You talk a lot about self-transcendence. Aren’t people basically selfish?

Yesterday’s post talked about how people with values that transcend their self-interest could be motivated to help the environment.  Today, I want to focus on this idea of self-transcendence and ask the question “Is our basic nature selfish?”  Jonathan Haidt, a professor who studies the psychology of morality, has a great TED talk on this question.  His talk - Stairway to Self-Transcendence - brings insights from sociology religion, biology and history to this question. https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence?language=en

 

Haidt makes the argument that the capacity for self-transcendence is a part of being human.  We all have it.  He notes that much of our day-to-day life happens on the level of the “profane” meaning every-day level, but sacred or ecstatic experiences of losing ourselves occur in many place – in religious rites, in raves, and on battlefields - and those experiences feel wonderful. The staircase metaphor refers to the process of climbing out of the everyday and moving into the sacred realm in which self-interest fades and we unite into a team or a community or a nation.    Haidt goes on to challenge the idea that we are all basically selfish and argues that nature’s solution to the problem of selfishness is to favor groups that co-operate – likes wasps in hives.  He concludes that while we spend much of our lives on this level of the profane,  we long to climb to the stars and be part of something larger.  

Data from the recent Common Cause Foundation survey examined selfish and compassionate values among of 1000 UK adults.  The results indicated that 74% of the participants attached greater importance to compassionate values than to selfish values. They did want to be part of something outside themselves.  Interestingly however, 77 believed that others had selfish values http://valuesandframes.org/survey/.  This idea that people are basically selfish is more perceptions than reality.  Haidt could be right that we long to be part of something bigger than ourselves.  Maybe that is why you are reading this.