We Are Hardwired To Care

The media in its constant bombardment of "fact" keeps us in a state of insecurity. They would like us to believe it is only through competitiveness, material success and the strength of our leaders that we can survive. Military force is required in order that we may live. This serves to keep us in a state of uncertainty and dependent on others to lead us.

In truth we are hardwired to care. Scientist using imaging technology have studied brain function which shows we are actually wired to reward service, cooperation and caring. Instinctively we want to protect the group, even it's weakest and is the reason humans have survived for so many years. Without the sense of community we would have become extinct. Helping others, triggers those parts of our body that boost our immune system. Conversely, negative emotions suppress our immune system, increase our heart rate and negatively affect our health.


We have a complex 3 part brain. The base is the "reptilian" which coordinates breathing, hunting, eating, reproducing, protecting home and flight or fight responses. On top of the reptilian brain is the "mammalian" brain, the center of emotional intelligence. This gives mammals a distinctive capacity to experience emotion, understand the emotional states of other mammals, bond socially and care for our children. The third and largest layer is the neocortical brain, the center of our capacity for cognitive reasoning, symbolic thought, awareness and self-aware volition. Most modern societies neglect or suppress the development of the neocortical and limbic brain. With a depersonalized economic system with no attachment to place it negates the importance of the family and community bond. Our educational system that focuses on rote learning without placing equal importance on the emotional and holistic thought process lays the ground work for a fragmented youth dependent only on peer group without the benefit of a wider community.

As author David Korten states, "We must unleash the creative potentials of the human consciousness, and create the world we want. It is an extraordinary convergence between our reptilian interest in survival, our mammalian interest in bonding, and our human interest in cultivating the potentials of our self-reflective consciousness."