Elementary courses in cell biology teach us that protozoa are unicellular organisms possessing, among other things, a nucleus, mitochondria, cytoplasm, ribosomes, etc. However, despite the most advanced research, no trace of intelligence — not even at an embryonic stage — has ever been detected in protozoa. This stands in sharp contrast to the mutant protozoan, which Nature — or the “Great Architect,” depending on one’s beliefs — has endowed with three neurons.
The first neuron allowed it to become aware of its otherness.
The second allowed it to grasp the fundamental rule governing the living world: eat or be eaten.
Finally, the third neuron builds upon the knowledge acquired by the first two, for its own greatest benefit: eat as much as possible before being eaten oneself.
It is this third neuron that gives the mutant protozoan its self-centered character.
Unfortunately, evolution stopped there. To reach the next stage — the one that opens the path to empathy, that is, the understanding that suffering is universal and that we all belong to a greater whole (Schopenhauer, A.) — at least a fourth neuron would have been required.
A pity, you might say. But that’s how it is.
As a result, when the immediate needs of the self-centered mutant protozoan are satisfied, it can, under certain very specific circumstances (watching a baseball game on TV — or better yet, at the stadium; dancing; going to the pub; sitting on a political platform; etc.), access a form of bovine bliss. It feels good, rather satisfied with itself, and therefore sees no reason why things should be any different for the rest of the world.
There is thus no need to ask questions such as: “Does my action harm someone else?” After all, if I step on my neighbour’s foot and he cries out in pain, what was he doing in my way to begin with, right?
The very idea that its behaviour might harm others is completely inaccessible to it — unless, perhaps, with external assistance and a baseball bat to help explain.
This homeostatic state is, in the self-centered mutant protozoan, perfectly stable, as long as the third neuron detects no sign of an initial process of the second principle that would, this time, work to its disadvantage.
A large portion of sapiens, it should be noted, has never really progressed beyond this stage. This is probably why, from the very first human communities onward, it became necessary — in order to avoid total anarchy — to establish rules, among which the Code of Hammurabi is undoubtedly one of the most primitive forms.
Today, we have a whole range of codes and laws, sometimes very elaborate ones: the Civil Code, the Penal Code, the Highway Code, the rules of Monopoly, and so on.
The fact remains that even in so-called “advanced” societies, it is not uncommon to find, among a certain number of individuals, the resurgence of a form of atavism typical of the self-centered mutant protozoan.