Interesting revelations

Maybe that's too strong a word, but these things came to me as I was writing an e-mail a couple days ago, and I figured I'd post them:

Everything is selfishly motivated - there's really no such thing as altruism. Things we do to or for other people create feelings (reflections of sorts) in ourselves too. We act such that those reflected feelings are positive for ourselves, such that we feel good. (This gets a little contorted with sadism, masochism, and all those kinds of things, but the net reflection is still positive, or else people wouldn't engage in those activities. Even self-mutilation is often described as the physical pain reducing or eliminating emotional pain.) We've evolved to be social, "altruistic" animals, meaning the default is to get those positive feelings from positive actions toward other people. It's not much of a stretch to extend that to other animals, the environment, anything that we can perceive as having a "spirit" - hence animism.

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That sort of pragmatism is the missing link between native traditions with their spirituality and "civilized" exploitation - if you've got plenty of something, you can afford to waste it. If you value individual plants and animals, and don't take any more than is actually necessary, you won't waste any, because that would disrespect the spirit of whatever it is that you're wasting.