Mismatch and Tit for Tat: My Last Shave 062897

Dispersal: My Last Shave
by James Brody, 6/28/97
REVISED 10/20/98

6/6/97 "You have to know somebody in the hospital if you want to come out alive." Gerry is a matriarch, a very senior nurse with a mother in her 80s. Mother makes a lot of visits to the local hospital that hires one of Gerry's friends, another senior nurse. Mother came to the ER; Gerry shouted to a physician, "Hey, Chip, Mother is hurting here, see if you can fix her up." Mother received 2 CAT scans, an EKG, and an x-ray in one morning. Chip fixed her up. Half the staff call her "Mother" and don't know that her real name is Sara.

6/10/97 Mary Godzicki called. She won't attend our session because she has to sit her 4 yo nephew, Pete, for her sister, Irene, and then help her other sister, Paula, kill an a sick cat who's been with the family forever. Her third sister, Helen, is traveling and Mary has taken Helen's role as the family crisis worker. I know her; I know all of them directly or indirectly. Her tale made sense and reflected old pressures for family unity; I didn't mind the late cancellation.

6/12/97 Peggy Sue passed 1st grade in spite of some behavior problems. Her teacher had Peggy's sister 15 years ago. Sis is in the Navy now but teacher remembers her. Promotion will mean having a second year with the same teacher, however, because she, too, was also promoted to 2nd grade. Peggy likes this teacher; another year with her is probably a good thing.

6/18/97 Dave Burger retired; I've known him for 15 years. He cried saying good bye to a kid we both know and in whom we both invested. He was the "Guidance Department" in our elementary school. A known safe place for kids to tag up when the other team was hunting them.

Robert Wright (1994, The Moral Animal, NY: Pantheon, p 221) describes Axlerod's and Trivers application of "Tit for Tat," an innocent appearing game that summarizes an evolutionarily stable strategy for managing the balance of altruism and treachery. "Altruism" is generally defined as an act that benefits another creature and at some cost to the giver. Altruism, by definition, should not have evolved and apparently would not have except under special conditions. (1)"Tit for Tat" means that if you meet a stranger be nice; then, repeat whatever action he extends to you. If he's nice, continue being nice. If he's nasty, then reciprocate with nastiness. According to Axelrod and to Trivers, altruism seems to work best over a series of continuing social interactions. If you will never see the other person again, then being nasty usually wins the survival game.

According to Wright and others, we should expect more conduct disorder (lying and stealing, property destruction, rape, aggression, and setting fires) in transient settings where the predator is unknown, or if known, where there are no prior relationships between his parents and his victims.

6/26/97; 7:30 A.M. I drove to the post office. Bill's black limo was in the lot and Bill shortly emerged from the PO, clean and polished like his hearse. Bill often jokes about picking up my carcass on Rte 100 where I sometimes run despite commuter traffic.

It's early, I still have my morning bristles. "Can I stop in now for my last shave?" Bill laughs. "I can't do it for you standing up, you'll have to lie down."

Trivers and Axelrod make sense.

(1) Actually, they only made sense within neodarwinian theory. Otherwise, the boys are an interesting future obscurity. Complexity Theory not only supports the process of altruism but dictates that it must exist. What we call altruism is an instantiation of the cooperative arrangements made at other levels by other units in order to beat entropy.

A recent article in "Evolution and Human Behavior" has found evidence for similarities in altruism in several cultures. Again, a surprise only within the neodarwinian framework.

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