Self Vs. Group in Civilizations

Development of our left brain concept of group, oriented towards success, has led to the organization and characteristics of our current Civilizations.
A large part of human groups, and the distinguishing characteristics between Civilizations, concern how the interface between self and group is organized and managed.

Figure.  The Self/Group axis is the oldest and most basic.  This comes to us from the depths of our right brain, although the left brain has now played a significant role in this axis.  This axis affects human behavior on a group and individual level more significantly than any other.  

Our Civilizations have developed strategies for harnessing the Self/Group roles in our groups.  Some of the highest moral discussions involve the relationship between the self and the group (or “others”), These include: fairness, proper behavior, rights of the individual, responsibilities of the individual.  This also applies to smaller human groups.  Each country, state, city, and county has sets of rules that define the role of the individual within the group.  Even fraternities, associations, clubs, and teams have sets of rules that structure the accepted and expected behaviors of individuals vis a vis the group.  If a small group has no written set of rules, then there is an unwritten code of conduct unique to the group. 

The Self/Group differentiation is the most critical and fundamental factor behind human behavior.  It is critical for our behaviors as individuals and also collectively within our groups.  It is also likely that the Self/Group axis is the most important axis for the Darwinian survival of our species

Self and group as behavior motivators

What is it that motivates or drives our ego in guiding our behavior? 

Most fundamentally we are driven by our own self.  First we are driven by our right brain survival needs.  Survival includes bodily protection as well as food and warmth.  However, we have other needs that are beyond basic survival such as needs for affection, sexual satisfaction, happiness, etc.  We are also driven by our own left brain personal desires.  Self-desires can include a new car, fine clothes, or a nice dining experience at a restaurant.  Early human self-desires probably included skin paint, hand made jewelry, and perhaps the warmest spot at the fire. 

Most fundamentally we are driven by the needs and desires of our self.  Our right brain needs are the most fundamental human motivators and probably also the strongest. However, since our right brain self needs have largely been met in advanced civilizations, our left brain desires have become the larger behavior motivators.

However, the needs and desires of the group also motivate individual human behavior.

As we banded together in small groups, we could not behave solely as self-interested individuals.  Each human derived benefit from being in the group, but in return each human had obligations and responsibilities to the group.  Each human could not be solely motivated by self-desire, but also became motivated by the group needs.  Coming from our right brain, we felt a need to contribute to the group.  Our left brain correlate of this is a definable obligation or responsibility to the group.  This is usually in the form or rules and regulations.

The bond we feel with our group members is very strong and comes to us from our right brain sense of “group”.  It comes from deep within the animal world.  Many mammals bond in family units and derive benefits of protection and nurturing of the young.  Some predators such as lions and tigers bond together for food acquisition.  Many animals from fish to gazelles and zebras have herding instincts that cause them to bond together for protection.  These types of bonding in animals provide benefits to each individual animal.  Bees and ants appear to have a special type of bonding that transcends the bonding of most other animals.  Each individual bee and ant makes specific contributions to the group with quite impressive organizational results.  The behavior of each bee and ant is motivated, at some deep level, by the group needs.

Each individual is motivated, at some level, by meeting the group needs.  This is an essential part of life.  Life as we see it expressed on this planet, is based upon Darwinian survival and development of various species.  The behavior of each individual within a species is at least partly motivated by the needs of the group.  Bonding together and meeting group needs is a fundamental part of life and the human mind.  This is an essential part of life that we can’t rationalize because it comes from the vision-based mind.  It just is.

Although each person has clear self-interests that motivate their behavior, each person is also motivated by the needs of the group.  Our motivation to meet the needs of the group comes from deep within us – from the depths of life that come to us from our right brain…and even deeper.

We each feel a group-responsibility.  In earlier days, one human shared their hunting success with another, but in return the other made fire and cooked the meat.  Group-responsibility also required consideration of the needs of others.  For example, don’t steal food from another, don’t kill another, don’t have forced sex with another, etc.  These were the beginnings of morals, ethics and law.  Today our level of cooperation with one another is much more complex.  However, we continue to have many personal interactions with others that require our actions be guided by group-responsibility.  At another level, our group interactions involve governmental institutions, exchange of materials and services for money, taxation, etc.

Our self-desires and our group-responsibility are fundamental motivators that drive our behavior.  The advantages of meeting self-desires accrue directly to the individual. The advantages of meeting group-responsibility accrue to the group and secondarily to the individual through group success. 

We are each motivated by both our self-desire and by our group-responsibility.  Often they conflict with one another and we must choose which will guide our behavior.  For example, our self-desire may cause us to simply take something we see in a store, our group-responsibility tells us this is considered stealing and we choose to restrain ourselves.  Our self-desire tells us we would like to have a second piece of chocolate cake, but a sense of fairness that emanates from group-responsibility tells us to wait because others at the table have not yet had theirs. 

Self-desire is almost certainly more fundamental to each person than group-responsibility.  But they each strongly influence our behavior.

Ultimately, group success is what is important to survival and growth of Homo sapiens.  Ultimately, group success is also what is most important for individual success because of the numerous benefits derived from civilization.

