On "Chimp Brain"

A friend of mine believes that the desire for recognition and admiration is generally something to be overcome, not acted on. He maintains that this desire is a detrimental vestige of our simian ancestry, a maladaptive tendency in a world in which generalized status-seeking is only worthwhile for aspiring politicians, celebrities, and the like. In other words, people like me should stop thinking with their "chimp brains" and should instead focus on attaining more substantive returns such as knowledge about an interesting subject, better financial discipline, or the esteem of a few close friends. (Or we should become aspiring politicians, celebrities, and the like.) For instance, I shouldn't care if someone is wrong on the internet, except insofar as it shapes my position on an issue worth taking a position on.

As a blogger (someone is right on the internet!), simiophile, and all-around highly competitive person, this view ruffled my feathers. I wondered whether I'm indeed unduly concerned with what an unduly broad group of people think of me -- a group that surely includes some people who, taking after Howard Roark, don't think of me. After all, I was basically serious when, in my first post (on why I'm blogging), I wrote: "I want to show off. (It’s okay now that I admit it, right?) I want you to think I’m even more insightful, funny, interesting, reasonable, and infallible."

On reflection, I agree with my friend that I would be better off if my chimp brain were less active. Although I believe that most activities and interactions are inevitably competitive and relevant to one's status (think of, say, any conversation in which you were striving to be funny, smart, and/or sociable, even if you weren't consciously trying to outperform your friends), I would like to approach them in a less competitive and status-seeking manner. I would also like to devote more time and energy towards activities that provide me with non-status-based rewards (e.g., reading up on issues instead of blogging about them, assuming blogging even advances my status). But these things are easier said than done, and it's not clear to me what the optimal balance is -- competitiveness and status-seeking are not inherently bad things.

That said, I want to endeavor to act more in accordance with the higher parts of my brain. For one, I want to pick my intellectual battles more wisely. I've always been reluctant to end an argument by "agreeing to disagree," because I believe that the vast majority of disagreements between reasonable people are not the result of differences in values, of which true impasses are made. Rather, I think that given enough effort and patience, reasonable people can pin down and work out the empirical and/or logical differences that underlie their disagreements. But putting in -- and demanding -- such effort and patience is not always worth it; it depends on the importance of the issue in question and the characteristics of the parties, and it risks breeding animosity. Accordingly, I want to keep in mind that agreeing to disagree does not necessarily entail writing off one's interlocutor as unreasonable, irrational, or both (except on an internet forum) -- it can simply be the result of the mature recognition that the truth is not worth pursuing at all costs.

A second practical example of the more elevated thinking to which I aspire is, frankly, having more reasonable expectations about the amount of attention I can get by demanding it. To quote my initial post again, I wrote that "I'm always happy to devote some time to the works of friends; there's something markedly more interesting about the products of minds with which I am familiar." (Naturally, I made this statement in the context of blegging for readers.) Perhaps this is a common sentiment, but I feel it's particularly strong in me. For example, I would be eager to look at a friend's paintings or listen to a friend's music, even if I didn't expect them to be dripping with artistic merit (feel free to call me on this). Indeed, I feel compelled to read my friends' blogs (and, until a recent bout of sensibility, Google Reader feeds) in their entirety, even if not every post is my cup of tea. On the other hand, most people I know are much more selective in their attentions. They're willing to give my creations and recommendations some precedence, but they're more willing to just pursue their interests. Ultimately, I shouldn't expect others to share my interests so closely. People, no matter how compatible, are inescapably separated by myriad differences in genes and environment. And we're all full of foibles. Healthy relationships of all kinds thus involve tolerance, humility, and sacrifices. This, too, I will keep in mind.

In light of the above, this will probably be my last post. Thanks for reading.