The 4 Most Rewarding Attributes of Human Social Traits
It has been 19 years since I retired. OK, that makes me an old man of some sort. These last 19 years have given me the opportunity to do the hobby I like best: to ponder over all aspects of life. I trace all this back to one warm sunny afternoon up on a hillside with my best friend—a dog named Buff. For some reason I still remember asking him “What the hell are we on this earth for?” Animals have it easier. They live for the moment, no thoughts of death, consequences of injuries or fear of getting sick, or complicated plans for the future. Buff was kind of the ‘Dennis the Menace’ of the dog world, albeit my mother always placed that blame on me: “You made Buff that way”. Another ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ dilemma.
A running trait of mine all my life has been an inquisitiveness as to what makes other people tick. Perhaps that is why I fell into teaching. It certainly wasn’t because I was a spellbound young lecturer. I wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t because I was an intellectual genius. I wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t because I was the most organized person. I wasn’t. Most people know the smartest amongst us don’t usually go into teaching. And that trend, unfortunately, has gotten worse for 60 years now. No one goes into teaching anymore for the prestige. When I was in high school there were essentially the teachers, the Principal, Dean of students, a school nurse, a school guidance counselor, and the Superintendent of the School system The teachers were Kings in the classroom and respected by parents and students. Now they are at the bottom of the pecking order, mere puppets for a huge layer of coordinators, curriculum specialists, assistant this or that, political regulations, etc. Add computers, and teachers have become minor accessories to the process.
Strong confrontations with students over anything is now risky. There is no ‘or else’ available to teachers for the most part. I only taught two years in high school. I can’t even imagine what that must be like today. Neither can I imagine teaching in Universities today where I spent almost my entire career. Verbal discipline or confrontations may not be too wise when one is standing in front of a classroom where students are permitted to be armed. A new version I guess of Russian Roulette. Many of my confrontations were deliberate, as a last straw, hoping that when the dust settled, some real progress could be made with the student. That often was the only workable method in some cases: make them mad as hell, listen to their anger and where their mind is coming from, enable them to feel you really want them to be successful and that is why you are confronting them. “After all,” I would often tell them, “My salary doesn’t change whether you do well or not in this class. In fact it is a lot easier for me to simply let you fail without me disturbing you.” Many times a student doesn’t understand you really do care until a confrontation is forced upon them.
At any rate, a good teacher quickly learns just how diverse people are with their personalities, their talents, their life situations, their goals, their feelings about a lot of things. Human civilizations have suffered greatly over evolutionary years due to group alliances. To survive in a dangerous world humans formed ‘family values’ alliances, ‘inherited religious values alliances’, inherited cultural values alliances, inherited racial values alliances, and then developed all sorts of group values, team values, occupational values, political values, and so on—always based on ‘strength in numbers’. To have strength in numbers means your side gets to move the ball forward and score a goal set by the group. Toward other competing groups there is more a feeling of ‘’push ‘em back, push ‘em back, way back……’ Group allegiance has made human history an endless succession of conflict, competition, and wars.
I don’t know why, but I was never much of a group person. A people person, yes. A group person, no. As a teacher I spent a lot of time analyzing the ‘different’. Diversity is really one of the greatest aspects of human existence. That’s how God’s laws of evolution work. Nothing moves forward in the evolutionary process without diversity. Men/women are not created equal at all. The best humans can do—collectively—is to make the playing fields level for all, and have the most fortunate help the least fortunate (the Golden Rule). It does seem, once a person really appreciates diversity, that it becomes more difficult to be wrapped up in group warfare. It seems when diversity is appreciated, respect for group warfare wanes, and respect for individuality rises——but with a catch. I can respect difference unless the difference involves putting down others, or denying others rights that all should have, or an action infers that others should be given favored status, or diminished status. Difference does not equal bad, and that concept is key to human fairness and human cooperation. Criminal behavior is a whole other matter. Harming others is a criminal act and is intolerable. When one person’s choice of a recreational drug is alcohol, and then that person wants another person, whose choice of recreational drug is marijuana, to be put in jail or fined, that is simply irrational, warrantless prejudice. Drug addiction, in fact any kind of addiction, is a medical problem, period. Robbing somebody to acquire money to buy alcohol or marijuana is a criminal problem. Robbery for any reason is wrong. Creating a society in which so many citizens live in poverty is wrong too. It is even more wrong for a society, collectively, to create ghettoes, then gate them off from the more affluent and blame the victims for the ghettoes.
