Why Is Altruism Important To Human Well-Being?

However, is this form of altruism (which has arguably been the standard for all of human history) beneficial to human well-being? For the purposes of this paper’s argument, the use of well-being instead of survival is more appropriate because human beings have adapted so well that we have largely excluded ourselves from the harshness of the natural world. This ethnocentric form of altruism may have been beneficial in times of early human intelligence, but it is definitely not beneficial to human well-being today. In a high-tech, globalized world, where interacting with people who look different from you is inevitable, this altruism causes unnecessary tension. It is one major reason why human beings have not been able to exclude themselves from
“The largest numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe were Jews.”29 This massive influx of Jews into American society created an unprecedented anti-Semitism. “In the election of 1896, a number of anti-Semitic statements were made.”30 However, the Jews of Eastern Europe were not the only immigrants, and therefore not the only targets of xenophobia. “The Poles and the Slavs were lumped together with Southern and Eastern Europeans; they were all considered racially inferior and nonassimilable.”31 While xenophobia against Poles and Slaves was generalized, xenophobia against Italians was specific and thought-out. “The Italians throughout the nineteenth century suggested violence… Not only were their language and customs different, but they brought with them the idea of the Mafia and the vendetta.”32 Rise of xenophobic sentiment seems to coincide with these immigrants
Beginning with the implementation of guestworker policies across Western Europe, the Muslim population of Europe has risen exponentially. “Between 1950 and 2000, the number of Muslims in Western Europe rose from 800,000 to 15 million.”33 While many of these guest workers also came from other European countries, a substantial amount came from former colonies of Western European nations that neighbor Europe, such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Turkey. These immigrants, despite coming with the guestworkers of Eastern Europe, were the most distinctively