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It's interesting (and depressing) to grapple with the question of what America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic says about humans more generally. A few thoughts. (1/16)
The received view of humanity for many decades has been that, absent society, we are all savages, focused very narrowly on our own welfare and survival. To be fair, examples that support such a view are not hard to come by. (2/16) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alex-jones-coronavirus-global-collapse-cook-neighbours-feed-kids-a9495201.html
And evidence suggests that absence of trust is becoming more common. It's not for nothing that the assumption that individuals are unitary, rational utility-maximizers is deeply embedded in traditional social science models of human behavior. (3/16) https://twitter.com/wesyang/status/1275980157166198784?s=20
At the same time, a newer and increasingly robust body of research suggests something surprising: that humans are hard-wired, not just to be cooperative, but to be *the most cooperative* animals on the planet. (4/16) https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190247577.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190247577-e-9
Recent popular (i.e., readable) research by a lot of smart people, including @NAChristakis, @rcbregman, @harari_yuval, @sapinker, and the like have all supported this perspective. (5/16) https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-Evolutionary-Origins-Good-Society/dp/0316230030
It'd be disingenuous not to note that I've been very critical of @sapinker's argument about trends in warfare—I think the evidence simply doesn't support it. (Shameless plug: Also written for a general audience!) (6/16) https://www.amazon.com/Only-Dead-Persistence-War-Modern/dp/0190849533
But warfare is a really, really hard test of the "humans as prosocial animals" thesis, just because (IMO at least) its determinants are often complex and situational. Studies implicating human nature are a very narrow slice of the larger int'l conflict literature. (7/16)
So, as @cblatts, who was kind enough to read the book, pointed out, being wrong about war doesn't necessarily mean that @sapinker is wrong about the larger question of human prosociality. I agree entirely! (8/16)
But, but, but... enter the pandemic. And masks—a minor inconvenience that can save the lives of (possibly many) others. This should be a very easy test for the argument that humanity's "better angels" are poised to emerge victorious, ushering us into a kinder future. (9/16)
And yet. (10/16) https://www.fox5dc.com/news/maskless-woman-seen-on-video-coughing-on-customer-inside-ny-bagel-store-after-argument
While it's tempting to see widespread mask-scorning as an aberration, the result of populist politics gone further wrong, to do so is to ignore the deeper stratum of ideas and ideology that readily enable such behavior. (11/16) https://theweek.com/articles/912853/american-individualism-suicide-pact
As early as mid-March, @meghanor and others noted that, in her prescient words, "America’s individualistic framework is deeply unsuited to coping with an infectious pandemic." (12/16) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/we-need-isolate-ourselves-during-coronavirus-outbreak/607840/
A surprising, and growing, number of people, both in the public and in positions of power, embrace the ideas of authors like Ayn Rand, who famously touted "the virtue of selfishness." (13/16) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/10/new-age-ayn-rand-conquered-trump-white-house-silicon-valley
I'm not here to debate those ideas (sorry). My point is that they represent *precisely the antithesis* of the sort of prosocial behavior that Pinker and others describe—often eschewing even cooperation that can be defended as individually rational. Like mask-wearing. (14/16)
Again: THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY TEST for prosociality. The sacrifice that it demands is hardly heroic. If COVID-19 made your penis fall off, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't even be having this discussion. But all a mask does is... save other people's lives. So, no sale. (15/16)
Social science is already grappling with the specific psychology of non-mask-wearers. But I worry that we aren't coming to grips with how it, and associated behaviors, must qualify our view of humans as the most prosocial animals. (fin)
PS: I should have added (clearly, given that a few people have already noted it) the question of representativeness. Social science too often takes Western experience to be globally relevant, and it’s easy to read that intent or perspective into this thread. (17/16)
I hadn’t meant to make that claim, though I was too wrapped up in the subject to distance myself from it. Mea culpa. (18/16)
I meant to focus on the claim, ref’d above, that prosociality is fundamental, even essential, to human nature. I still think we’re amazingly prosocial. I just think we’re too comfortable writing off cases like this one as anomalies. (19/16)
In short, exceptions to a generalization don’t have to be universal or even prevalent to be interesting. And cases like these, whatever the specific manifestation, probably merit more than an asterisk in the literature on prosociality. (fin-2)