What kind of society operates in such a manner that ghettoes develop, become walled off from other more affluent communities, and then ghetto existence and resulting behaviors are blamed on the victims? Diversity, not just of humans, but the whole biological diversity of living things, is surely the most amazing aspect of this planet and our own society. It is precisely this failure of so many humans to appreciate diversity which is tearing human communities apart and driving so many other species to extinction, not to mention our activities are starting to cause climate changes. Then add human overpopulation. In this aforementioned state of affairs, modern political debates become totally inane. It’s surreal. The comments are priceless: something akin to : “Who would vote for a President with a face like yours?” That’s a thoughtful point to ponder. “If I am President I will make other countries do my bidding and make them pay for it.” That’s a realistic and novel approach. About as sensible as the notion that we can improve education by letting localities fund their own schools. That sure is going to ensure children who live in poor areas get a good education. The inaneness permeating modern day politics, coupled with the complexity of modern day global issues, is driving all forms of government to virtual paralysis, as each group makes an intractable last stand, while individual citizens are being encouraged to ‘stand your ground’ as the solution to personal conflict.
Imagine an election process in which 18 people run around collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 2-3 year election campaign and can make a living doing so—in many cases making a lot more money than they could otherwise make. Winning becomes a crap shoot, making money is the priority. What person with any real understanding of the issues, and a decent reputation/ethics would ever want to be on a stage with such clowns. Wrong word. They are not really funny as much as Abbot and Costello slap stick ineptitudes. The result of such ineptitude is not very funny to their fellow citizens.
It was not infrequent that a student would complain about all the rules in my course. Of course 16 pages of rules is a stretch. But it gets their attention. My response was simple: “You do well on the exams and then we can talk about my rules”. The fact was, however, that those who tended to do well never complained about the rules. Rules are there to help students succeed. If any rule doesn’t do that, there needs to be made exceptions to it. Here’s an example. Three unexcused absences and a Professor can drop the student from the course. My position: “I don’t care if you ever come to class if you pass the exams. If you don’t, then you get a hand shake and a friendly good-bye. The first day of class I would tells students “I have no prejudice. I hate everybody.” That makes good humor, but the most important image a Professor can create is that diversity is admired and welcomed. The problem is, however: once students believe you admire diversity they create never ending office hours. Every student has a story to tell, and will if they feel a Professor will listen. Let me offer here a clear cut example. As a Professor I naturally wondered why any student would come to class with a wild hairdo, body rings here and there and maybe everywhere, tattoos covering skin which would otherwise be a pleasant hue, and pants halfway down to the knees. It certainly doesn’t give most people the impression they would like to know that person better. It turns out the reason is often well, reasonable. They may live in a very rough neighborhood, and in such a neighborhood the object is often to dress so no one is likely to mess with them. My question to them was always: If you are trying to get out of that kind of neighborhood by getting a good education, then why dress like your main goal is to succeed as a ghetto thug?
We always like to debate exactly who is living in the real world. “Get real”, “Get a life”, “face reality” “bite the bullet”, and so on are really just put downs to suggest that our world is more real than someone else’s world. Truthfully, we can’t even explain our own reality without resorting to a lot of gibberish. We create or inherit Gods to serve our own individual needs. Any ethical lapses, in all established religious sects, always come with a path to forgiveness. There is always, in all these established religions, a God who is personally interested in us, and available to help us have a better life, a more contented life—and if all this fails there is always, of course, a Heaven. Whether there is a Heaven or not cannot be proven one way or another, but that there is no God protecting certain religious groups has been well established by history. No matter the religious persuasion, the same percentage of all sects in the same communities die from accidents, particular diseases, get killed in warfare, end up with divorces, etc. No, God does not put marriages together. If He did it would make Him an idiot. No God, of any sect, help’s anyone pass a test. How evident would that become and then anyone going to college would be sure to join that sect. No, God does not think more of your kids than anyone else’s. And no, there is no evidence at all that God is protecting those members of any particular sect. That is to say there is no evidence that God (however envisioned) ever interferes with His own laws which govern the evolutionary process. Thus, when it comes to reality, those with religious beliefs of a particular religious sect, are first in line when it comes to any reality check.
All of the above illustrates the importance for any of us to have appreciation for diversity. If we can’t do this and get all wrapped up in attacking heathens, or become immersed in ‘family values’, or chasing political goals which give ‘our’ group rights or benefits denied to others, then contentment for us becomes very problematical. The ultimate example of this is Donald Trump. No matter how much power, wealth, or notoriety he gets, he is clearly a very unhappy person. He has zero tolerance for diversity. Appreciation of diversity is one of the four most important social traits we can develop.
