Preferences

Have you ever felt preferred over your siblings by your mother? Or have you ever felt that the teacher prefers your classmate over you? Or have you ever preferred any of your friends over the others? Think about it. “What is the reason for this?” I asked myself this question over and over as I was starting chapter 8 of The Selfish Gene. I stopped reading and began thinking: “what could it be?” Then the light bulb in my head illuminated and I went back to the tittle of this book which says: “The Selfish Gene.”

And then I knew it, humans prefer people over others because they are selfish and want to be privileged by them. Now this left me I doubt, by now in the book Dawkins has made us realize that human beings are selfish, but I had never really thought of any examples of how that could apply to my life.

And as I sat on my desk chair, closing my eyes, and thinking in which ways I was implementing this in my life I realized that yes. Sometimes I am nicer to my sister over my bother because she gives me candy, and many other examples in which I will prefer a person over the rest for me to be benefited. So after my question was answered I continued to read. And most of it was boring things which stated the example of the mother with her offspring, but then came a sentence which catched me back into the reading. This sentence said: “We have asked whether parents can be expected to have favourites, and in general what is the best investment policy for a parent?” (pg.127) this was the question of something that I had not thought about but that triggered me to find the answer.

So I put the book back on my hand and continued passing page by page. I found that a mother is as closely related to all of her children. And regarding the children they should all receive the same attention for their mother and for each other. The problem is that both the mother as the kids have ½ of their attention in themselves, and this makes one children want more attention from his mother than his siblings. And the mother thinks in the same way. So yes due to this the mother will have preference to satisfy that ½ of attention in her. So after all everyone has preferences, due to the selfishness of our genes.