Tea Party Conservatives less Compassionate than Wolves?

Recently there was an article in the magazine Scientific American titled “The Ethical Dog”, authored by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce that described the similarities in the social structure of Wolves and Humans.

The gist of the article was to raise the possibility that humans may have adopted the wolves social hierarchies on the way to developing what we now call modern society.

The characteristics that the wolves under study demonstrated included altruism, tolerance, forgiveness, reciprocity and fairness, all qualities that have baffled economists for as long as can be remembered.

And while these qualities are ostensibly held in high regard, other characteristics like bravery, toughness and the “ability to stand on your own two feet” are clearly much more desirable in our society, based mainly on a mythical history about great men.

The colonists may have the left the King behind but their awe of royalty has been expressed upon Athletes, Movie Stars, Musicians, Politicians, and especially on Billionaires and Wall Street Bankers.

Hero stories have been around as long as people have been telling stories, it is independent of media type and universal in scope, around the world stories are told about great characters in history that do amazing things, that change the world. They are called myths but they play a role in the transfer of big ideas.

In the past these stories were told in groups, as the main point of the story was to get reactions from the listeners of the tales, and after hearing about these stories about great, but fictitious characters they went home to community where a lot of good but average people accomplished everything that mattered as far as improving your quality of life including building roads, teaching children, maintaining the peace, etc.

“Reagan induced” amnesia has the Investor Class believing that they built their wealth all by themselves, despite massive evidence to the contrary. The facts show that the odds were stacked in the favor of the people with access and money with the changes in the banking and tax laws of the 1980’s and 90’s. Workers lost wages and benefits, and unions were killed and generally class mobility became more difficult.

A few rich people were given the right to sell 401K’s, money deducted “tax free” from paychecks and then take large fees at their discretion which effectively eliminated the tax advantage and gave the money to a few people instead of the Government, partially leading to the shortfalls we have today.

Wolves would know better. If Wolves thought this way there would be a few very fat wolves and a lot of weaker and starving creatures that still have to go into the woods and hunt. The leaders would lower the success of the pack by demanding so much of the take that they would soon find themselves too fat to hunt with no pack left to help, even wolves know that much.

Like wolves the early industrialist followed Henry Ford’s lead on creating a robust middle class, using unions and work rules to insure that the greed of the hungriest capitalists didn’t kill this golden goose that kept producing eggs through the middle of the last century, resulting in the US Economy becoming the largest in the world for all of the last century,

Doesn’t it fall to the current leaders to make sure that all are fed in wolf packs, and for the same logic that governs the rationale of our lupine mentors, these canine principles show that societies are not a zero sum game to be won or lost but may fall into the category of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In this model it becomes clear that even with your enemies there may be room for compromise that allows both some success as opposed to leading to only one winner, as one winner is really a loss for mankind.

The Tea Party has some good ideas but they are rooted in bias and prejudice against those that they don’t like, which is anyone that isn’t white and Christian. President Obama has been the main target, the attacks on his birth certificate, Arabic middle name, Muslim Father, but mostly the color of his skin.

They party and rail against big government all the while collecting Social Security checks, going to the hospital with their Medicaid Card, being able to travel and protest entirely because of the very things that they claim to oppose, the services and opportunities that were provided by society.

The idea that the founders of the country over 200 years ago had everything right has been proven wrong many times, and the wonderful thing about the US was the open minded approach to slavery, voting rights, women’s rights and the most open and effective immigration policies in the world.

The extreme right wing parties of the US and some other long in the tooth democracies seem to have forgotten that is was acceptance of the new that made them great, not clinging to the past, social progress is as real as technological advancement, we know that we live better with the things that technology brings us. How could anyone think that the ideas of 200 years ago could answer the key questions of today?

Societies need to move forward, not backwards, they need to be more open and intelligent about social issues using policies that are based on the scientific methods that allowed for the great advancements of the last century, not ignorant biases that have kept so many countries in the dark for so many years.

The facts are clear that the vast majority of us are better off now than anytime in the past; there is less violence, less hunger and less death from diseases; more education, longer lives and more free time to enjoy family and friends, all changes that came to be because societies became more open to ideas that were fact based and not driven by superstitions.

Email the writer: