Rational Philosophy

How pride evolved as a beneficial trait… with drawbacks.

Over the years I’ve often landed on a great idea for an invention only to find out after the fact that it has already been invented. Audio historians now acknowledge that an inventor came up with the idea of recording sounds, and succeeded in doing so, more than twenty years before Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph. These same historians claim that this finding doesn’t diminish Thomas Edison’s achievement, because Edison went the extra step of replaying the sound he’d recorded, and because he apparently knew nothing of his predecessor’s work. While this perspective probably wouldn’t wash in a patent court, it certainly gives me a renewed sense of pride in my own innovations.

Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s phonautogram captured sound in squiggles on a sooty piece of paper. Scott was concerned with visual sound representation rather than sound reproduction, and it wasn’t until a team of researchers unearthed examples of Scott’s recordings and deciphered them with hi-tech wizardry that his phonautogram was proven to have done what he claimed it did. We can now hear some of Scott’s recordings reproduced.

Scott lived to see Edison’s phonograph make a hit, and fumed at the fact that Edison got all the credit. “What are the rights of the discoverer versus the improver?” Scott wrote.

Reference sources differ on the primary meaning of the word ‘pride.’ Dictionary.com prefers to go with the negative connotation first “a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.” Whereas the American Heritage dictionary takes a more charitable view, with “a sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect,” and relegating the sense of an inordinate opinion of one’s self-worth to fifth place in its list of meanings.

Before Edison’s invention, one could say that Scott felt pride in his achievement. After Edison’s famed achievement, Scott’s pride was hurt. He then displayed pride in the negative sense.

I wonder to what extent the two definitions of pride refer to the same philosophical concept revealed under different conditions.

Paleontologists have just dated a jaw fragment found in Europe pushing back evidence of the appearance of human ancestors in those parts from 800,000 to 1.1 million years ago. The bone was found along with remnants of stone tools and butchered animals.

The story of human evolution aches with the concept of valuing achievement. Above all others, two things drive us to achieve — the desire for preservation of ourselves and our like, and the drive to achieve for the sake of having achieved.

From an evolutionary perspective, the former motive will more rarely stretch the species into new areas of achievement. Instead, I would say that it follows rationally that we have evolved to feel an intrinsic sense of satisfaction in achievement for the sake of achievement, for the very reason that this would tend to accelerate the selection of this beneficial trait.

Getting back to pride.

We attempt to achieve because we are genetically predisposed to seek to achieve. We feel a sense of satisfaction in having achieved something, again, because we are genetically disposed to feel this. When someone belittles or seems to belittle our achievements we feel an attack and, if we’re sensitive, a diminishment of this sense of achievement, which then results in either a prideful defense of our value or a pained withdrawal from the attack.

When Edison received acclaim for his invention, Scott’s pride was hurt for two reasons — firstly, he felt that his invention hadn’t received its due attention, his achievement was retrospectively diminished. And secondly, even after he laid claim to the original idea, people chose to continue to heap praise on Edison, adding insult to injury.

Objectively, of course, it doesn’t really matter who had the idea first. So long as Edison didn’t steal the idea, which, apparently he didn’t. Both men were brilliant and inventive. But one can’t help empathizing with Scott’s sense of hurt pride.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

I just went to CNN.com to check out the leading news stories of the day. CNN’s top story focuses on volunteers who collect the dead in Baghdad. Britney Spears‘ MTV awards performance (specifically, its apparent lousiness) tops the popular story list.

Which story tugged at my deepest human feelings? And which story did I read?

The introductory description of volunteers collecting the dead in Baghdad forced me to dwell on the consequences and aftermath of the violence there in a new and painful way. The thought of the unremitting task of cleaning up dead bodies allowed me to imagine, however palely, how it would feel to live in such terrible circumstances. But I then clicked through to the Britney Spears story…

Upon reflection, the two stories may have more in common than it first seems. The violence in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, whether we think the US presence there is justified or not, derives from people’s inability to see through their apparent differences, it rests on the ego of believing that we have something up on someone else. And our fascination with Britney Spears’ spiraling decline rests on a similar instinct to separate ourselves from others, to enjoy their calamities because it makes us feel better about ourselves at their expense.

Another reported event at the MTV awards — Kid Rock and Tommy Lee (both Pamela Anderson exes) going at it. And a related story: Popular performers insisting on songwriting credit to boost their perception as artists in the public’s eye, and to boost their bank accounts, even when they have little or no input to the songs they sing.

I am not part of the government administration, nor do I commit acts of sectarian violence. And I haven’t fought fist to face with another person since I was a child. But I realized anew today that I am guilty of separating myself from others, of holding myself out as different or in some way better. Whereas rationally I know that I am not separate. That all of us are part of the collective human swell. Rationally, I know that my ego misleads me because the ego has served us well in surviving as a species. Rationally, I know that I should remain aware of this and prevent myself from acting out of prejudice and pride.