the “dramatic emotional distress” of one monkey denied a treat that another received, and of a rat giving up chocolate in order to help another rat escape from a trap.

According to de Waal, these findings prove that social tendencies such as “reciprocity, fairness, empathy and consolation,” occur naturally, in the wild.

This is how deep the problems go — we’re all taught that evolution is based on competition, is based on survival of the meanest. And that’s just capitalism projected onto the natural world. And it’s so stupid!

The creatures who have survived in the long run have survived in the long run; you don’t survive in the long run by hyper-exploiting your surroundings; you survive in the long run by actually improving your habitat. What a concept. 

(via socialuprooting)