“Be individuals, solitary and selfish, is the message. Altruism, a jargon word for what used to be called love, is worse than weakness, it is sin, a violation of nature. Be separate. Do not be a social animal.”
"The Tucson Zoo", p. 10
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: Everyone says, stay away from ants. They have no lessons for us; they are crazy little instruments, inhuman, incapable of controlling themselves, lacking manners, lacking souls. When they are massed together, all touching, exchanging bits of information held in their jaws like memoranda, they become a single animal. Look out for that. It is a debasement, a loss of individuality, a violation of human nature, an unnatural act.
Sometimes people argue this point of view seriously and with deep thought. Be individuals, solitary and selfish, is the message. Altruism, a jargon word for what used to be called love, is worse than weakness, it is sin, a violation of nature. Be separate. Do not be a social animal. But this is a hard argument to make convincingly when you have to depend on language to make it. You have to print out leaflets or publish books and get them bought and sent around, you have to turn up on television and catch the attention of millions of other human beings all at once, and then you have to say to all of them, all at once, all collected and paying attention: be solitary; do not depend on each other. You can’t do this and keep a straight face.
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Lewis Thomas 31
American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993Related quotes
“Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean.”
Source: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit [Jargon of Authenticity] (1964), p. 9
“Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 170
“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are all born selfish.”
Source: The Selfish Gene
Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
Was Jargon sei und was nicht, darüber entscheidet, ob das Wort in dem Tonfall geschrieben ist, in dem es sich als transzendent gegenüber der eigenen Bedeutung setzt; ob die einzelnen Worte aufgeladen werden auf Kosten von Satz, Urteil, Gedachtem. Demnach wäre der Charakter des Jargons überaus formal: er sorgt dafür, daß, was er möchte, in weitem Maß ohne Rücksicht auf den Inhalt der Worte gespürt und akzeptiert wird durch ihren Vortrag.
Source: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit [Jargon of Authenticity] (1964), p. 8
“ South Africa Land Theft: Constitution All But Allows It, https://townhall.com/columnists/ilanamercer/2018/03/11/south-africa-land-theft-constitution-all-but-allows-it-n2459680” Townhall.com, March 11, 2018.
2010s, 2018
Source: Mind is a Myth (1987), Ch. 1: The Certainty That Blasts Everything
volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)
Context: As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.