Another human trait that is important to possess is will power. Not much has been known about this trait until recently. We now know that we all have a certain, but variable degree of will power. And this will power can be spread around on several goals or used up toward a single goal or a few goals. The more will power we exert on a particular goal, the more likely we will achieve that goal. If Donald Trump is an example of no tolerance for diversity, then Terrell Owens is a crowning example of tremendous willpower—all focused on one goal. It catapulted him from a mediocre wide receiver in high school and college to putting him statistically in 2nd or third place on the all-time list of NFL receivers. But there is a catch with this human trait: if all our willpower is used up on one goal, other aspects of our life suffer. Thus, the trick with willpower is to distribute it wisely among various goals in life. It gets a bit complicated. Terrell Owens could have spread his will power and focus around but then his main goal of being somebody important would have never succeeded. So he ends up being important, well known, and near the top of the heap among wide receivers, but those with little or limited appreciation of diversity resent his uniqueness. His will power and focus become labeled selfishness. Thus he ends up between a pillar and post on any popularity scale. He can become popular and unimportant, or important and hated by those who see his will power and focus as selfishness.
One area where will power becomes important to all of us is in knowing when enough is enough. When we do not have enough willpower directed at this, then compulsive behaviors (addictions) gain a foothold, and contentment will become elusive. Compulsive behaviors never lead to contentment, whether it be money, power, titles, eating, sex, recreational drug use, sports, shopping, and so on. In a very general way, too much of anything can kill us, and if not—at any rate—deprive us of achieving maximum contentment. Thus will power combined with focus, are important attributes to have in life.
The third beneficial attribute of human social nature is empathy with others. Any of us can have empathy with ourselves. And, we need to have that for sure, but empathy with others enables us to achieve a greater degree of contentment in our lives. I suppose this gets all tangled up with tolerance for diversity, but it seems they are still separate entities. First of all, if the suffering of others is something which saddens us, it also increases our gratitude for our own good fortune. A lot of contentment depends on gratitude for any good fortunes we attain. After all, we really don’t earn much of our successes in life by ourselves. “I earned it” is one of the most over used expressions. All of us are heavily dependent on genetics, our environment, luck, and help from others to achieve our goals. Of course good decisions are involved but all the good decisions in life can’t make us competent in certain areas of our lives. In my own case, I tend to gravitate toward aloofness from others, but throughout life, others would often, for reasons never understood, push me into situations where interaction with others became unavoidable, even though in many cases these others knew my own peculiarities would create commotion. Of course commotion can sometimes generate progress and other times destructive chaos. Commotion as a tool for progress is a tricky plan.
While empathy with others can increase the degree of contentedness in life, it comes with a downside. I reckon most good things in life come with downsides. The downside is this: it is difficult to have a totally zippy-do-da day when so many others are suffering. For all the gratitude we may have for our life situation, it is always tempered by the awareness of how so many others suffer from personal tragedies or situations. The only saving grace from all this empathy with the less fortunate is using the Golden Rule as our ethical basis. This links up with appreciation for diversity and will-power to adhere to ‘enough is enough’ so that there is wealth of our own, or time of our own, to help the less fortunate. We need to feel that we have done our share to help out the less fortunate.
The 4th and last of the most rewarding attributes of human social traits is a good sense of humor. Without a good sense of humor, about most all aspects of life, it is difficult, probably impossible, to ever reach a decent level of contentment. We don’t live in a perfect world, the laws which govern the evolutionary process do not permit it. It is the imperfections which lead to positive changes over evolutionary time. It is hard to imagine a world without humor. Other animals don’t laugh probably because with their limited ability to conceive of the future, they don’t need to laugh. It is our level of intelligence which necessitates the need for humor. Humor is often a reflection of the absurdities associated with much of life. People with little sense of humor can’t really handle these absurdities and get angry about them. There are more jokes about sex than any other aspect of life simply because there are few aspects of life more absurd than sexual activities. Whatever turns us on, turns us on, and no amount of analytical examination is going to explain why we are turned on. It is really inane to insist that whatever sexual activity does not turn us on, is therefore some sort of moral depravity. It becomes, of course, moral depravity when someone is being forced to participate in some kind of sexual activity against their wishes. Participating in some sort of sexual activity just to please a spouse or partner is not, I suppose, moral depravity, but some sort of empathy issue or some sort of marriage survival plan.
These 4 designated most rewarding attributes of human social traits, when coupled together, enable us to achieve a greater degree of contentment in life. It also seems, for most people, that the degree of contentment reached in their lives depends on steady progress with their lives, not everything coming at once. This is a major problem with inherited wealth. The intentions are admirable enough to hand money to offspring, but the consequences are often a disaster. Just observing the lives of professional sport athletes is more tragedy than any permanent success story.
Finally, as with most anything I muse about, there is nothing here fixed in stone, just endless fodder for thought. Perhaps those who engage often in thoughtful logical thought about major aspects of life get more out of life. Then again, maybe they don’t.
