Human instinctiveness covered by false, abstract and unreal values

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Published in 

Nature

 · 27 Nov 2022

MAN LIKE ANIMALS

INTRODUCTION

With this brief article on ethology, psychology and sociology I would like to reflect on some fundamental aspects of the human behaviour, believing that the supreme skill lies in knowing well the nature of things.

Perhaps I will not write anything new, in the absence of a powerful bibliographical documentation, but I hope at least to have succeeded in putting together a modest elementary guide for those who feel uncomfortable among the contradictory and apparently unpredictable nature of humans. I will not explain the evolution of species, taking for granted that man is nothing but a Primate and therefore assimilable to any other animal. Nor will I try to trace human behaviour back to purely molecular mechanisms, preferring a higher and much less complex level of investigation.

The greatest difficulty here is describing concepts that arises by judging our own specie. I believe that an ethologist who studies the behaviour of an amphibian finds less difficulty than a psychologist who must be able to abstract himself from his own species. I also believe that a human is able to judge another organism as long as this organism has a mental complexity lower or at most equal to his own. Furthermore, the impossibility of experimental verification for this empirical formula inevitably underlines its limits. However it is immediate to reflect on the consequent impossibility to understand eventual alien civilizations superior to us (those described in the science-fiction novels always reflect aspects of the human one!) or even an improbable Supreme Entity: God. In the catholic religion God has "incarnated" himself in a person like us to bring down himself to our level.

MECHANISM FOR THE EXISTENCE OF LIFE

• Replication of DNA => survival of the genome itself.
• Survival of the genome => survival of the individual
• Survival of the individual => survival of the population (species).
• Survival of the species => survival of the DNA.

INTERACTION BETWEEN TWO OR MORE ORGANISMS

Neutralism = absence of interaction

Symbiosis

• Parasitism = exploiting and harming
• Commensalism = exploiting without reciprocation
• Mutualism = exploit and reciprocate each other

RATIONALITY

In this text the word rationality will be used with meaning as mere capacity for choice. In fact, our genetic heritage dictates that we behave in ONE way, which allows us, thanks to the most complex intellectual faculties, the choice of the solution considered by each individual as the best for his immediate or future well being, intended as a higher and more complex level than mere survival. From this point of view, Good and Evil are only two different ways of behaving according to our personal capacity of choice, limited by different circumstances and social conditioning (see below).

CHARACTER AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

The CHARACTER is the summa of all the mental qualities of the individual: it is formed on a genetic basis (heredity) in the first months of life and in the following 5-6 years it is refined with growth and experience through compromises, shrewdness and subtleties that however do not modify the basic structure (brain synaptic connections).

We can distinguish mental QUALITIES in positive (virtues) and negative (vices) according to how useful or not they are to the individual who possesses them in facing his own life and/or the life of others (environmental selection). Some examples, that we will find again later in the text, are: pride, vanity, self-love, intellectual abilities and skills (acumen, memory, imagination, fantasy, intelligence, cunning, shrewdness, astuteness), etc.

As a consequence of polymorphism (genetic variability within populations of the same species), mental qualities are expressed differently (e.g. having or not having certain talents).

Each organism is the result of a different gene recombination and possible mutations, thus being able to respond differently to stimuli and environmental conditioning, even if belonging to the same species they share the same basic mechanism.

With BEHAVIOUR I mean here the innumerable relational activities of an individual with other individuals of the same species. The aim of this article is to demonstrate inductively that human Behaviour, although depending on individual Character (some people are crude in their behaviour, as in the case of evident hypocrisy, because their mental qualities are crude, or because they are badly refined by experience and maturity) can be traced back to an elementary scheme that obeys fundamental and inviolable rules due to a genetic matrix.

CHOICE OF INTERESTS

All the qualities contributes to determine a gradient of interests (i.e. to attribute different priorities to our different interests) whose pursuit is exercised with moderation or ambition according to the individual's capacities, the circumstances and the different interests. These interests, which govern his behaviour, are chosen and defined, modified or changed in the course of life, according to changing circumstances and conditioning, under the control of the individual's own mental qualities. For example, we would not desire many things so ardently if we knew perfectly what we desire, just as in "friendship" and "love" we are often happier for what we ignore than for what we have (superficiality of interest). Similarly, we are often disinclined to friendship because we find it bland after tasting love (greater profit of interests).

