Analysis Of Altruism ': A Pandora's Box'

Nature’s Gifts: A Pandora’s Box

In her essay, “Of Altruism, Heroism and Nature’s Gifts in the Face of Terror,” Natalie Angier makes the point that our success as humans stems from our capacity for altruism. Altruism, she argues, is a key component of inclusive fitness and our altruistic predisposition leads us to self-sacrifice and heroic behavior. But while we are celebrated for our altruism, we are notorious for our belligerence and hostility. We have waged the largest, most destructive battles known among creatures; our memoirs are rife with tales of malice and vengeance. What we have celebrated as heroism, in truth, has often been malevolence disguised in the name of altruism. Like altruism, hostility has been passed down to us from our

evolutionary ancestors. Violence and conflict have remained constants throughout our history and we have inflicted unspeakable pain and torture upon our enemies in efforts to eradicate them. Let us look closer at nature’s gifts — in their black and murky underbellies lies our true nature.
Every November, millions of Canadians adorn themselves with poppies to honor the losses they suffered and the sacrifices they made World War II. They revel in the tales of their forefathers and recognize the fallen in somber reflection. This is just one example of the hope we have, as humans, to learn from the mistakes of our past, to never forget and never repeat the events that lead to such carnage. Have we succeeded in our ambitions? Angier touches on this when she introduces us to biology professor Dr. David Sloan Wilson and his notion that our moral circle can be expanded and that altruism has the power to quell our hunger for conflict (Angier 54). She argues that we have the capacity to overcome our barbaric ways and achieve harmony on a global scale. But with history as our guide, our optimism may be tempered. Though we condemned the actions of the Nazis, a mere three decades after their crimes, millions of Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Only one decade ago, strife erupted in Sudan as hundreds of thousands have been killed in an ongoing campaign to cleanse Darfur of its non-Arab population. Since the dawn of the twentieth century, every decade has seen its share of genocide (“Genocides in history”). What of the Bosniaks, the Kurds, and the Rwandans, or the pygmies, the Poles, and the Chechans? Not a year goes by before another war has broken out or some territory is disputed. Nature has ingrained us of our warring ways in sums that eclipse her gift of altruism. The evidence from our past shows that our moral compass is repeatedly the first thing to go and that diplomacy takes a back seat as we stray from the virtuous path.
A telling example of our hostile ways comes from ancient times when Roman soldiers assaulted the city of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War. In Roman History I, the Roman historian Appian recounts the gruesome onslaught, “[Carthaginians] thrust out and falling from such a height with the stones, timbers, and fire, were torn asunder in all shapes of horror, crushed and mangled” (Appian 631). Appian continues, “Nor was this the end of their miseries […] others fell with their feet downward and their heads above ground. Horses ran over them, crushing their faces and skulls” (Appian 633). Instead of advocating mercy, the Romans loudly denounced the Carthaginians. “Carthage must be destroyed!” they would cry. Appian describes how the soldiers plundered and laid ruin upon Carthage without regard for civilians and bystanders, who were slain ruthlessly at the hands of their captors. The Romans saw to it that the Carthaginian people suffered painfully as their city was sacked and they met their demise. Where was the Roman peoples’ compassion for the agony endured by these innocents after learning of their plight? Was it, too, buried under the rubble to be heartlessly trampled upon?
Angier contends that our gifts of language and memory encourage altruism: “people can learn of other individuals they have never met and feel compassion for their suffering, and honor and even emulate heroic deeds” (Angier 52). She tells us that memories enable us to capture and retain moments from our history and that language allows us to share and disseminate those memories within communities. But these gifts were of no aid to the Carthaginians. Have our tales of compassion and kindness fallen on deaf ears? Instead of honoring the victims, the Roman people recognized and celebrated the soldiers for the merciless and vicious treatment of their victims. They told of the deceit and barbarism of the Carthaginians rather than of their suffering, advocating the annihilation of their people and culture. This was not the language of benevolence but rather of contempt and ill-will, veiled under a facade of altruism.
Consider chimpanzees, our genetic cousins, who have been observed to exhibit warlike behavior in efforts to expand their territory (Viegas).

One can imagine a clan of chimpanzees plotting their charge against the red colobus monkey. Angier’s account of this battle is a story of the altruistic colobus, standing bravely in the shadow of its aggressor, the mammoth chimpanzee, and attempting to protect the rest of the colobus herd (Angier 53). Angier writes, “As [biologists] see it, the roots of altruistic behavior far predate Homo sapiens, and that is why it seems to flow forth so readily once tapped” (Angier 52). She presents us with these findings to describe the origins of altruism, suggesting that it is an inherent trait passed down to us from our evolutionary ancestors. The notion that altruism came from an act of conflict is more telling of our evolutionary nature. Ask the chimpanzees of brotherhood and compassion and they will respond with rhetoric of the treacherous and deceptive ways of the colobus. They would have us believe that there is no finer deed than to rid the Earth of these miscreants. As the chimpanzees pursued their victims through the trees, was it altruism that flowed through their veins? No, a vile and decadent hostility surged forth from their pores instead. As with our chimpanzee relatives, our altruism is only there when it suits us. Our hostile nature defies us as, time and again, we choose conflict over charity and boundaries over

brotherhood.
Among all species, only humankind has drawn such bloodshed that nearly one hundred words exist just to describe its most reprehensible methods and instruments (“List of methods of torture”). Within that list are techniques such as rat torture and scaphism, dreadful designs of torment whose descriptions have been intentionally omitted. Suffice it to say that these appalling practices are uniquely human traditions. When cats hunt, they instinctively kill their prey with a swift bite to the neck. Humankind, however, has seemingly deselected the traits of mercy and compassion on its evolutionary path. That humans keep cats for pets tells us something of altruism’s rank among nature’s gifts. If only the cat had mastered punishment and malice, then the tables might have turned in their favor.
Angier tells a compelling story of the importance of altruism in inclusive fitness, of the role of language and memory in the advancement of moral behavior, and of humankind’s capacity to overcome its innate hostility.

But history tells a different tale. As the Roman hero Scipio beheld the ruins of Carthage, he reflected upon the fate of his fellow Romans, “[Scipio] did not hesitate frankly to name his own country, for whose fate he feared when he considered the mutability of human affairs” (Appian 639). Scipio’s words were prescient as he foretold of the demise of the Roman people. His prophecy is as law; many great nations have risen through the annals of time, but all have fallen and with increasingly harrowing accounts of persecution and oppression remaining in their wake. Altruism is transcended by humankind’s fundamental bias for aggression, a trait stemming from deep evolutionary roots. The tapestry of human history is woven with the threads of hostility — altruism only exists in the

seams.