Questioning Humanity...Again

I am forced to admit, very reluctantly if I may add, that by reading this chapter of The Selfish Gene my ideas about the nature of altruistic behavior were confirmed. I still hoped, in the farthest reaches of my mind, that there was no selfish behavior in altruism: that some individuals really did care for the benefits of others just because. It is truly such a ridiculous idea to help other people simply because? I would think that it is not. After all, I have decided to answer the unanswerable question of what is my purpose in life with this simple answer: to help others. However, when I started reading the book I noticed that everything that was done by unconscious species was for a selfish purpose, the thesis of the book, precisely. As I begun I did question the validness of this thesis, but as soon as I read this chapter I saw that really the nature of altruism was selfish, and that by helping others individuals were just trying to protect the genes they have in common with others to ensure that at least some are passed on. All this brought me to question humanity, once more (a theme that keeps coming up throughout the different books we have read). I started to wonder if it was truly worth it to try to make a difference, to help out in order to establish a better place to live in. How can this be done, though, if humans are the only species, apart from social insects, that decidedly start war? This is further evidence that the attitude man has towards life is a violent one that makes no sense at all, and one that is completely opposite to the selfish gene theory. If the idea of individuals is to maintain their genes for the future generations then going into a war that will kill thousands and probably even you is contrary to trying to live in a stable environment that contains the best genes, namely one’s own.