You can lose sight of core interests:

1. for the rise of new secondary interests (often more attractive because they have yet to be evaluated and compared);
2. by mental alteration due to physiological imbalances (suicide is committed when one believes that getting rid of the sufferings of the moment is more important than the stay alive = survival instinct). It is also possible to manifest exaggeration of interests as a consequence of bad clarity of the same and coarseness of behavior, while moderation of interest evidences a shrewdness.

What sometimes makes the course of events unpredictable is the sudden change of interests for equally sudden changes in mood, a phenomenon due essentially to physiological (hormonal) factors.

At the basis of Behaviour there is therefore INTEREST, as the motor of every human action. From this presupposition it is evident the groundlessness of utopian concepts such as Love, Altruism, Friendship, Generosity ... No one does nothing for nothing: every action, even the most magnanimous or apparently disinterested, hides behind it a material or moral interest, the latter understood as the enjoyment and full realization of oneself. This derives from the very nature of man, whose genome, which expresses his evolutionary success, does not substantially differ in the instinctive struggle for survival from that of any other animal.

The deception (i.e. the belief that man is capable of "noble" feelings and intentions) is justifiable because human beings judge themselves with the capacities of their own species, making them incapable of objective analysis. It is indeed much easier to interpret the behaviour of other animals, different from human. The complexity of human reasoning contributes to the deception, where the rational instinct replaces the more primitive and immediate instinct of other organisms.

EXAMPLES OF CERTAIN BEHAVIORS whose interest in pursuing them is under the direct control of such qualities are pride, cunning, vanity ...
Out of pride we answer other persons not so much to correct them of their errors, but to persuade them that we are exempt.

We talk badly about ourselves, demonstrating self-criticism, rather than not talking about it or letting others talk about it, thus proudly using our flaws to derive apparent merit from them.

Often the vanity of giving is such that we prefer it to what we give, thus showing apparent generosity.

By cunning we blame the wiles of others and then make use of them at the first great opportunity for some great interest.

ALTRUISM AND GENEROSITY

An apparent charitable action, "purely disinterested", even one's own sacrifice in favor of the welfare of others, hides behind the interest, a calculation, often unconscious (and therefore even more instinctive and therefore natural) in favor of one's own interest. Helping someone in difficulty without apparent immediate and material gain, certainly hides a mental well-being for those who perform such an action. For example, the pleasure of feeling useful, the enjoyment in feeling thanked, the probable future gratitude (see below) of the occasional unfortunate, even a fanaticism that leads one to believe that one will be rewarded in another life for having done "good". Therefore religious teaches that those who do "good" will be rewarded: Altruism and Generosity as calculating in favor of the best arrangement for eternity.

Similarly, COURTESY originates from the pleasure of being considered as such (vanity) and from the fear of being misjudged with the opposite behaviour. In fact, many people do "good" because of SOCIAL CONDITIONING: it is the right way to behave, on pain of blame, marginalization, reproach, disapproval or even criminal condemnation by the community. Therefore, to do "good" in order not to receive moral or material damage.

Children can therefore be defined as a special case of an individual not yet completely conditioned by the norms of social coexistence, so that every integrated adult has a "dead" child inside. Children are therefore the most natural among humans, because they see and act only through their mood and immediate needs. We often hate and envy children precisely because we recognize in them natural behaviors of the human species that by social conditioning we are forced to stifle or feel ashamed of.

The direct consequence of social conditioning is WELLBEING OF CONSCIENCE (indirect moral interest). Often we do "good" or behave correctly to feel good about our conscience. Social conditioning on the concept that doing "evil" is wrong or sinful, guides the choices and actions of the individual for the correct functioning of the social machine, intended as the interaction of the multitude according to certain predetermined rules. Also in this case the interest consists in not doing evil, not because of the non-existent altruistic gesture, but in order to avoid the FEELING OF GUILTY and REIMBURSEMENT (understood as psychological discomfort, i.e. moral damage to one's own person) as an incorrect and reprehensible action, as per conditioning.

