My fellow ATS's,

I am looking for that unique ability, in the creature we call "man", that bears the most responibility for all the hatred, cruelty, bloodshed and fear on this planet since the dawn of our species....

Obviously it has to be an emotion which is foreign to other living organisms or a combination of emotions which set us apart from the rest of nature.

-Greed, the desire to have.

If you look around you the first impression we get is that we humans are naturally greedy. For money, status, prestige, fame, piety, sex, intimacy, love, happiness, wisdom and so on.

Psychologically speaking, the function of greed is that by connecting with our inner greed, we desire something outside ourselfs, if and when that desire is fulfilled, including the road to it, it gives us a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure.

Greed is also applied ego with the intend to favor yourself and/or profiling against another. The ego wants while the other is being used as a reference point. Greed is the engine, through the creation of insatiable desire, to satisfy yourself later.

But.....

Is this a trade only humans have??

I used to have a dog with an insatiable appetite and he would even eat the hay that i would give to the horses, not because he liked the taste obviously, but because they were getting something he wasn't...
But is this because he was trying to fill a desire with the intend of getting a feeling of satifaction or just simply some defective form of self preservation??

Do animals actually take more than they need with the purpose of getting a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure??

I have no idea but i guess some of the more educated people here might be able to answer this question......

While waiting for an answer to the above question i am going to go ahead with an other interesting emotion that seems to hold the answer to my initial question...

-Hate, agression without release.

Hate is agression which finds no way out. It's anger and frustration which you can not handle and thus lay it upon something outside yourself. Hate is outwardly expressed powerlessness.

If you hate someone or something, you see that person or thing as the cause of that with which you struggle. A woman who has left you and is now inaccessible, a political system that administers and spies on you which you can do nothing about, people with a different skin color or believe system than you...etc

Hatred has rarely anything to do with what caused the hatred in your eyes. Hatred is a hang on something which is not there. It is being stuck in life and knowing that you have no way out. It is a deeply felt realisation that something that you did failed or will never succeed, and your attempts will prove futile. It is the punishment that is handed out to the loser: you have lost and you know it, you hate the rest. The others, who do succeed.

By hating you hold yourself up and you survive. Otherwise you would probably perish in your own grief, shame, anger and sense of impotence. You would mentally implode and get depressed. On the other hand hate consumes you, because nothing comes without a price to pay.

Again......

Is this a trade only humans have??

I know if i put a dog (what's up with the dogs in my examples??) in a cage for a couple of years and i poke it with a stick every day, you would think that it would come to learn to hate me. And by opening his cage i could prove my right because it would most likely bite off my throat.....

But is this hate?? Indeed the dog will have feelings of aggression but his restriction of expressing this anger is the cage, not his own failure or powerlessness.

Are animals actually capable of hating??

I have no idea but i guess some of the more educated people here might be able to answer this question......

I really can't think of any other unique emotion which might define this colorfull and intriguing mess we call mankind....

Suggestions??

Peace

PS: Sorry for the typos and appalling grammar, if we could do this in Dutch it would have looked way better...

[edit on 31/10/2009 by operation mindcrime]

I think people are greedy because none of us live forever.

Nice post, operation mindcrime!

Very good hypothesis. Now I think you can sit back and realize why we are all in the situation we are in. GREED.

Lets face it, if you wanted to make more money in life, its because of GREED. Everyone says its because you want to better your life, but we all know that the more money you make, the more you spend, the more you buys things you don't need. Greed is the reason we need credit cards, or better jobs, or nicer cars, bigger houses, etc. Ahhh! The American Dream!

IN the end, IMO, greed will be the destruction of the USA. Oh wait, I think thats been taking place for decades now. We took this country from the natives because of greed. WE started the american lifestyle based on greed. Make more money! Buy nicer things! Live beyond your means!

Believe me, I fell victim to it also. Greed is the worst.
Just my ($0.02)

I know greed applies to animals (at least to the two types I'll example below). Hope this helps you as you formulate your ideas.

1. Cats - we have two male cats. The older one HATES the younger one with a passion. Further, greed is his vehicle to obtain dominance over the younger one. He eats his own food AND the younger cat's food. He overeats while the younger one gets to watch. (Yes, I make sure the younger one gets protected meals.) The older tom (both males are fixed or neutered or whatever the word is) was throwing up from over-eating as I read your post. He weighs twice what the younger adult cat weighs.

2. Squirrels - at a friend's house where they feed peanuts to backyard squirrels, I got to see Squirrel-it-Away greed firsthand. One of the many dozens of squirrels was a good three times the size of the others. This particular FAT squirrel would scratch your legs with his claws if you didn't give him peanuts first. Peanuts PLURAL! He refused to leave until he had one in each hand and sometimes one in his mouth as well! He'd dash away quickly, hide them in his area and dash right back. The other squirrels did not do this.

Greed! (I could say more about greed on a human level; but, it's rather personal.)

[edit on 31-10-2009 by Trexter Ziam]

Yeah, it's easy to sit around and bitch about how evil mankind is, they're the only bad species on the planet, yadda-yadda-yadda. But in reality, most of our "badness" is hardwired into our brains, a hardware feature we have to constantly struggle against. While it's a shame we have all the hate, greed, and other problems we do, it's also a miracle that we've managed to rise above them in many cases. Most people are actually quite decent and kind, if they're not afraid of being hurt or used by others.

