Stealth Altruism

Though it has been nearly seventy years since the Holocaust, the human capacity for evil displayed by its perpetrators is still shocking and haunting. But the story of the Nazi attempt to annihilate European Jewry is not all we should remember. Stealth Altruism tells of secret, non-militant, high-risk efforts by “Carers,” those victims who tried to reduce suffering and improve everyone’s chances of survival. Their empowering acts of altruism remind us of our inherent longing to do good even in situations of extraordinary brutality. Arthur B. Shostak explores forbidden acts of kindness, such as sharing scarce clothing and food rations, holding up weakened fellow prisoners during roll call, secretly replacing an ailing friend in an exhausting work detail, and much more. He explores the motivation behind this dangerous behavior, how it differed when in or out of sight, who provided or undermined forbidden care, the differing experiences of men and women, how and why gentiles provided aid, and, most importantly, how might the costly obscurity of stealth altruism soon be corrected. To date, memorialization has emphasized what was done to victims and sidelined what victims tried to do for one another. “Carers” provide an inspiring model and their perilous efforts should be recognized and taught alongside the horrors of the Holocaust. Humanity needs such inspiration.

Right-wing populism has been on the rise in Europe and elsewhere. Germanys foremost populist party is called Alternative for Germany (AfD). Founded in 2013 and entering Germanys federal parliament in 2017, the AfD increasingly moved towards right-wing extremism. Today, the party is Germanys most successful nationalistic party. Following the populist playbook, the AfD started off with a simple neoliberal and anti-Europe message, but soon moved towards the extreme right. By 2017 the AfDs ultra-nationalistic wing had successfully outmanoeuvred the partys moderate and neoliberal leader Frauke Petry. Written from the standpoint of openness, pluralism, liberalism and democracy, this book examines the AfDs rise to fame, its successes, and the partys ideological links dating back to German Nazism of the 1930s. The author illuminates the partys ideological and institutional links to present-day Neo-Nazis; its close associations to the right-wing street movement Pegida; the recruitment of right-wing extremists and former Neo-Nazis into its parliamentarian ranks; its xenophobic, anti-Muslim, racist and anti-Semitic ideologies; and its relationship to the neo-fascist Identity Movement. A historical overview positions the AfD within Germanys political landscape. The work engages with the make-up of AfD voters and electoral successes; the partys relationship to anti-Semitism; and its dreams of re-establishing a mythical Aryan Volksgemeinschaft. Close attention is paid to the AfDs demagogic and nationalistic leader, Bjoern Hoecke, as well as the partys admiration for the radical right of neighbouring Austria. A final chapter examines the fascist character of the AfD as measured against Umberto Ecos fourteen elements of Ur-Fascism. Three questions are posed: Will the AfD lead to the end of German democracy? Is Germany moving towards another Third Reich? Is there another Hitler in the making?

Is all human behavior based on self-interest? Many social and biological theories would argue so, but such a perspective does not explain the many truly heroic acts committed by people willing to risk their lives to help others. Kristen Monroe boldly lays the groundwork for a social theory toward altruism by examining the experiences described by altruists themselves.

Award-winning, international bestselling science writer Stefan Klein explores the benefits of altruism on humanity in Survival of the Nicest. The phrase “survival of the fittest” conjures an image of the most cutthroat individuals rising to the top. But Stefan Klein, author of The Science of Happiness, makes the startling assertion that altruism is the key to lasting personal and societal success. In fact, altruism defines us: Natural selection favored those early humans who cooperated in groups, and with survival more assured, our altruistic ancestors were free to devote brainpower to developing intelligence, language, and culture—our very humanity. Klein’s groundbreaking findings lead him to a vexing question: If we’re really hard-wired to act for one another’s benefit, why aren’t we all getting along? He believes we’ve learned to mistrust our instincts because success is so often attributed to selfish ambition, and with an extraordinary array of material—current research on genetics and the brain, economics, social psychology, behavioral and anthropological experiments, history, and modern culture—he makes the case that generosity for its own sake remains the best way to thrive. “Stefan Klein, an enticing storyteller, marshals the evidence for the value of altruism—not only to one’s family but, much more interestingly, to one’s self and one’s tribe. Altruism is truly contagious!” —Roald Hoffman, Nobel Laureate “A scholarly tour de force about why generosity makes good sense, Survival of the Nicest is also compulsively readable. Klein argues convincingly that helping others is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.” —Elizabeth Svoboda, author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness

