At home, I was taught a value that seems out of this world: if you do a good deed selflessly, bragging about it takes away all its value. If you give alms, or do a gift, or perform a favor, bragging about your generosity automatically turned it into what we would call today. self-promotionThat is, in personal promotion, investment in one's own reputation. That is, in publicity and, in the case of power, in pure and simple propaganda. That's why even the bloodthirsty Hassan II occasionally granted a handful of pardons and presented himself to his subjects as clement and merciful (which are the two most repeated attributes when referring to God in Islam). In the age of social media and virality, the ethic of altruism instilled in me by the women in my family seems completely obsolete. In politics, social movements, and activism, we see sincerely committed people who dedicate their time, energy, and efforts to transforming the world they live in out of deep conviction. You'll recognize them because their vocational involvement probably doesn't pay off, and they'll surely often wonder if the daily confrontation with much more powerful forces is worth it. But the thought quickly dissipates because there's so much work to be done, and doubts are left for private conversation. I think of so many feminist organizations working from the grassroots, so many organizations dedicated to child poverty, all those doctors who go to remote areas to practice their profession, but also of the teachers, social workers, and nurses who care for forgotten people in forgotten neighborhoods that no one cares about. Of course, it's their job, but it's not the same thing for a family doctor to answer "I don't know what you're talking about" than for her to listen to you with her full attention, even if it's only for five minutes. I have placed all my hopes for humanity in these tremendously useful people who never appear on television or make a living. tiktoks showing his heroism in the office, in the classroom or wherever he is.

One of the possibly most exciting characteristics of humans is the willingness we show to help when someone is in difficulty, especially, but not only, if they are friends or if we have previously met. It is a prosocial capacity related to empathy that favors the survival of the species and has been shown to also benefit the person who helps, as it receives approval from the environment, fosters reciprocal social relationships, and improves their status within the community. However, it is known that we are not the only species that exhibits this behavior.