On Thursday I wrote that bees make socialism work, but humans generally don’t outside the biological family. This morning I dredged up some remembered lore about bees and had the following insight.
All of the bees in a hive are truly a biological family, the queen’s daughters and sons. So perhaps take-it-for-granted altruism is an immediate family phenomenon. Relatively few of us humans really feel the whole “family of man” thing.
As an apex predator over most of our range, we recognize other humans as a main threat. This can interfere with concerns for the welfare of the entire human populace. There is survival value in concern for one’s biological family.
