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The Nose on My Face -- Archive
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This Week's Log |
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2/15/12
Yikes! It's been almost two years. Oh man, I'm blushing.
Leaders and Cheaters
We are made to work together. Cooperation is built into our genes and our brains. All primates except us have eyes structured to hide what's being observed. Humans not only allow our fellows to know what has caught our attention, we want them to know (on occasion we wear sunglasses to thwart evolution's intentions, but this is just the exception proving the rule). Unlike our closest animal relatives, the sclera of our eyes is blinding white; the better to contrast the dark iris, which is itself a different color from that of the pupil -- all to advertise precisely what direction we are looking. Why do the lids of our eyes expose so much width? The better for those standing off to our sides to see what we see.
We laugh to share a mood of harmony and security. We rarely laugh when alone, and when we do, it seems hollow. Have you ever walked past a conference door and heard the roomful of people inside burst out in unison laughter at the presenter's remark? This is indubitably the sound of a shared mental place. Our tribal ancestors danced for hours as a means of coordinating group intention, whether in preparation for a battle, or a great hunt. And if you think that we of an advanced 21st century culture are not the same people as our tribal ancestors, then explain why soldiers marching in unison off to war relate feelings of deep camaraderie with their compatriots. Explain why watching videos of flash-mob dancing doesn't elicit a primal fascination and desire to join in, even if you've never learned a choreographed move in your life.
Although the fundamental Mendelian mechanism of evolution works at the level of the individual, there can also arise a natural selection of groups. If this were not the case, we would not have colonies of ants and bees. Cooperating groups can exhibit survival advantages over individuals. Cooperation within a group requires trust and a willingness to share. People that developed instincts to be trustworthy and sharing bolstered the cohesion of the tribal group they lived in and helped the group as a whole prosper where other groups less cohesive might diminish. The children of these people had a better chance to prosper and survive.
There has always been a darker side, though -- the cheaters. If you squirrel away more than your share and hide the fact by deceit, you garner an advantage for yourself, while still reaping the benefits of protection within the larger group. Groups that become weakened by the parasitic teat-sucking of the cheaters lose out against more egalitarian ones, and so there is also impetus to evolve cheater-detection by the "good" group members. Cheater-detection impels potential cheaters to evolve more subtle cheating strategies, in turn forcing cooperating members to develop finer cheater-sensing, and on and on. The back and forth becomes ever more sophisticated, and is the basis for a great deal of our evolved intelligence.
Egalitarian groups work fine in isolation. Troublesome members can be restrained non-physically by collective social disapproval, or if that fails, ultimately banished. There are no equivalent restraining mechanisms between groups, however. Tribes can and did (still do) fight each other. When this happens, universal egalitarianism must be temporarily set aside to allow a leader to step forward to coordinate defense (or attack). Leaders rarely need to be pressed into service, but rather tend to be troublesome fringe cheaters who are allowed to step forward, where the alternative might otherwise
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have been banishment. For a million years, leaders have been a necessary, if temporary, aberration of tribal egalitarianism. By their very nature, leaders are cheaters. A tribal member who wanted to be a leader, was by definition, not one of the "good" members.
We no longer live in tribal groups where everyone we encounter on a daily basis is known intimately. But we don't leave our instincts behind when we discover that we've been born in a hospital delivery room instead of behind a bush. We (most of us) try to live trustworthy and sharing lives. If someone needs help that we can give, we generally give it. Most of us don't take pleasure in cheating others -- a few even manage to avoid it completely.
Concomitantly, modern life requires large-scale coordination. Managers are needed to oversee infrastructure construction and regulation of public services. No getting around it, modern civilization requires leaders. The majority of us were not evolved for this role; most of us are the mass of egalitarian sharing tribe members (as the author, I take the prerogative to put myself wherever I wish). So who steps forward to fill the role? Why, the same fringe cheaters who used to rally the young warriors off to defend the group. But there's a deep and troubling contradiction here. We need someone who will represent the best interests of the community as a whole, yet the ones that eagerly step forward are exactly the ones who will do the exact opposite. They are the cheaters.
The best leaders are the reluctant ones. Think about your own experiences regarding the management of your local home-owners association or community. Hasn't it always been the people who had to be nudged into office and then cajoled into additional terms that seemed to do the best job? I'd stake a small bet that these folks are not the ones caught up in scandal. My favorite US president was George Washington. He had to be strong-armed into office by his colleagues preying on his sense of duty to the fledgling country. He was perhaps the only president not suspected of extra-marital affairs, and that's no coincidence.
Most cheaters never make it past local offices. Their crudely honed greed trips them early in the game. They are not among the select few who are competent at hiding their self-interest leanings. Even most of these stumble and let their true wolf colors show before rising above state level office. But among the multitude of cheaters, there will always be those very few who are consummate masters at their trade. These become governors, senators, presidents, and House Majority Leaders. These are the wiliest of the bunch, the epitome of evolution's unfortunate, if inevitable, human parasite.
They appear so earnest as they proclaim to want nothing more than to serve their fellow countrymen. They are lying. They would not have gotten where they are if that was indeed all they wanted. Do not listen to their words, for they mean nothing. Be most suspicious, nay, incredulous, when they speak of foreign threats. This is where their primal power lies. When the tribe is in danger, the cheaters-as-leaders are handed the scepter. The age-old myth of the leader as the savior is a useful perception in times of war when sacrifices, particularly the lives of our young, are necessary. These cheaters will try to foster that scenario no matter what the truth.
Be ever vigilant. Politicians are an evil necessity, but it is up to us to keep their cheating greed at bay.
-Blaine |