As humans, like all primates, we have a deeply rooted sense of fairness, so much so, that we will even forgo a personal benefit should we deem it unfair. In primate studies, monkeys will refuse to do a task for a reward that they have always willingly done if they learn that another monkey is getting a better reward for the same task. We can see this same instinct in humans in how conflicted society is about social programs like universal healthcare. Even though it can be proven that this policy would reduce healthcare costs for everyone, our sense of fairness inclines us to take the otherwise irrational choice to pay more ourselves, to ensure that freeloaders don’t benefit from a shared social good.
Given how powerful this instinct for fairness is, it should come as no surprise that we spend massive mental energy calculating the fairness of situations throughout our day. Why should I continue to wave at my neighbor when they never wave at me? Why should I wash this glass I just used when the sink is full of other peoples’ glasses? Why should I initiate sex with my partner when I’ve had to be the initiator the last three times?
And as if the mere act of constantly tallying our debits and credits with each other isn’t divisive enough, our self-centeredness also makes us terrible accountants. As I often remind my teams at work, we see 100% of the work we do, but only a small fraction of what our others do. Because of this, even if everyone does an equal share of the work, we each, simply because of the inherently self-centered nature of our perspective, will feel like we’ve done more than our fair share.
Worse still, not only do we make genuine mistakes about fairness because of our inherently self-centered perspective, that part of our self-centeredness designed to value ourselves more than others, enables us to create radical fictions about our own fairness. I first encountered this in the fifth grade, when I was an unwitting participant in a social experiment. For an entire week, instead of our normal schedule, my grade was asked to play a trading game. In that game we had certain commodities represented by cards and by trading them back and forth, we could earn more cards. At the end of the week, there were three of us who controlled nearly all the cards in the game.
At this point, our teacher took us out into the hall, and told the three of us that we could now change the rules however we saw fit, and left us to discuss our changes privately. I remember my two fellow classmates immediately began to discuss adding rules that would make it impossible for us to lose what we’d gained. I was shocked, as the game had become boring and I thought we were going to rework the rules to level the playing field.
We soon came to an impasse and brought the teacher out to explain our predicament. She said that we had to come to a compromise and if we couldn’t, the three of us would have to put the rule changes to a vote. My two classmates quickly outvoted me and changed the rules to protect our power. After going back into the classroom and explaining these changes, the teacher ended the game and explained that she had been rigging the decks all along.
In other words, even as children, we were willing to use power imbalances to exploit others, all while creating stories to justify how this should be seen as fair. We create these fictions of fairness, not only in our political thinking, but in our most intimate relationships as well. At the risk of breaking a long-standing bro-code, we can see our willingness as humans to justify unfairness in the way we divide domestic work between spouses. The fact is, we husbands will do as little around the house as we can get away with. We know this. Our wives know this. Everyone knows this, and yet, this truth is never spoken.
Just because we mutually agree to allow this imbalance to continue unspoken, however, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have real consequences. Because it’s inherently unfair, wives begin to feel resentful. Because they feel resentful, they nag their partners to do more. Because husbands have concocted some story about how their unwillingness to do their fair share is entirely justified, they find this nagging unfair in itself, and resent their wives for doing so.
This common domestic dispute may seem trivial, but how many relationships have been destroyed because of the dynamics described above? How many families have been broken because of misunderstood or misrepresented fairness in domestic life? Isn’t it absurd that we humans would sacrifice our relationships with our spouses and our children, literally the only things that can assuredly provide meaning in this world, so we don’t have to vacuum on a Sunday afternoon?
Even from a self-interested perspective, that is utter foolishness, but it’s a foolishness that Thanatism can help us overcome. By helping us to accept our corporality, Thanatism enables us to understand both our self-centered misperceptions and the biological imperative of self-centeredness at our core. By destroying our ability to deceive ourselves, Thanatism exposes our false narratives of self-justification for exactly what they are. And most importantly, Thanatism helps us see that we derive infinitely greater meaning through authentically being with each other than we shall ever find from getting a slightly bigger piece of the pie.
Failing to get as much as we can used to lead to death, so it only makes sense that we’re wired the way we are. Unfortunately, in the world of abundance that we’ve created, this wiring radically miscalculates the value of more things when compared with the value of greater intimacy. This is why we need a true faith that can tell us true stories, not only about what we are as humans, but also about what we can become. Greed, as this self-centeredness is colloquially known, isn’t a sin only or primarily because it hurts others, it is a sin just as much because it distorts our vision. In so doing, not only does it create an unjust world, but it equally deprives us all of the intimacy that makes our lives worth living in the first place.