From this point of view, EGOISM, i.e. the pursuit of one's own interests, can be considered as the most natural and instinctive behaviour (as opposed to HYPOCRISY and SINCERITY) of the human species, intended as a survival instinct at a more complex level, where simple survival is replaced by one's own well-being and inner tranquillity (material and moral interest).

In conclusion, what appears to be "true goodness" is complacency (vanity), calculation of interest (cunning), or weakness (submission to social conditioning).

RECOGNITION

It has two basic assumptions:

1. to be grateful insofar as social conditioning teaches us that it is bad to receive without giving back (selfishness);
2. ...to return the favor received, so as not to antagonize the one who did it. So avoid being called ungrateful and not to receive further favors. Small sacrifice in paying back as a calculation in favor of new attentions and donations. Loan with the implication: you will pay me back more than I give you.

In addition, the discomfort of having received something without having done anything to deserve it leads one to be grateful in order to pay off debts, as well as not to feel obligated afterwards when we might not want to be.

Gratitude, therefore, is only an intimate desire to receive more benefits, disobliging us from those we have received (removal of the sense of guilt) and inducing our benefactors to feel themselves under obligation for the mere fact that we reciprocate what we owed them. It is evident that the ungrateful person who shirks this complex mechanism, by his own ingratitude shows himself to be less astute than his benefactor, pursuing his own interests with more moderation (less ambition) according to a different gradient and priority.

TRUST

Usually it is a type of behaviour induced by someone else's cunning, or more generally by social conditioning through the acquisition of the existence of false values such as Altruism, Generosity, Goodness, Loyalty, Honesty, Fairness, Love, Sincerity, etc. Not for nothing did the Cheyennes sages say: "The man who trusts another man is a fool".

LOVE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN

It is the most obvious selfish behavior for its own sake; certainly the most instinctive and natural, since it is connected to the primary biological activity par excellence: the reproduction of the species. Man has "remedied" this animal behavior by cleverly disguising love and idealizing it as a pure and noble sentiment. Since most of the time you are willing to do anything for those you love, it is then said that "everything is allowed in love": hurting others, deceiving themselves even, losing our own gradient of interests, dazzled by the desire for the other as the sole purpose of our existence. Yet even in this case our behavior is a function of a strong interest: the well- being that one intends to derive from the relationship with the other: sex, affection, companionship, collaboration, complicity. Or, at a more complex level, the pleasure or the hope (intended as maintenance of one's own interest/s) of feeling or believing oneself loved, the pleasure of noticing that the other needs so much attention that he/she cannot do without it, therefore the pleasure of feeling useful, indispensable (reflex self-love). Jealousy is the most evident reaction to the fear of losing the source of one's own material and moral pleasures. Killing for jealousy discovers the animality of the individual who had made of the possession of the other his main interest.

As an example I will give an apparent gesture of affection: a man gives a jewel to his woman. The ritual may well be interpreted as a particular kind of prolonged courtship, since the couple is already formed. He performs the gesture because he takes pleasure in knowing that she will appreciate it (feeling useful), but above all as a calculation of what he will gain from it: strengthening of the bond, further dispensing of love and affection, in the knowledge that she will feel obliged to repay him. She pays herself back because: she knows that this is what he wants (otherwise he would not have made the gift) and she feels grateful (cf. Acknowledgment) in virtue that if she were not judged as such, she would no longer have other occasions to receive gifts. If she then shows gratitude by "giving herself" sexually, the sacrifice is non-existent, as she will in turn receive enjoyment and pleasure as a gift. At the end of the relationship, she will feel fulfilled with her conscience and satisfied with all the gifts received (sex and jewel). And the complex ritual of courtship can be renewed again in the interest of both (mutualism).

LOVE OF PARENTS FOR THEIR CHILDREN

It is customary to say that to bring children into the world is an act of love. Once again this abstract term hides the reality of perfectly natural events.

