I think we need to encourage a concentric model of concern based on genetic self-interest.
My chief concern is my immediate family, especially myself and my children. Next and somewhat lower priority is my extended family or tribe. Next & lower is nation. Next race. Next species. Next genus. And so on. The consequence of this is profoundly pro-social and cooperative, as argued persuasively by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (but ignore his pleas for post-theist Christian/leftist ethics).
There are two opposite but related perversions of this natural order which have similar psychological effects.
One perversion is to cut out the heart, to insist that the self, or the family, or the nation or the race (etc) is not a valid object of concern, protection and compassion. This is the Judeo-Christian approach, the leftist approach, and the environmentalist approach, among others. The consequence is that the individual fails to exercise compassion for those with whom he interacts, and becomes ultimately interested in stimulating his own feeling of self-righteousness. Yarvin discusses this brilliantly in his effective altruism pieces.
https://youtu.be/PMhHQu8rosg?si=6H5yTyBPMByNxw48
Ultimately the world becomes divided into blind enemies and fellow travelers, and the individual becomes puritanical and severe.
The opposite perversion is to insist that only the apex of the pyramid is real, that it isn't a floating abstraction to care only for the self, only for one's own mind, and only for pleasure. This is the stance of Objectivists and drug-abusing hippies. Again, there is no warmth for those with whom one actually interacts and you become puritanical and severe. This is quite apparent in Ayn Rand and her disciples such as Yaron Brook. Again the world is divided into enemies and ideological allies.
We can decry the antiwhitism of the modern West, but we cannot overcome it by elevating race over family & tribe, as that undercuts the basis for valuing one's own race in the first place. The leftist or Abrahamite will simply push the underlying ethic further, to "one human race". Instead we should capitalize on the innate human love of family to naturally support the extension of compassion - to a diminished degree - to extended familial & social structures.
Well said. I think if we look at it, we’d find that every single organization that is not an actual family has to appropriate the language of family to engender loyalty (brothers-in-arms, Fatherland, Uncle Sam)
When cults do it, we rightfully call it out. When the State does it, it’s totally accepted.
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