James is the author of Affluenza, which looked at the way in which greed is affecting our psyches, our souls. In his new book, (with its unfortunately uninspiring cover) he looks deeper into the origins of the 'virus' and outlines the political, economic and social climate in which it has grown.
Here's the opening of the book. (The remainder of this chapter can be found here.)
The modern vogue is to seek out evolutionary purposes for emotional distress. Because the theory of natural selection proposes that only those traits that have served an adaptive purpose survive, everything about us must have been adaptive at some point in our evolution (even if it no longer is helpful and, in theory, dying out) to have remained in our gene pool. The corollary is that everything about us must also be ultimately traceable back to our genetic inheritance, even traits which on the face of it are extremely maladaptive. Evolutionists pay virtually no attention to the considerable number of traits which might seem to be solely maladaptive, in terms of helping to reproduce genes. One might ponder why Down’s syndrome endures, why genetic abnormalities which guarantee extremely low intelligence continue, or even why homosexuality (if one assumes, as geneticists must do, that it has a genetic foundation) persists – whatever the other merits of this sexual orientation, reproduction is by definition not one of them. I am looking forward to the first evolutionary theory explaining why nuclear weapons or ecologically unsustainable economics, adaptations which may destroy all life on this planet, will further the reproduction of genes
2 comments:
I hear the first book Afluenza was quite good. The chapter introduction certainly seems thought provoking.
Thanks, Ben, appreciate your comment. The rest of the chapter goes on in equally fine style...
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