Reproduction is a phenomenon that affects all forms of life provided with nucleic acids, sexual and asexual (i.e. the totality in the entire evolutionary arc of the Earth). The instinct, genetically determined, leads individuals to "desire" to reproduce in order to perpetuate their own species, i.e. their own genome, of which organisms are the phenotypic expression, or rather its manifestation and macroscopic expression. In the human case, a couple gives birth to a child because they unconsciously want to propagate their genetic heritage, no more and no less than viruses or plants do. This is expressed in the father by the pride (spontaneous manifestation of self-love) of proving to himself and to others that he is fertile and virile, together with the pleasure of finding in the offspring a part of himself, educating them at his own pleasure and transmitting to them what he believes in (interest in making himself "immortal" in his offspring), plagiarizing them and making them accomplices in his own image and likeness, as well as heirs and perpetuators of his genome (the desire to have grandchildren to prove it).

The mother is the organism that reproduces for all intents and purposes, and calls maternal affection that which is the instinct to care for the young and secure offspring through their survival.

Therefore, except for different choices of life (secondary interests that, for genetic predisposition due to polymorphism, can take over the strongest reproductive instinct), to give birth to children is certainly not an "act of love" but a natural and selfish behavior, understood as the sum of all the pleasures and satisfactions that transmits the act of reproduction in itself.

In addition to the instinct of preserving one's offspring, loving one's children, lavishing them with gifts, affection, attention, and keeping them is the compound result of social conditioning, calculus of interest, and welfare of conscience. Society disapproves of and condemns parents who misbehave, abuse and are incapable of supporting their offspring. It is a social duty to be good parents, and this concept is inculcated and transmitted to children before they become parents themselves. As a consequence, the awareness that behaving badly with one's own children is bad, gives rise to a guilt complex and the self-conviction that treating one's own children badly is wrong and makes one's conscience hurt. Treating one's children "well" therefore as an interest in not provoking an inner malaise. Other interests, immediate or protracted in time, are the direct advantages that can be obtained from the sense of gratitude induced in the offspring, ready to repay themselves with affection and well disposed to take care in old age of parents no longer able to look after their own survival.

LOVE OF CHILDREN FOR THEIR PARENTS

The situation here is much simpler and the selfishness of the behavior more obvious (and natural). Children are accustomed to be supported, protected and made the target of affective and material cares by their parents. Often, therefore, the relationship is of the "commensalistic" type (see the introduction): there is no need to reciprocate (mutualism), at least until a certain age, when social conditioning gives way to a sense of gratitude (see) based only on the first assumption (even if accused of ungratefulness by the parents, the children know that this will not deprive them of the benefits and privileges they have enjoyed up to then): being selfish is wrong, so one must necessarily feel a sense of guilt and remorse (moral damage). To avoid this, the only solution is to reciprocate the parent's "love" in the interest of one's own well-being of conscience.

FRIENDSHIP

Even under this candid and noble term is hidden a reciprocal relationship of interests (mutualism), an exchange of favours, a bond in which self-love always proposes to gain some profit, material or moral.

To believe firmly in friendship is therefore equivalent to the knowledge that one is able to exploit one's neighbour for one's own interests. In fact, one's own account increases or decreases the qualities attributed to friends in proportion to the satisfaction one receives from them: we judge their merits by their behaviour towards us, and it is easy for people to be discredited in our eyes much more by the minor infidelities they commit towards us than by the more serious ones they commit towards others.

However, social conditioning often leads us to firmly believe that a disinterested altruism can arise from a bond of friendship, prompting us to confidently lower our defenses.

You renew friendships in two more or less equivalent cases:

1. when one has derived the maximum benefit and is rationally (=choice) exempt from factors such as social conditioning and malaise of conscience. In that case the mutualistic relationship ceases to be such and friendship inevitably becomes a nuisance. Man is therefore a gregarious animal only in his own interest, as often happens in Nature.
2. A more specific case of choosing new acquaintances not necessarily to replace old ones comes from the realization that we are not admired enough (pleasure of flattery) by those who know us well, and the hope of being admired more by those who barely know us. And this too is an obvious case of moral interest.

