{"id":726,"date":"2010-12-16T14:54:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T14:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2010\/12\/from-jane-goodall-to-parasites-christopher-hitchens-and-henry-kissinger.html"},"modified":"2010-12-16T14:54:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T14:54:33","slug":"from-jane-goodall-to-parasites-christopher-hitchens-and-henry-kissinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/12\/from-jane-goodall-to-parasites-christopher-hitchens-and-henry-kissinger.html","title":{"rendered":"From Jane Goodall to parasites, Christopher Hitchens and Henry Kissinger"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Trust me – there
\nis a connection<\/p>\n

Every other
\nWednesday I spend the morning in a kind of salon where a bunch of us get
\ntogether to discuss various aspects of science.  <\/span>One is a retired physicist, another a geologist, another a
\nphysician, another a molecular biologist, and so on.  <\/span>I am an outlier, as a social scientist.  <\/span>It’s a wonderful and very irreverent
\ngroup.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

Yesterday the
\nconversation took on a life of its own, and ventured into areas where I had
\nmore to offer (usually I listen). 
\n<\/span>We were discussing how science evolved out of scientists doing science
\nrather than out of some philosopher’s speculations about what constituted
\nknowledge.  <\/span>I suggested that when
\nLouis Leakey <\/a>asked Jane Goodall<\/a>,  <\/span>Dian Fossey,<\/a>  <\/span>and Birute Galdikas<\/a>,  to study the great apes he revolutionized more than the study of primates.  <\/span>Women brought a very different
\nsensibility to field studies than did the masculine norm of the time. This
\ndifference is best captured in the story of her first published paper.  In her account, Goodall describes<\/a> the prevailing attitude from the perspective
\nof an outsider:<\/p>\n

I did not realize that animals were not supposed to have
\npersonalities, or to think, or to feel emotions or pain. I had no idea that it
\nwould have been more appropriate–once I got to know him or her–to assign each
\nof the chimpanzees a number rather than a name. I did not realize that it was
\nunscientific to discuss behavior in terms of motivation or purpose. It was not
\nrespectable, in scientific circles, to talk about animal personality. That was
\nsomething reserved for humans. Nor did animals have minds, so they were not
\ncapable of rational thought. And to talk about their emotions was to be guilty
\nof the worst kind of anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to
\nanimals).<\/span><\/p>\n

The editor asked
\nthat she remove “him” and “her” and replace these terms with “it.” Goodall
\nrefused and she prevailed.<\/p>\n

(I hope many of you will read this link to Goodall’s article<\/a>.  It goes in a different direction than this post, but is brilliant and wonderful.)<\/p>\n

Goodall’s
\nwork, supplemented and strengthened by Fossey’s and Galdikas’s, enabled science
\ngradually to bridge the gap between humans and animals in practice <\/i>that
\nDarwin had eliminated in theory long ago. <\/span>These women’s work opened the door to wonderful research
\nscience is producing today, research powerfully indicating that what we term
\nmoral behavior extends rather deeply into the natural world. (See my post  on animal morality<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I suggested that
\nmuch science education of the time (and not just in the past, either) distanced
\nscientists from the living beings they studied in a way disturbingly similar to
\nhow Nazi and other despotic regimes enabled normal people working as
\nconcentration camp guards to commit horrible atrocities on the inmates – a
\npractice we have also seen with US citizens and Abu Gharib.<\/p>\n

In all these cases
\nnormal human empathy was deliberately undermined.  <\/span>Inmates like animals are identified impersonally, often with
\nnumbers.  <\/span>The humans were dressed
\nin clothes that are standardized and completely different from the guards,
\naccentuating their separation. 
\n<\/span>They were treated as “its.” 
\n<\/span>The same happened with animals as a matter of course.  <\/span>They were studied in cages, inside
\nlabs, far removed from anything like their natural habitat.  <\/span>In both cases people in positions of
\npower simply became unable to relate with those of lesser power as being
\nanything other than objects.<\/p>\n

