Narrative Is Used To Override Healthy Human Self-Interest

Humans, interestingly, fall somewhere between tiny-brained hive insects and the larger-brained mammals and birds in terms of self-preservation impulses involving violence, despite having the most advanced brains in the animal kingdom. We have the same instinctive aversions to putting ourselves at risk as those other animals, but that instinct can be overridden by putting a bunch of stories in our heads about how the enemy must be destroyed for this or that reason. A few false narratives about God and glory had humans marching off to fight and die in the Crusades like a bunch of mindless insects.

This is because the capacity for abstract thought that our recently evolved brains have given us can be exploited by clever humans with a predisposition toward manipulation. Because we're often finding our way around in the world by thoughts and language rather than instinct, we can be manipulated into acting far more foolishly than a pigeon or a squirrel or a tiger ever would.

Reading by Tim Foley.