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The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene. Walter Goldschmidt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 164 pp.
In The Bridge to Humanity, Walter Goldschmidt couples the economy, discipline, and precision of haiku with metaphoric evocation to propel argument and evidence toward a scientific foundation for a moral sense.
Natural selection favors the evolution of beauty and ferocity among all life forms as well as emotions that pit one individual against another to the extent that these things enhance chances of self-perpetuation. A metaphor for this process is "the selfish gene."
Mammals share a physiological need for the affection of others to properly develop. What made us human is the selective advantage that flexibility conferred on groups whose members could be more committed to serving group interests than replicating themselves-"affect hunger."
Everything human takes place in the "gap between the encoded genetic instruction and behavioral performance" (p. 18). In that fissure is culture. We learn culture because of an inborn necessity to please those who are trying to teach. The individuals and groups that could not transcend the first competitive evolutionary imperative with cooperation have long since perished, unable to be sufficiently responsive to changing conditions...