I chose (E) as my answer because "Selfish individualism" which was suggested as a menace to the integrity of society is not necessarily equivalent to the concept of selfishness, a fundamental motivator of human actions throughout the history (at least in this passage). There is a missing link which remains unexplained to bridge the gap between these two. I thought it was a snake-oil seller tactic switching terms in the vicinity with no proper justification. (A) is improper as there would have been no reason to defy the relevance of that argument in this passage iff he/she had offered us a coherent concept of excessive self-interest. Instead of reducing one of the social ills that epitomized the decade to "Selfish individualism", the author could have said "selfishness". Then, the whole passage can adhere to one particular theme with congruity. (B) is not germane to the argument because no numeric data is demanded whose absence can dismantle the validity of the argument entirely. It could undermine or weaken its cogency at best. (C) is the opposite of the argument. The writer perceives it as a chronic condition ailing our humanity from Day one. (D) is a nut job since we do not need to look into the case of other species to beef up the case against our unconditional/uncalculating benevolence. If humans are born to be driven by their own lust and lucre as part of basic instincts, then any author should channel all of one's efforts to cull out instances related to that hypothesis. The rest would be a dog-and-pony show. Thus, I opted for (E) as my final answer choice. According to the first half of the passage, the innate desire of humans to reveal their true blood even at the cost of damaging others was a culprit putting our society's harmony in jeopardy in the 1980s. Then, the second half of it has a different selling pitch: selfishness in the human history. This ever-lasting character lets him/her question the nature of good will by mankind in general. What I failed to see was the connection between them. What do you think about this? Do you mind sharing the rationale behind ur decision?