We don't always regret the losses of our friends because of their merit, but because of our needs and the good opinion they had of us. A comic quoted, "Friendship is that relationship established between two people when each feels superior because of the other's stupidity."

BROTHERLY LOVE as a special case of friendship. It is a more elaborate and firm mutualistic relationship between two persons, established since childhood. With time the

The exchange of favours can also be reduced to a simple intellectual complicity (two or more brains are better than one) with the awareness that one is always ready to intervene in favour of the other out of gratitude amplified over the years. At the same time, social conditioning contributes to maintaining the bond, in analogy to parents with their children.

LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR

There is no love for one's neighbour any more than there is for one's partner or family members. Self-interest leads us to perform seemingly altruistic gestures (such as reconciling with our enemies), and social conditioning leads us to lavish ourselves not for an immediate material interest, but for a more ephemeral and unconscious desire to avoid a series of moral damages. CATHOLIC FANATISM is a classic example of intense conditioning towards interests of another nature, such as obtaining moral benefits such as the pleasure of feeling useful, of having performed a good deed, of having deserved otherworldly rewards. PIETY is often the identification (empathy) with the ills of others (fantasy applied to the interest of avoiding similar misfortunes). In the instinctive fear that the same may happen to us, we give help to our neighbour to engage him to return it to us in similar circumstances, and these services we render are therefore benefits we dispense in advance to ourselves. We show instead COMPASSION to emphasize our superiority to misfortunes which do not usually affect us.

Vanity and self-love often guide our feelings towards others: we always love those who admire us and we do not always love those whom we admire (see envy).

LOVE OF JUSTICE

It is the fear of being overwhelmed by injustice, that is, by the shrewdness of astute individuals, often less bound by social conditioning, capable of realizing their own interests to the detriment and damage of those of others (parasitism). In this case "Good" and "Evil" are the natural projection in man's world of Order and Chaos. The Universe does not care at all if the "good" suffer and the "evil" prosper. However, the interest of some individuals (repeated countless times historically) has felt the need for the observance of a certain number of rules, in order to maintain an Order whose historical testing has recognised its effectiveness for the stability and progress of human societies. Hence those who, for their own individual benefit, do not observe these rules, are seen as a serious threat to society, from which they are now marginalized (prosecuted or eliminated) with the definitions of "criminal", "sociopath" or "psychopath".

The aversion to injustice is therefore a direct consequence of social conditioning and self-love, understood in this case as the interest in not being harmed by one's neighbour. In fact, the worst fear of the human species is undoubtedly to suffer the parasitism of the other species (pursuit of hygiene, fight against species harmful to agriculture, hatred for mosquitoes, etc.) and of its own: laws and morality as a cunning of the weakest so as not to be overwhelmed by the strongest (fight against criminality that would subvert "the established order", terror of anarchy) that would trample on the interests of others to pursue their own. Undoubtedly an excellent biological strategy of the prey to defend themselves from predators, which however highlights the usual "law of the jungle" and the unstoppable evolution by natural selection in a competitive environment.

REFLECTED SELF-LOVE

Self-love is the Highest Interest, the one for ourselves, the first in the scale of interests of each individual, the one that in other animals is expressed in the simple instinct of survival. Reflected self-love is a very particular case of self-love, indirect and often not at all evident. For reflex self-love we can feel affection, sympathy, fascination, admiration, esteem and deference for someone (son, lover, best friend who shares our interests), where otherwise pride would take over, compromising the establishment of mutualistic relationships such as love, friendship, submission to the powerful. We see in the other qualities that we would like to have, actions that we would like to perform, situations in which we would like to be (however, the same feelings may arise from a sense of gratitude for having experienced a particular emotion and unconscious interest in receiving more). It is not for nothing that we think only of those who think as we do, while that first sensation of joy which we feel when we are told of the good fortune of our acquaintances comes neither from the goodness of our own character, nor from the friendship or affection we have for them, but is an effect of self- love, which deludes us with the hope of being lucky in our turn, or of deriving some benefit from their good fortune.

