First Date

First Date

Young, very young couple, teens young, is out at a nice(ish) restaurant and they are noticeable to everyone that they are on their first date. One wonders who even drove they look so young. It appears they aren’t really talking just kind of being red-faced and embarrassed with nothing to say.

So some altruist, isn’t it always some dork altruist mucking destiny up, goes over and says “Hey guys. First date?”

What an asshole right?

He continues to torment them: “I’ve found that questions like if you were on a deserted island and could have only one music CD, what would it be?; or if you could have only one meal for the rest of your life or one tv show or one movie…what would it be? are good questions to stimulate conversation.”

What kind of freakshow altruist bothers people like this?

The boy on the date was gracious and lied to the man: “Thanks, very cool very cool.” But they were both absolutely disgusted at this hideous gesture and mocked him mercilessly upon his exit to his wife and kids.

They actually bonded over the mocking of the jerkwad and his stupid questions.

They had a lot in common it turns out: they both reveled in mocking other people and soon developed a website together: FootLongMock.com where stories or pictures of people were mocked and henceforth graded for:
Intensity
Sarcasm
Originality
Voice
and Mockitude

They ended up getting married just after high school but failed to invite the asshole altruist that mucked things up.

God altruists are assholes!

The Conditions for Altruism

Listening to a live performance (on one of my favorite Rhode Island Radio Stations-WRIU) of Gregory Porter’s No Love Dying and the crowd’s reaction at the end of the song, I came upon the thought that this idea of feeling a part of “something greater than ourselves” and how important it is for the success of our species, is rather easy to manufacture. If it needs manufacturing at all.

Aren’t the people cheering at the conclusion of a song, moved beyond something other than themselves? Haven’t they engaged in a song/music community? Have they not left their own head –between their own two ears to be a part (the very word necessitates “other”) of something beyond their individual body/mind? Haven’t they served witness to the engagement with the surroundings? But, it may be retorted, is this communal experience enough to facilitate this greater than ourselves feeling? Could the community experienced at a music concert be considered equal to ourselves and not solicit the kind of altruism associated with the greater than ourselves sentiment?

No. To exist is to exist as a being-in-the-world. Surrounded. Always. By the world, by others. And this environment (umwelt) is not experienced atomistically, moment by moment needing to be accumulated ex post facto; no, the environment is experienced in a totality, as a gestalt, as a figure-ground, with the figure and the ground forming the phenomenological, perceived world that is always greater than and always a part of the perceiver, always a member of the team, always an inescapable family member, tribe member, nation member, species member, universe member. 

So, this feeling doesn’t need manufacturing for altruism. Feeling a part of something greater than ourselves is the default setting. 

The question at hand is why there isn’t more altruism. Another point to ponder is if this inescapable feeling a part of something greater than ourselves is in fact, the very reason there isn’t more altruism.