Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

I am happy to see Keltner's efforts in print to emphasize the positive in human nature. However, I don't believe that humans are 'born to be good'. I believe what matters is that humans are born with choice to 'be good'. The ability to choose is what ultimately matters, a choice that can easily be tampered with or eliminated through the devastating effects of severe infant-child abuse and neglect that changes brain growth and development. I have spent many hours working to understand Keltner's work and his perspective. Please read my post for a broader description of how I relate to Keltner's views: +A LONG, THOUGHTFUL LOOK AT VERBAL ABUSE AS MALIGNANT TEASING found at [...]

Keltner has done a masterful job of showing us how socialization really works. We are not entirely a blank slate and not entirely not one. We have a hard-wired capacity to learn language, pretty much everyone knows this by now, but we also have a hard-wired capacity to create community solidarity, and culture. We are far more inclined to attach and bond than to fight -- within our small community, at least. Keltner nails down exactly how this manifests bio-chemically. How the rational part of our brain develops, and can only develop, through social interaction, how it produces chemical rewards when we get it right, and how incredibly adaptive to our environment this makes us. He hints at, but does not quite explore the idea that when one community dominates and exploits another (where "others" are concerned, the drive to bond competes about equally with the drive to out-survive -- another theme Kelter hints at and might have explored in more depth), the dominators may quite cleverly institute policies that disrupt community connectivity among the dominated. For example, Puritans proscriptions against hugging, kissing, dancing and singing surely enhanced the ability of controlling elites to manage somewhat demoralized masses. But the book including this kind of speculation, and many others implied by recent discoveries in attachment and brain plasticity research remains to be written. Maybe Kelter will do it

Darwin's theory of evolution says that through a process called "natural selection" those that cannot adapt to the environment eventually become extinct. Fossils around the globe confirm this. In light of this theory, one might think that the strong will always survive and overpower the weak out of existence. Genes by their nature, therefore, are selfish because all they want to do is propagate. Since we are all made from genes, some believe that we, too, as a species are selfish by nature. As the book states, our every action is designed to maximize wealth. We help others expecting we would in turn receive help someday. We would satisfy the "pleasure centers" of our brains through sex, drug, money, self-interest, or any other means anytime we could. "Thou shalt not kill" implies that murder is in our blood and therefore the need for such a commandment in the first place. In the greater scheme of an evolutionary wilderness, acts of kindness toward others are simply aberrations or misfires in the brain. The book disagrees. Darwin himself observed that sympathetic communities are more likely to produce healthier offspring than cruel ones. Human history shows that compassion always pulls through in times of war. And new studies of our body's physiology show that caretaking emotions are wired within our nervous systems. As a species, we evolved at some point to walk on two feet. In doing so, the female's birth canal narrowed. Our babies therefore have to be born small in order to pass through the smaller opening. In comparison to other animals whose newborns can walk upright the moment they're born, our babies need a long time of nursing -- at least eighteen months and continually at that all throughout the day -- before they can survive on their own. As a result, caregiving for the human species became a way of life. Emotion has often been downplayed, restrained, indeed even belittled, in comparison to intellect. We must suppress emotion and let intellect roam free if we are to discover new things, solve life's riddles, and survive in an increasingly competitive and academic business world. Excitement, it is said, kills. Although true and essential when, say, doing a heart bypass, maneuvering a crippled jetliner into safe landing, or simply driving down the highway, we should not forget that -- as the book so plainly states -- had it not been for our emotions, we as a species might not be here today.

The author is a solid academic psychologist (UC Berkeley) who is well versed in the debates among evolutionary biologists over whether or not we are hardwired for selfish competition or altruistic competition. His position is sensible: both! In his first foray into writing a book for non-specialists, he synthesizes insights from science, religion and philosophy. Maybe because I like his approaches, I find the author to be lucid and well versed. I want to sit in on his lectures. For a more "on-the-other-hand" review of this book, here is a link to veteran book critic Art Winslow's review in the International Herald Tribune:[...]

In a time when this world seems a bleak place with suffering and death across the continents, economies plummeting, societies approaching collapse, and a general despair in the air, one has little else to turn to. But then there's /Born to Be Good/. Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and director of the Greater Good Science Center, presents a book that offers hope in humanity to those who feel there is none. The first part of the book is spent on the Confucian concept of /jen/, "which refers to kindness, humanity, and reverence," as well as Keltner's thoughts on the Eastern Religions and what they offer in "being good." The second part of /Born to Be Good/ is spent researching and delving into the anthropological reasoning behind being a good person, and how it exists intrinsically in our DNA and our species, proving examples in other animals, as well as Homo sapiens. The last part of the book combines these two spheres of thought into a cohesive whole using what Keltner terms the jen ratio. Keltner fully believes there is absolute goodness in humanity, and /Born to Be Good/ is an uplifting and enlightening read in these dark and dour times. Reviewed by: Alex C. Telander