CONVERSATION

I am not going to say how fundamental language is for the human species, nor what a great number of disciplines are connected with it. I would like instead to dwell upon the simple conversation between individuals, the so-called "chat", which is not indispensable to the progress of human progress and yet is so widely used. Indeed, never as in an exchange of views between friends, relatives, lovers or acquaintances is the mutualistic relationship more evident, centred on the exchange of information where each person's self-love is in search -often unconscious and occasional- of his own interests.

Observing two people conversing, it is possible to notice on the part of the listener an alternation of concealed torpor or ready attention depending on whether the narration refers to something that concerns him, so that the mind becomes drowsy or wakes up according to the interest that approaches or recedes. On the part of the speaker, on the other hand, together with any interest in eliciting a particular piece of information, vanity and pride in our opinions predominate, without realising that the extreme pleasure we take in talking about ourselves is directly proportional to the indifference of the listener. Often this pleasure is greater than the interest of making us believe we are even capable of listening, to the point that when we are interrupted in a conversation, there appears in our eyes bewilderment about what we have been told, and an intent to rush back to what we wanted to say. The extreme pleasure (moral interest) we take in speaking, is particularly evident when, with pride, we easily forgive those who bore us, while we cannot at all forgive those who are bored with us.

HYPOCRISY

From an early age, man is able to see that lying about himself, events, or his own actions can benefit him in confrontation with others. Soon this behavior becomes the norm, barely limited by social conditioning that lying is wrong. However, one can pursue this behavior with skill without one's neighbour noticing, always with the intent to profit from it, morally or materially. Here again the qualities of the individual may make him a crude hypocrite or a cunning liar. SINCERITY, therefore, is used when we are sure that it will do us no harm (we do not constantly reproach our friends for their faults so as not to lose their esteem) and at the same time as a subtle dissimulation to ensure the trust of others. Yet even in this case we are shrewd, concealing what suits us best: we speak ill of our behaviors ("I am selfish"), but not of our qualities ("I am not intelligent", "I am a cunning profiteer") and we reveal small faults only to convince ourselves that we have no major ones. As a last solution to save face, we reveal our true face or confess our faults, in order to repair with cunning sincerity the damage they might do to us in the judgment of others. In other cases a similar behaviour may occur out of simple vanity (one may boast of one's faults, not considering them as such). As for errors, they are confessed in order to console us for having them accomplished. Most of the time, then, people confide in each other out of vanity, out of a desire to talk, to repair or avoid moral damage, to gain the trust of others, to exchange secrets.

From this point of view then, a sincere person is smarter, more cunning and calculating than a false or hypocritical one, who therefore shows a more primitive and less elaborate behaviour in his crude clumsiness to conceal his crimes or faults.

A few examples to better clarify human hypocrisy:

• we show disinterest to conceal our true interests;
• nothing is less sincere than to ask and give ADVICE. He who asks for such advice exudes a false deference to the feelings of his friend, although he thinks only of making him approve of his intentions, and of making him the guarantor of his own conduct. He who, on the contrary, gives advice, repays the confidence given him with a false warm and disinterested zeal, although in his advice he seeks nothing more than his own advantage or the gratitude of others.

The most cunning of hypocrisies is undoubtedly the ADVERSION for falsehood: it is sought in that way of making our statements worthy of consideration, attracting religious respect to what we say.

Other forms of hypocrisy, besides sincerity, are repentance and humility. The first one in fact is not so much the remorse of the evil we have done (even if the social conditioning can lead us to self-conviction), but the fear of what could come from it. HUMILITY (there is a town in the province of VT that goes by this name!), on the other hand, is a feigned submission, which we use to subdue others; it is an artifice of pride that lowers itself in order to exalt itself, and although it transforms itself under a thousand guises, it is never so well disguised and more deceptive than when it hides itself under the mask of humility.