Empathy, whether
\nin mice, monkeys, or human beings, is the source of what we call morality.  <\/span>Empathy is a quality natural to many
\nanimals.  <\/span>But it can be encouraged
\nor diminished.  <\/span><\/p>\n

What then do we
\nmake of people who seem to have no empathy?  <\/span>Of sociopaths? 
\n<\/span>They are like human corporations in a sense.  <\/span>A corporation is designed to treat everything as an it, to
\nbe used, discarded, destroyed, or ignored, depending on its contribution to the
\nfirm’s bottom line. A sociopath relates to others in the same way.  <\/span>Whether from environmental causes, from
\nbiological abnormalities, or from some combination of the two, they cannot
\nappreciate or care about others’ interiority. They relate to us as scientists
\nrelated to their objects of study.<\/p>\n

How can such a
\ndefective person persist and perhaps even flourish.  <\/span>In older face to face societies they would likely often be
\nquickly identified and marginalized. 
\n<\/span>But in large impersonal organizations and mass societies, where personal
\nknowledge is replaced by public relations flacks promoting whatever image they
\nare paid to create, this protection breaks down.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Looked at from an
\nevolutionary perspective, sociopaths seem to me somewhat akin to parasites –
\nentities who prey on others but have made themselves invisible to them in order
\nto sneak beneath natural defenses of recognition at the organismic or cellular
\nlevel.  <\/span>They do damage, sometimes serious
\ndamage, but invisibly, so their victims are rarely killed outright even if
\ntheir demise is hastened.<\/p>\n

Using this analogy
\nof sociopath as parasite, a successful one will appear normal, rise to a
\nposition of prominence and respect, and abuse that position, enriching him or
\nher self while weakening the host. 
\n<\/span>He or she will give the impression of caring for others, for their
\ncountry, for some noble purpose, while actually not caring at all.  <\/span><\/p>\n

If this analysis is
\nat all accurate, then all big organizations will attract sociopathic parasites
\nthe way that honey draws flies. 
\n<\/span>People within organizations usually identify with them against the
\noutside, and so if leadership positions can be parasitized, the sociopath’s
\ninfluence and ability to enrich him or her self is expanded enormously.  <\/span>In the long run they will damage the
\norganization and in the short run corrupt many normal people within it, often
\nencouraging them to sacrifice those outside to the organization’s goals.  <\/span>But they <\/i>will flourish.  <\/span><\/p>\n

My point is not
\n<\/i>that all organizational leaders are
\nsociopaths.  <\/span>They aren’t.  <\/span>It is that they will <\/span>disproportionately<\/i> be sociopaths. 
\n<\/span>Additionally, the longer an organization exists and the more powerful it
\nis, I would suggest the greater the likelihood it will be parasitized by
\nsociopaths.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think a lot of
\ncontemporary news takes on an interesting gloss if I am at all on target.  <\/span>What prompted me to write this post was
\nChristopher Hitchens’ disturbing new column, one that takes us to a new look at
\nHenry Kissinger,  <\/span> <\/span>Nobel Laureate, Harvard professor, confidant of many Presidents,
\nand Secretary of State.  <\/span>Hitchens
\nis not my favorite guy, and I have often disagreed with him (on the Iraq war
\nand on spirituality for example), but he is very bright, a wonderful writer,
\nand when he’s on, he’s REALLY on.<\/p>\n

I urge you to read
\nit<\/a>. Then ask yourself whether you think any American at the time had any idea of what a monster Kissinger really is.  I can answer that question, I think.  Even those of us who opposed his views most vigorously would have been amazed and appalled.<\/p>\n

I wonder how many contemporary persons of power are the same?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trust me – there is a connection Every other Wednesday I spend the morning in a kind of salon where a bunch of us get together to discuss various aspects of science.  One is a retired physicist, another a geologist, another a physician, another a molecular biologist, and so on.  I am an outlier, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,112,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-nature","category-social-and-political-theory"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Jane Goodall to parasites, Christopher Hitchens and Henry Kissinger - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/12\/from-jane-goodall-to-parasites-christopher-hitchens-and-henry-kissinger.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Jane Goodall to parasites, Christopher Hitchens and Henry Kissinger - 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