Transitioning from Ego to Eco-Focused Cognition: Altruistic Intelligence and the Momentum of Social Justice Engagement
Social Sciences
Anthropology Department Independent Senior Thesis
In a world increasingly in need of strong community networks and intersectional social support groups, engagement in activism and the motivations behind doing so continue to be something not fully understood in academia. Why are certain individuals involved in activism and creating these community networks while so many more are not motivated to do so? This ethnographic study seeks to answer this question by looking closely at the lives of several activists and the circumstances that led to their eventual involvement in activism. Based on various patterns repeated throughout these interviews, specific social relations and educational contexts appear to have had an important influence on their choice to engage in activism. Rather than accrediting these individuals with some sort of altruistic nature, this study seeks to show how these activists have high levels of “altruistic intelligence”, the type of cognitive and empathic capacity to understand systems of oppression and know how to create ecological harmony and achieve social justice. This study also seeks to provide a framework through which we can begin to imagine what teaching this kind of intelligence would look like. Based on the testimonies of these activists, focus should go towards increasing knowledge on the intersectionality of various oppressive systems as well as building empathy skills in social relations.
