The Basis of Human (and Government) Success
It's always nice to know that your discipline is at the heart of what
it means to be human. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/science/15humans.html" target="”_blank”">In
Tuesday's New York <i>Times</i> Science Section</a>,
Nicholas Wade wrote:<ul>
<p>Biologists have little hesitation in linking humans’ success to
their sociality. The ability to cooperate, <b>to make individuals
subordinate their strong sense of self-interest to the needs of the
group</b>, lies at the root of human achievement. </p>
<p>“Humans are not special because of their big brains,” says Kim Hill,
a social anthropologist at Arizona
State
University. “That’s not the reason we can build rocket ships
— no individual can. We have rockets because 10,000 individuals
cooperate in producing the information.” </p>
<p>The two principal traits that underlie the human evolutionary success,
in Dr. Hill’s view, are <b>the unusual ability of nonrelatives to
cooperate</b> — in almost all other species, only closely related
individuals will help each other — and social learning, the ability to
copy and learn from what others are doing. [emphasis mine]</p></ul>
Right there we have two principal aspects of government ethics:
subordinating self-interest to the public interest, and going beyond
nepotism to work with any qualified individual.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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