Dunno, Alex, I don't think altruism quite gets the point of what I think Maahey is wanting across. Altruism is one of those "dirty" words, kind of reverse selfishness. The value of altruism as a term, for me, was ruined the day that E.O. Wilson invented the quasi soft (read: softer than usual) pseudoscience of sociobiology and his eager acolytes pounced on apparent altruism in the animal world as being a bold statement in favour of nature over nurture. Phylogeny recapitulating ontogeny ad infinitum and all that jazz ...
I have this vision of a bunch of physicians, wearing green scrubs, masks and surgical gloves over the top of leather jackets, dirty jeans and winklepickers, stalking ill people through the alleys and byways of the city, leaping on them unawares after running a comb through their hair and emptying the contents of their V8 lowrider crash cart into the victims' unwilling veins ... "Wassa matter, punk. Doncha wanna get better?"
Dunno, is it me?
- Pfranz
