Nice Guys Finish First!

While I was exploring my own roots to figure out whether I was born or raised to be a Nice Guy, I also kept wondering if there was some other cause-and-effect explanation for being a Nice Guy; not just for me, but for anybody.  The genetic link to my parents and grandparents, combined with the social environment in which I was raised would certainly explain a lot about my own personal Nice Guy tendencies, but it wouldn’t add much credence to my belief that Nice Guys Can Finish First, let alone to my loftiest claim that Nice Guys are supposed to Finish First.  To do that I had to look outside the realm of my own family roots and examine the history of Nice Guys in general; if there was such a history.  In my search for the origins of Mr. Nice Guy I was certainly hoping to find an obvious singular beginning to it all. 

The Dawn of "Mankindness"

I figured the best place to start was at the beginning, meaning the beginning of mankind.  Setting aside the Theory of Evolution for a moment, I owed it to my own Christian faith to presume that the beginning of mankind was outlined in the bible’s Book of Genesis, in the place of man’s origin known as the Garden of Eden.  We know that Adam was there, but could it be that he was the original Mr. Nice Guy?  We do know that he started out pretty puritanical, not even noticing that the only other person on earth was a beautiful woman who walked around completely naked, with nothing but her knee-length curly locks to cover what would later become vital points of interest to the male gender.   But, alas, it turns out that he was weak willed after just one bite of forbidden fruit, apparently turning into Eden’s equivalent of a sexist pig, luridly ogling the poor girl every time she took a stroll through the Garden on a breezy day. 

Evolution of Nice Guys

As for the evolutionists out there, what about a primitive Mr. Nice Guy “missing link” of some sort?  Well it turns out we have no official record of the first caveman to ever throw his saber-tooth tiger-skin shawl across a puddle before politely dragging Mrs. Caveman by her hair over it and into his den.  Unfortunately the early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals didn’t leave behind any archaeological clues to their magnanimous and charitable acts.  But even though I couldn’t be convinced that the origin of Nice Guys could be found in the Garden of Eden or the earliest caveman tribes, I still believed there must be some historical explanation for all of this Nice Guy stuff.  And it turns out I was right.

In considering the origin of Nice Guys one really must consider the origin of ethics in general, which then conjures up some extraordinarily deeply complex, intellectual questions.  For example, have we been morally conscientious from the dawn of man?  Was human biology hard wired to pursue goodness and virtue or did we somehow convince ourselves over the course of evolutionary time that Right was better than Wrong?  And who decided what was good?  Was it divine intervention from a Higher Authority or were other factors involved?  Tough questions indeed. 

Anthopologists have spent lifetimes attempting to answer those and related questions.  And their conclusions provide crucial evidence to support the belief that Nice Guys not only Can Finish First, but are actually naturally predestined to Finish First. 

Social Animals

Underlying this Nice Guy belief (and serving as the foundation for the 1st Pillar of Proof) is the sociological theory that the origin of ethics could actually be traced to the primitive behavior of most animal species which live in groups. Within these groups of so-called “social” animals, individual members depend upon other members of their group for survival.   The Theory of Evolution states that the natural survival instinct for any animal species will push that animal to engage in whatever behavior increases its chances for survival.  In the case of “social” animal species which live in groups, much of this survivalist behavior shows up in the form of group interdependency and cooperation; in other words, individual members of the group do things that benefit the entire group because they know it will increase their own individual chances of survival.  Humans are, of course, one such example of a species that relies on group cooperation for survival, although it is sometimes difficult to believe that when it seems like we are always trying to kill each other off.  Despite that one potentially damaging contradiction, it seemed to me that Britannica’s explanation of this “good-of-the-group” dynamic not only served to explain the origin of ethics, but went a long way to explaining the true origin of The Nice Guy as well.

At its most basic level, the definition of a single group could be defined by what they called kinship; the notion that siblings or relatives of the same offspring share a genetic code that drives an instinctive urge to defend and protect the life of one’s “family” member.  In this scenario, families comprise the core of the “group.”  By my way of thinking, this means that from the dawn of time you have been genetically engineered to protect your brother from the threat of harm posed by others, while having no inclination yourself to kill him.  Oh sure, you may enjoy beating the hell out of him from time to time, and perhaps stealing his bike or even his girlfriend later on, but you’re never inclined to actually kill him.  In fact, it is more likely that you feel you have the exclusive authority to hand your brother a beating, while anyone else who touches him is a dead man. 

More broadly defined, the “family” itself could be quite expansive to include large numbers of distant relatives that formed a large tribe.  For all we knew, the Stone Age family lines were so blurred that even Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were related; a troubling ethical thought considering the eventual marriage of Pebbles to Bam Bam.  But of course groups of animals and humans aren’t just limited to family members.  So somewhere along the line the animal kingdom became drawn to protect not only those with whom they were genetically linked, but with those whom they were linked in a variety of “like” ways.  Under that theory the “group” became defined in any matter of “likenesses;” e.g., religion, ethnicity, country, team, causes, beliefs, rock star groupies, etc. 

And so all of this means…what, exactly?

So, you’re probably thinking to yourself at this point, “What does any of this have to do with Nice Guys?”  Well, I’m getting there.

For me, the link between this primitive social behavior and the eventual destiny of Nice Guys is pretty clear.  The evolutionists who built this theory certainly have me convinced that basic animal biology – in our case, basic human biology – is inseparable from the origin of ethics, and from the origin of Nice Guy tendencies as well.  But there was one other concept that the anthropologists used to help explain this connection between the instinct to survive and the origin of ethics.  The social scientists called it reciprocity.  We all know what reciprocity means; you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.  Or, since we’ve been speaking of primitive man and origins here, you nit pick my back and I’ll nit pick yours. 

Reciprocity

Reciprocity improves survival.  If we help rid each other of potentially life threatening parasites – a task that is more effectively accomplished with the help of another – then we will live longer, healthier lives.  Building on that, if we agree to not harm each other, and to help defend each other from harm, and to pitch in and help defend our offspring and family members from harm, and to band together on any activity that results in greater output, then we have a higher probability of living longer, healthier lives due to that cooperative approach.  The unselfish act of helping another serves the selfish goal of helping yourself.  In other words, being a Nice Guy – or a Nice Neanderthal – is both good for the group and good for the individual.  Being a Nice Guy is therefore essential for preserving human life and existence!!!  (See how I did that?) 

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit over the top, but you can see how this “good for the group” survival concept naturally yields laws of ethics or, for our purposes here, laws of Niceness. The instinctive tendencies and demands of group survival lead the group to encourage behaviors that benefit the group and, inversely, to discourage behaviors that harm the group.  Consequently, the group will naturally tend to reward beneficial or “good” behaviors while punishing detrimental or “bad” behaviors.  These rewards and punishments, these “rules” to live by, become the cultural foundation for a set of moral codes.  Eureka!  In this theory about groups and human existence I believe we have found the beginnings of Mr. Nice Guy.  Not quite the Mr. Nice Guy missing link, but at least the theoretical existence of one.