Social Motivators

Why do people choose to do, what they do?- individually, as societies, and as a species, what are our motivators for selfishness, violence, compassion, altruism; what drives us?
  
   I had just written the section 'The Money Game' (in 'Social Experiments for Imaginative Minds',  and noted it going from playing with Monopoly Money, to a discussion of 'Homo economicus vs??'. Then, on 3/29/12, MSN.COM echoed a Slate article from 3/22/12 on Edmund Wilson and the book 'Patriotic Gore'. This is a book going on my 'list to purchase'.

   I have, for most of my life, tried to understand why people fight wars. Of all the turns this web site has taken, this is one of the strangest. It is a long way from wanting to share farm skills to war.And yet, what more important subject to study in the context of emergency preparedness? The topic of war, and other types of conflict, seems so important that I have continued this discussion under the topic heading ('The Dark Side; War and Human Conflict')