Drive to accumulate could definitely be a description of what's going on after it's run through the filter of current society and culture. My general belief is that it makes intuitive sense and seems to be the case that animals favor themselves and their own offspring. That's what evolution is, kind of. The things best at making more of themselves flourish, the things that are bad die off. So the leap I take is that for our species to make more of ourselves, individuals accumulate money or power.
Just to be clear, I'm not bashing your beliefs or anything.
What's interesting is the current way we describe something like evolution. Someone who actually knows what they're talking about can correct me here for my gross oversimplification, but my understanding is that evolutionary traits are effectively random mutations over a
very long period of time (is that right?), with some proving more useful than others.
If that is the case (and I kind of hope it is since my entire point hinges on it!), why do we always describe evolution in terms of competition and survival of the fittest, and never use more exploratory or probability-based language instead? I'd suggest it is because we are taught it that way. Why? Because that narrative fits the prevailing paradigm.
The point I am beating around is that if evolution does not work on a large scale level, altruism and whatnot seem less likely to be our primary driver.
That's fair enough. I wouldn't say those elements were drivers either. Unless I'm shown any strong evidence to the contrary, I don't really accept the narrative that greed is either. I like to think we're more fluid than that.
What "bad" behaviour is is obviously relative to the era you currently live and, and standarts change all the time.
What is constant, is that there have always been people their peers considered "bad" because they didn't conform to the moral standard of the time. People who rebelled against what was established. For good reasons, but often also for personal gain.
This is not about the inherent evilness of mankind. It's just what happens.
I think I broached that a little, though I wasn't really thinking in terms of ethics or morality. Like I said, I'm not saying there aren't 'selfish' people (those whose primary drive is to accrue stuff), I just take issue with the idea that it's an innate human characteristic/driving force for the entire species.
