Word: selfishness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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YOUR ARTICLE STRENGTHENS A BELIEF I have long held, that human beings are a singularly vicious, selfish and shortsighted species whose status as rulers of the world seems to contradict Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest. Continued disregard of the planet we live on will surely cause us to be "naturally selected'' right out of the picture. SCOTT KNUDSEN New York City
...most alive--and drawn most acidly--is Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who has the same stepfather as Vidal, Hugh Auchincloss. Vidal introduces the young Jackie in a scene in which she is showing his stepsister how to douche after sex. He depicts Jackie as a tough and consummately selfish woman who loves two things, money and publicity--the former more than the latter. On a night out with Vidal in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the 1960s, she appears sly and humorous, a girl who wants to kick up her heels. At one point she begs Vidal to tell...
This points to the most ironic of evolutionary psychology's implications: many of the impulses created by natural selection's ruthless imperative of genetic self-interest aren't selfish in any straightforward way. Love, pity, generosity, remorse, friendly affection and enduring trust, for example, are part of our genetic heritage. And, oddly, some of these affiliative impulses are frustrated by the structure of modern society at least as much as the more obviously "animal" impulses. The problem with modern life, increasingly, is less that we're "oversocialized" than that we're undersocialized--or, that too little of our "social" contact...
...Call me selfish but I much prefer belated knowledge or wrongdoing. If I had seen the videotape of the Serbian capture of the "safe haven" of Srebrenica, I might have been compelled to fly over there and take up arms. But as it is, regret is the best I can muster from reading yesterday's news...
Indeed, Harrison appears in many ways to defythe stereotype of the selfish,bottom-line-obsessed business executive...