All but buried for most of the twentieth century, the concept of altruism has re-emerged in this last quarter as a focus of intense scholarly inquiry and general public interest. In the wake of increased consciousness of the human potential for destructiveness, both scholars and the general public are seeking interventions which will not only inhibit the process, but may in fact chart a new creative path toward a global community. Largely initiated by a group of pioneering social psychologists, early questions on altruism centered on its motivation and development primarily in the context of contrived laboratory experiments. Although publications on the topic have been considerable over the last several years, and now represent the work of representatives from many disciplines of inquiry, this volume is distinguished from others in several ways. Embracing the Other emerged primarily as a response to recent research on an extraordinary manifestation of real-life altruism, namely to recent studies of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during World War II. It is the work of a multi-disciplinary and international group of scholars, including philosophers, social psychologists, historians, sociologists, and educators, challenging several prevailing conceptual definitions and motivational sources of altruism. The book combines both new empirical and historical research as well as theoretical and philosophical approaches and includes a lengthy section addressing the practical implications of current thinking on altruism for society at large. The result is a multi-textured work, addressing critical issues in varied disciplines, while centered on shared themes.

For centuries, the egoism-altruism debate has echoed through Western thought. Egoism says that the motivation for everything we do, including our seemingly selfless acts of care for others, is to gain one or another self-benefit. Altruism, while not denying the force of self-interest, says that under certain circumstances we can care for others for their sakes, not our own. Over the past half-century, social psychologists have turned to laboratory experiments on humans to provide a scientific resolution of this debate about our nature. The experiments have focused on the possibility that empathic concern-other-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need-produces altruistic motivation to remove that need. With carefully constructed experimental designs, these scientists have tested the nature of the motivation produced by empathic concern, determining whether it is egoistic or altruistic and, thereby, providing an answer to a fundamental question about what makes us tick. Framed as a detective story, this book traces the scientific search for altruism through numerous studies and attempts to examine various motivational suspects, reaching the improbable conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is indeed part of our nature. The book then considers the implications of this conclusion both for our understanding of who we are as humans (the bad news as well as the good) and for how we might create a more humane society.

"Unlike any other study in its field, The Altruistic Brain synthesizes into one theory the most important research into how and why - by purely physical mechanisms - humans empathize with one another and respond altruistically."--Jacket.

Why did we evolve to be altruistic? Why did we evolve to value a society of equals? How did we become capable of culture? For the first time promising clues to these puzzles are emerging from an unexpected field - computer science. Delicate living systems and bulky computers, according to a growing body of research, are both information systems engaged in the storage, transmission, and processing of information. This shared characteristic of life systems and our information technology devices gives us an opportunity to study human evolution using concepts from computer science. Such analysis points to the existence of an important 'invisible' adaptation in human beings. This 'invisible' adaptation is the reason we evolved to be cultural beings, who are altruistic, who value equality, and our aging elders. www.altruism-evolution.com

This multi-disciplinary volume is one of the few collections about social change covering various cases of mass violence and genocide. In life under persecution, social relations and social structures were not absent and not simply replaced by an ethno-racial order. The studies in this book show the influence of social structures like gender, age and class on life under persecution. Exploring practices in family and labor relations and of collective action, they counter claims of an atomization of society or total uprootedness of victims. Despite being exposed to poverty and want and under the permanent threat of political violence, persecuted people tried to develop their own agency. Case studies are about the Jewish and Armenian persecutions, Rwanda, the war of decolonization in Mozambique and civilian refuges in Belarus during World War II. The authors are a mix of experienced scholars and young researchers.

How do schools worldwide treat the Holocaust as a subject? In which countries does the Holocaust form part of classroom teaching? Are representations of the Holocaust always accurate, balanced and unprejudiced in curricula and textbooks? This study, carried out by UNESCO and the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, compares for the first time representations of the Holocaust in school textbooks and national curricula. Drawing on data which includes countries in which there exists no or little information about representations of the Holocaust, the study shows where the Holocaust is established in official guidelines, and contains a close textbook study, focusing on the comprehensiveness and accuracy of representations and historical narratives. The book highlights evolving practices worldwide and thus provides education stakeholders with comprehensive documentation about current trends in curricula directives and textbook representations of the Holocaust. It further formulates recommendations that will help policy-makers provide the educational means by which pupils may develop Holocaust literacy.