I believe the lines are to show that we are all connected to each other, all related and influence each other and make consensus decisions as a community about what we will accept or not accept regarding behavior. Matt was trying to say that the Alpha Male thinking is flawed and most people don't truly behave that way to begin with.
Humanity influences each other greatly. We are social creatures. We are like cells of the body and choosing to do violence or harm is like a body that has an auto-immune disease like lupus attacking itself. The more people choosing to cause harm to another person the sicker the body of humanity will become and the inflammation spreads. A community sees the harm and steps in and creates a government to administer anti-inflammatory medicine as it were sending people to jail, fining them, tell them to cease and desist the harm, etc.
This works on the smaller scale of a single indiviuals life as well. They can choose to cause harm to people and suffer the consequenses in their own life which are often visible with only a few years of this type of behavior: lonliness, nobody to rely on, lost opportunies. Choosing to act for the benefit of another on the other hand yeilds many positive results, less types of lonliness (I'm a realist; we all live in our own skin after all.), a community to fall back on when life gets stupid and increased opportunties to better your life. Choosing to benefit instead of choosing to harm is like a cell that divides and creats a new cell promoting good health and keeping the body alive.
There are those we call psychopaths who do not feel the connection to their peers and they believe themselves to be Alpha Males. They are not many and the community works to keep them as little inflammatory as possible.
We are not an island to ourselves as the famous quote says. If everybody tried to go off and live alone the consequences would be disastrous. We need each other. Americans in particular seem to dislike this concept they are so invested in individualism. I of course value individualism but everything must be viewed with a balanced perspective. I see a community with each person an equal voice not one man the preacher interpreting a holy book and no one else can contribute so much as a peep.
I've been in churches and I know the reality is that the other people often to contribute to interpretations and end up funnelling the book to say whatever they want anyway. This is what a community does after all.
Re: When everyone's an alpha male monkey...
Humanity influences each other greatly. We are social creatures. We are like cells of the body and choosing to do violence or harm is like a body that has an auto-immune disease like lupus attacking itself. The more people choosing to cause harm to another person the sicker the body of humanity will become and the inflammation spreads. A community sees the harm and steps in and creates a government to administer anti-inflammatory medicine as it were sending people to jail, fining them, tell them to cease and desist the harm, etc.
This works on the smaller scale of a single indiviuals life as well. They can choose to cause harm to people and suffer the consequenses in their own life which are often visible with only a few years of this type of behavior: lonliness, nobody to rely on, lost opportunies. Choosing to act for the benefit of another on the other hand yeilds many positive results, less types of lonliness (I'm a realist; we all live in our own skin after all.), a community to fall back on when life gets stupid and increased opportunties to better your life. Choosing to benefit instead of choosing to harm is like a cell that divides and creats a new cell promoting good health and keeping the body alive.
There are those we call psychopaths who do not feel the connection to their peers and they believe themselves to be Alpha Males. They are not many and the community works to keep them as little inflammatory as possible.
We are not an island to ourselves as the famous quote says. If everybody tried to go off and live alone the consequences would be disastrous. We need each other. Americans in particular seem to dislike this concept they are so invested in individualism. I of course value individualism but everything must be viewed with a balanced perspective. I see a community with each person an equal voice not one man the preacher interpreting a holy book and no one else can contribute so much as a peep.
I've been in churches and I know the reality is that the other people often to contribute to interpretations and end up funnelling the book to say whatever they want anyway. This is what a community does after all.