Praise is also a form of hypocrisy: we do not like to praise, and we never praise anyone without interest. Such skilful flattery satisfies the giver and the receiver in different ways: we take it as a reward of our own merits, and we attribute it to point out our fairness and discernment. If we exaggerate the good qualities of others, it is more out of the esteem of our own opinions than out of the esteem of their merits: we want to attract praise when in appearance we are the ones who pay it (one praises in order to be praised).

MODESTY

Modesty is perhaps the most obvious of hypocrisies: to refuse praise is like wish to be praised twice.

Ultimately, the various forms of hypocrisy following a DEATH. Under the pretext of mourning the loss of a loved one, we mourn ourselves, or rather the diminution of our own gain: the good opinion the deceased had of us, the benefits we received from them. Thus the dead have the honour of tears that are shed for the living, while the grandeur of certain funerals only exalts their vanity. In so doing, without realizing it, we deceive ourselves. The Mourning is the continuation of such hypocrisy: having ceased in time to grieve for ourselves, we exhibit a mournful expression, persisting in weeping, wailing, sighing. This is vanity and ambition to be admired and held up as an example (interest in glory and celebrity). One weeps in order to have a reputation for sensitivity; one weeps in order to be mourned; finally, one weeps in order to avoid the shame of not weeping. Each of these purposes is a form of interest. Many people, for example, mourn the death of their lovers not so much for having loved them as to appear more worthy of being loved again.

PIGRICE, CONSTANCY and TIMIDITY

The former is not to be understood as a lack of interest, but as an interest in avoiding something in which one is not sufficiently interested, and whose pursuit would cause more annoyance than comfort. Constancy, on the other hand, is the habit of applying oneself to what is easiest and most pleasant (narrow gradient of interests). Often laziness is a life choice for individuals with a different gradient of interests from the average one, while shyness is the inability to escape from the social conditioning. Laziness and shyness can nail a man to his duties by making him appear virtuous.

HONESTY and CORRECTNESS

Like timidity, probity is often the mark of social conditioning on the weaker, while for the more astute it is a calculation of interest (self-love for quiet and reputation). Similarly, Loyalty, like humility, often conceals a subtle and devious cunning against the natural distrust of others, in order to be able to profit from it (parasitism) at a later time. It also inevitably springs from a strong social conditioning. Therefore, the true repositories of "virtues" and "values" are the weakest people, unable to escape social conditioning, which makes them what they are, and the most cunning, having chosen this lifestyle to calculate their own interests.

ENVY

It derives from the observation of not being in certain conditions that we consider positive, in which someone else is instead. The resulting moral malaise is discharged by manifesting an adverse behavior (hatred, hostility, contempt) for the one/those who enjoy those benefits of which we are deficient.

Often out of pride we blame the faults of others because we think ourselves without them, until out of envy we despise the qualities of our neighbour which we know we do not possess.

FAIRNESS

Behaviour by which we cease to conceal our pride, boasting of it and revealing it in all its vigour. The greater the pride, the greater our pride.

MALICE

Astute behavior towards others, through deception, malice, backbiting. It is genetically accentuated in those who need (predominant interest) to demonstrate to others (but especially to themselves because of pride, insecurity, shyness, immaturity) their superiority, which often does not exist. Likewise, vanity induces to assume similar attitudes.

AVARICE

Understood as the interest in procuring and maintaining possession of material goods of predetermined value (analogy with jealousy). It manifests itself essentially in two opposite manners:

1. despise future benefits for the sake of small daily gain;
2. Sacrificing all or many of one's possessions to remote dubious hopes (e.g., gambling).

COURAGE and HEROISM

The love of glory, the fear of shame, the intention to make a fortune, the desire to belittle others, the pleasure of strong sensations in finding oneself in risky situations precluded to most, are some of the interests that cause that much celebrated courage among men. Often situations (social conditioning stronger than one's own interests) force an individual to heroism in spite of himself.

WAR

War is said to be that lesson of history which peoples never remember enough. It's evident that the repetition of such an event arises from a higher interest than that of not receiving the innumerable damages that war entails. The interest in conquest (territories and their resources, profits from arms trafficking, superiority, prestige, power) is so strong in some individuals that they put aside the interest in avoiding (often to their neighbours) the calamities that derive from their desire to go to war. In all probability they are ambitious individuals, free from social conditioning that would prevent them from ignoring feelings of guilt and remorse in the name of altruism and love for their fellow men.

