blogs for industry...blogs for the dead
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 Salutatorian Chris | Back to blogs for industry | Heading back to Texas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Glenn Reynolds points to this WSJ column about the heroes who go to war. Former football star Pat Tillman and Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham were killed on the same day: April 22, 2004. But as details of his death fitfully emerged from Afghanistan, Tillman has become a metaphor for the current conflict--a victim of fratricide, disillusionment, coverup and possibly conspiracy. By comparison, Dunham, who saved several of his comrades in Iraq by falling on an insurgent's grenade, is the unknown soldier. The New York Times, which featured Abu Ghraib on its front page for 32 consecutive days, put the story of Dunham's Medal of Honor on the third page of section B.The evolution of altruism is generally thought of in terms of kin selection. But Cpl Dunham did not sacrifice his life for two brothers or eight cousins, at least in his immediate unit...at least not in the genetic sense of brotherhood. Why did they do it? Some talked of entering a zone of slow-motion invulnerability, where they were spectators at their own heroism. But for most, the answer was simpler and more straightforward: They couldn't let their buddies down.Whether or not they shared alleles, Cpl Dunham's buddies were his brothers. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;Although group selection is controversial, if not deprecated, it seems to me that selection operates on societies - not on their gene content, but on their meme content. And the ability to instill a sense of kinship among genetically unrelated (above the background level of relatedness across different societies) seems to me to be a meme with adaptive value. One thing that differentiates advanced societies from tribal ones...and which is a source of American exceptionalism...is this ability to extend altruistic behavior more and more broadly beyond what might seem rational based on Haldane's calculations. I believe this is correlated to the extent that a society's memes establish an expectation of reciprocal altruism. Even more "primitive" societies extend such reciprocation beyond the immediate family to the tribe. Other western societies have nationalism based on ideas of blood. But the US extends the expectation of reciprocity based primarily on shared memes, not shared genes. And this works because families that enter into this reciprocity system benefit on the genetic kin selection level as well. Establishing such a memetic system is not something that happens overnight. And it's worth remembering when wondering why it takes so long to train the Iraqi army. The Iraqis have plenty of people willing to join and who understand at some level the value of a unified and democratic Iraq. But loyalty to tribe and sect have the history of positive reciprocity that the unified Iraq has not had time to establish. All this is a genetic hand-waving way (which should be taken with lots of grains of salt) to restate WSJ columnist Pete Collier's conclusion: We impoverish ourselves by shunting these heroes and their experiences to the back pages of our national consciousness. Their stories are not just boys' adventure tales writ large. They are a kind of moral instruction. They remind of something we've heard many times before but is worth repeating on a wartime Memorial Day when we're uncertain about what we celebrate. We're the land of the free for one reason only: We're also the home of the brave.Enjoy the day off, but remember why we have it.
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