Role of Self and Group in Civilization
 

Self-desires

Our most fundamental self-desires are bodily physical requirements that must be met such as food, water, body temperature maintenance, and protection from physical harm.  These basic survival needs are essentially the same as the needs of animals.  These are the most basic human motivators and are the Freudian id.  If we are deficient in any of these basic needs, we will be strongly driven to act to meet the deficiency. 

Anyone who is reading this is highly unlikely to have difficulty meeting the basic survival needs of self-desire.  Unfortunately however, there are many people in the world today who have difficulty meeting even basics such as food and shelter.  This is a large problem, especially in the under-developed areas of the world - but also even in major developed countries such as the United States.  For now, however, and not to belittle the problems of hunger in the world, this discussion will concentrate on the populations in developed countries for which basic survival is not a problem.

When the base survival needs have been met, then the left brain self-desires of the Ego become strong behavior motivators.  Humans each have personal desires that drive their behavior.  We each desire things that elevate our own status.  In many respects, materialism is representative of these desires.   Although a base level of clothing is a “need” of the id for warmth and protection, today we want a wardrobe of finer clothes in a mixture of style, function and color to enhance personal appearance and status.  The corresponding desire in the early days of human development was probably to have the nicest animal pelt for a garment or the most attractive stone for a piece of jewelry.  With the advent of agriculture and towns, this escalated to having the nicest dwelling and the best location.  Today the availability of material things to satisfy our self-desires is almost limitless: cars, clothes, vacations, appliances, games, entertainment,………..just about anything money can buy. 

Self-desires also go beyond physical items and extend to how we spend our time.  When a person chooses to spend their morning watching TV instead of helping their neighbor plant sod, their behavior has been determined by their self-desires.  When we spend over-time at work to do a job and it is because we want the overtime pay and/or because it will help us towards a promotion, we are motivated by self-desires.  If we train athletically to keep our body in shape, it is for our self-desires.  Anything we do that is motivated by self-esteem, self-importance, self-assuredness, self-respect, gaining the respect of others, etc. is motivated by self-desire.  Anything that could be termed “egocentric” is motivated by self-desire. 

Everyone is motivated by self-desire.  This is not necessarily bad.  However, self-desire motivated behaviors that are perceived to conflict with group-responsibility are judged to be “selfish”.

The rewards of behavior motivated by self-desires are clear.  Such behaviors result in meeting personal needs.  The rewards accrue to the individual.  However, if all human behavior were purely driven by self-desires, then we would not have been successful as a species in building civilizations. In fact, any species in which behavior is motivated purely on the needs of the individual will not survive in a Darwinian world. 

There can be significant differences among human groups concerning self/group motivation.  For example, a group of entrepreneurs will almost certainly be motivated more by self-desires than a non-profit group.  The latter will be motivated more by the interests of the group at meeting the noble mission of the organization.  Likewise, and as developed earlier, there can be significant differences among civilizations.  Individual behavior in Western Civilization is certainly motivated more by self-desires, and in Eastern Civilizations more by group-responsibility.

Group-responsibility

Because our ego separates us from nature and the animals around us, we feel (and know) that we occupy a special and elevated place in our world.  We each perceive very large differences between our self and nature.  However, we each also know that each other human has an ego and also perceives their self as separate from nature.  We feel an affinity with one another and a need for one another that causes us to band together.  In fact, the bond we feel with other humans is deeply ingrained in our very being.  The strong bond that we humans feel for one another has enabled us to cooperate with one another and to develop civilizations.

The bond we feel with other humans is deeply ingrained in our very being and has enabled us to cooperate with one another and to develop civilizations.

The group is only as strong as the contributions of its members.  Therefore, group development and strength is dependent upon the extent to which individuals contribute to the needs of the group.  We cannot solely pursue our self-desires and still have a successful group.  We must consider the group needs in our behavior.

If individuals on the whole do not meet the needs of the group, then the group will not be successful.  A major part of our group-responsibility is to contribute to the welfare of the group.  One way we do this is with the work that we perform. In the early days of human development this involved hunting, making shelter, providing child care, making jewelry, etc.  When a person made a fire, s/he made it large enough for the group.  When a person was good at making garments from animal hides, that person made them for others.  Our current civilization is much more specialized and individual contributions include those of earlier civilizations as well as such things as driving a bus, making baseball bats, accounting, software design, and the myriad other jobs that people in our civilization perform and that we as a group depend upon.

Our group-responsibility also requires that we be “civil” with others in the group.  We must cooperate with others and treat them with respect.  We should not lie, cheat, steal, or kill.  It is our duty to not tread on the rights of others.  This leads to ethics and morals.  These group-responsibility principals are also collectively contained in something we call our “conscience”. 

Civilization would not be possible without the collective efforts of individuals.  In sum and on the average, each person contributes to the advancement of our civilization.  This is not to say that every person contributes to advancement.  Hitler, Genghis Khan, and serial murderers cause more harm than good.  But, there are more contributors than detractors.  On average each human life makes civilization better.  This individual contribution to the whole began in small groups of hunter-gatherers, has continued through the tremendous group size increases that began with agriculture, and has escalated to the cities, nations and the multi-nation civilizations of today.  None of this would have happened without the sense of group-responsibility.  The sense of group-responsibility is very close to the core of what it is to be human.