So an ambivalent Peter joined his father’s business. He never knew whether his father had lured or compelled him, and he grew to agree with his father’s assessment of motivation — at best, an intriguing exercise, at worst a distracting irrelevance. It dawned on him that same day when he was driving back from his father’s house that the only real motive is probably survival. That was why his father had done what he had done, that was why he was going to do what he was going to do — to survive. He thought of himself as a humane, perhaps even civilized man, and he cringed inwardly at his conclusion and its implications. Even taking care to avoid pain to others as I survive is only for my own long-term security, he thought. I can’t even grace that with the guise of humanity, of disinterested c
