1970 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 122

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FROM TERRITORIAL IMAGE TO CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

In discussing pre-cultural images, we have focused on those whose remains can be shown to be important in holding back the future development of man. There are, however, other images which we share with animals, one of these is altruism. Since science reflects society's preoccupations, our concern with the rights of the individual has given little incentive to scientists to study the phenomenon of mutual cooperation without coercion or an ulterior motive, the amity between members of a group. Nevertheless, an increasing number of animal studies, in the wild as well as in the laboratory, show the existence of this spontaneous behavior. Of the numerous examples in the non-human primates perhaps the best known is that of the tree-living howler monkey: the adults of a group on hearing the commotion when an infant falls after losing its grip on the mother, will interrupt what they are doing to rescue the infant (3). Naturally, man, the most evolved primate, during his individual life and in the course of history, shows continually that he, in consequence of a spontaneous feeling for the welfare of his brother, can deliberately sacrifice his self-interest. At all times when social pollution has been combatted and is overcome, one can say that man has transcended himself and has shown compassion. At our present stage of evolution, Calhoun predicts the possibility of our developing a culture in which concern for each other's welfare, call it altruism or compassion, will be more valued than concern for one's own dominance. In the words of Calhoun, „In the recognition and implementation of the rights of others, compassion becomes a sublimated and transformed submission." (2). Active recognition and participation in each others' roles (through spontaneous dominance-submission behavior), thus replaces the recognition of the power of each other in a dominance hierarchy. Only then can we more effectively remove the influence of social pollution and make possible that the inheritance of the next generation does not consist more of bad circumstances than of good genes.

5. An

Afterthought

Where do our deliberate actions come from? They are one of the results of the creative process, which is based on a new combination of previously fixed mental images, providing insight to act in ways different from those of the established order. Creative thoughts lead

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