The ability of a nation is not to allow itself to be led by such individuals, yet this often contrasts with the fact that those who are predisposed to the ability to rule are by their very nature ambitious and unscrupulous.

EXEMPTION FROM SOCIAL CONDITIONING

Aggression is natural for the human species, however it can be amplified for a series of interests, such as alleviating a moral damage: revenge is an example, as a reaction to a deception suffered by others. Self-love and wounded pride generate feelings like hate, contempt and behaviors that we will call "inverse", expressed in different ways depending on the individual (polymorphism), like DISHONESTY and CRIME.

However, the latter often do not need a triggering cause, but can occur spontaneously in individuals predisposed to be free from social conditioning. Criminals therefore do not feel, or feel to a lesser extent, those inhibitions of the so-called "honest" people. In addition to the genetic predisposition, there is also the environmental influence, such as being brought up in a particular environment, among individuals who are themselves unconditioned, and who are anything but interested in transmitting to their offspring conventions and moral rules that are irreconcilable with their habitual symbiosis of a parasitic type.

IDEAL EXAMPLE OF INTERACTION BETWEEN TWO ABLE-BODIED PEOPLE

Everyone exhibits a demeanor to appear (in their own interest) as they want to be believed (the world is composed primarily of masks).

An astute person (skilled in calculations for his own interests) therefore behaves altruistically without the other person expressly desiring it. His calculations include: the immediate pleasure of feeling useful, the conquest of the other's friendship and gratitude (interest protracted in time), the hope (maintenance of one's own interests) of receiving more than what is offered, the social conditioning, almost always present, that it is correct to behave altruistically, on pain of social reproach and the induced sense of guilt (interest therefore in not self-recurring moral discomfort). The other, out of pride (manifestation of self-love), senses the trap set for him and shows as a reaction a direct ingratitude or a more subtle and exaggerated solicitude in paying him back (resulting ungrateful with less evidence). However, he has managed to free himself from the obligation of gratitude induced by the other with a relative sense of guilt due to social conditioning: discomfort at having received without having done anything to deserve it, moral malaise due to the state of selfishness provoked (receiving without giving back). The reaction is directed above all as an interest in avoiding an unwelcome symbiosis triggered by the astute altruist, with all the moral damage that would follow.

UNCORRUPTED CONDITION OF EXISTENCE

Each individual could live in solitude, avoiding any interaction with its fellows (except in the act of reproduction to maintain the species). However, considering that humans are multicellular organisms and symbiotic coexistence is already inherent in their structure, the only ideal condition of "uncorrupted" existence without the exploitation of other living things is asexual mono cellularity with inorganic nutrition (photosynthetic or not). It can be reflected that it was the first to be established on our planet.

CONCLUSIONS

According to what has been discussed so far, the relationship between human beings is nothing but a web of deceit, cunning, hypocrisy, lies and baseness, where everyone follows his instinct or reason, the interests dictated by self-love, and all this in the full knowledge that they are making fun of each other: in the absence or rejection of this, society as we know it would not exist.

In fact, everyone wants to find his own pleasure and his own advantage at the expense of someone else; we always prefer ourselves (self-love) to those with whom we propose to live, be it a lover or a friend, and often, through lack of shrewdness or excessive pride, we make them feel this preference. For a good mutualistic relationship it would instead be necessary to satisfy our self-love without hurting that of others, but such behaviour presupposes intelligence, cunning and hypocrisy, qualities and behaviour which, as we have said, are expressed differently in the gene pool of populations. We can therefore divide human beings into two categories: on the one hand, criminals, children and egotists as the simplest and most natural representative model of the human species; on the other hand, individuals subjected to social conditioning who constitute its most complex part. In the midst of this multitude move the cunning individuals subjected or not subjected to social conditioning. The resulting articulated gradient is everyday social coexistence.