Our greed is based on fear. In fact, most of the things we do that we dislike are based on fear or powerful biological drives. We hoard things because we're afraid we might not have enough. Or we're trying to fill an empty space that can't be filled by "stuff" - but we try, we still feel empty, so we try to get even more stuff.

These urges are evolutionary. They didn't just suddenly pop up in humans. They were slowly adapted over the millions of years of life, from lessons where a wrong answer often meant death. For millions of years, it was kill or be killed, get what you need and don't worry about anyone or anything else. Those who hesitated didn't eat, or got eaten. They died. Nature ensured that only the aggressive, forceful, violent beings survived.

You're right. We're *naturally* greedy, *naturally* violent. That's what allowed animals to survive throughout millions of years of evolution.

We've had human societies for only a few thousand years. Some archaeologists say about 6 thousand, but even if we go back two or three times longer, it has only been the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Now we need to learn new ways of dealing, we need to learn to cooperate and work together. We need to overcome the millions of years of evolution and begin behaving differently.

But we're up against some huge obstacles. When we get into a minor dispute - someone cuts us off in traffic, the boss chews us out - our bodies gear up for a fight. Our heartbeat increases, adrenaline pours through our veins, we're physically ready to either fight or run for our lives. Most of the time, of course, we never have to do any such thing. It's just a dispute, and then it's over. But our hearts are still racing, our mouth may be dry, because our bodies are still responding in the ways evolution taught them to.

We still prefer to eat foods that contain much salt, sugar, or fat, because in times past, those nutrients were the ones we most needed. Salt, sugars, and fats weren't plentiful, so we had a preference for them. That preference meant we sought out foods that were good for us.

Now those foods are killing us. Salt, sugar, and fat are all around us now. We still crave them, even though they're abundantly available. We are dying because of this craving. We haven't yet learned to seek the foods that do us good now.

The instincts and reflexes we have are what allowed our species to survive until now. There is nothing shameful about having these instincts. They kept us going. Now we have less use for them - we need to adapt to different circumstances. We need to ignore many of our powerful urges, in order to get along within society. Most of us do that, more or less. Sure, we sometimes blow it, getting into a fight, getting involved with someone we shouldn't, maybe even stealing and such. But most of us, most of the time, rise above our instincts and carry on decently.

Need and greed are very close feelings.

Early man needed food. In the process of getting food he soon realized how to keep more food than he needed.

Eventually man learned to take what others had stored up.

I don't know if that's how our greed started or not but it sounds logical.

But I do believe the solution to greed would be to care as much for your fellow man as you care about yourself.

If early man had begun to share his kill with his neighbor and others did the same we would be in a better position today.

My philosophy has always been to share what I am fortunate to have. You must, or I feel I must, give back some of what I have received from this life.

When I buy a a bushel of peas, I always share with my neighbors.

I don't know what happened to man but the need and greed came together and the world has not been the same since.

If we could only love our neighbors as we do ourselves there would be utopia on our earth.

What is it that gets into man to want more than his brother? Could it be evil?

This old hippie chick from the dark ages still believes love heals and makes life better. I do realize I am in the minority, Such a shame on the human race.

earthly desire, fulfill them, because its told its what you need, to feed, live by greed, planted a seed, now your drunk off mead, do you heed, or get under the stampede from the steed?

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam
According to your description, yes, it would be "hate". His aggression finds no other way out because 1. he is fixed 2. I don't let them fight. I do let them play chase though. It's good exercise and they can't go outdoors.

I'm glad i inserted this example in my OP because it shows much similarity with the case you provide...

I know if you put a dog (what's up with the dogs in my examples??) in a cage for a couple of years and you poke it with a stick every day, you would think that it would come to learn to hate me. And by opening his cage i could prove my right because it would most likely bite off my throat.....

But is this hate?? No....indeed the dog will have feelings of aggression but his restriction of expressing this anger is the cage, not his own failure or powerlessness.

Same would go for the oldest cat.....it is not his own failure which makes him direct his aggression at somebody else but rather aggression which is being restrained by an outside factor.

hmmmm...i'm still not pleased with that. I'm gonna go look at a tree for a couple of hours and empty my head. This subject deserves some pondering...

Peace

[edit on 31/10/2009 by operation mindcrime]

No new input........

.......

Dang, i hate it when that happens. Now i'm left with these questions and no answers. Guess i'll look for answers somewere else....

Will post them here if i find any philosophy forums out there with answers.

Peace

ps: any suggestion as to were i can find good discussion sites regarding psychology, philosophy or metaphysics??

Originally posted by operation mindcrime
I am looking for that unique ability, in the creature we call "man", that bears the most responibility for all the hatred, cruelty, bloodshed and fear on this planet since the dawn of our species....

Obviously it has to be an emotion which is foreign to other living organisms or a combination of emotions which set us apart from the rest of nature.

How about this. Presume it's NOT an emotion. A hormone or two perhaps.

-Greed, the desire to have.

How about, "Greed is the obsessive, compulsive, UNFOUNDED desire to possess?"

...if and when that desire is fulfilled, including the road to it, it gives us a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure.
...

I disagree. Greed is inherent and unending, even when a goal or conquest is satiated. Greed can never be satisfied.

[edit on 1-11-2009 by Trexter Ziam]