It is good to be Selfish…
It is good to be Selfish…
I was writing a long drawn out article about selfishness, but I reconsidered how I would write about it. Writing can be positively or negatively oriented and after getting about 250 words into it, I realized that it was way too negative. So, here I am writing out my second attempt at explaing how I view the term: Selfish and its partner Selfishness.
Drawing from my dicussions with many other people, experience and research into the subject of selfishness, I can honestly say that selfishness is something that is good for everyone to practice. Now that I am sure that I have set off some alarms (At least, I hope I have), let us work with your heightened state of awareness.
My definition of Selfishness, is the practice of being of and for self. A term, a definition that is devoid of any true bias, positive or negative. Now for the “official” definition.
selfish
adj.
1. Concerned chiefly or only with oneself: ?Selfish men were… trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of human rights? (Maria Weston Chapman).
2. Arising from, characterized by, or showing selfishness: a selfish whim.
selfishness \Self”ish*ness\, n. The quality or state of being selfish; exclusive regard to one’s own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others.
Selfishness,- a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors it, and, as such, condemned by self-love. –Sir J. Mackintosh.
selfishness n : stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard of others
Looking at the official definitions, it sure seems like selfishness is a purely negative aspect of being. But fortunately there are others, including myself that have other meanings for the term. Ayn Rand and people that follow similar ideas of living their lives look at selfish. Here is a short view on selfishness as found on Capitalism.org.
What does it mean to be selfish?
To be selfish means to look out for one’s own interests, i.e. one’s own life. To eat to support your life is selfish. To make love to the woman you love is selfish. To have pride in ones accomplishments and character is selfish. To use one’s mind in the pursuit of ones own happiness is selfish. By what standard can one judge these selfish things as evil? Only by an irrational one. By what standard does one judge the good from the evil?
Man’s life is the standard of value. All that supports a man’s life is good, and all that destroys man’s life is evil. Is selfishness good or evil?
If evil is that which destroys man’s life– and to look after one’s self interest– is to support one’s life, then how can selfishness be rationally held to be evil? It cannot.
Now that we have a variety of viewpoints, I will continue along with my ideas and opinions on the whole selfishness issue. It is good to be selfish because it is an overall good and reasonable goal to look out for one’s self. It is also a good thing to self reliant, to be proud of your achievements. Also it should only be natural to think and act in a manner that is positive for yourself. In no way did I mention how this effects others, but maybe it is time to first to delve a bit deeper into each of the reasons I mentions previously.
Looking out for self, the first reason that I stated and the prime reason that people think that that selfishness is bad or evil is totally misunderstood and this negative idea is reinforced by one of the official definitions of selfishness (stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard of others). The basic idea that being concerned for your own welfare has nothing and I mean nothing to do with disregarding others or stinginess. To associate the two concepts together is a critical mistake in looking at the term selfiness and shows extreme bias in the official author’s definition of the term. People must be selfish and to act in any other manner makes absolutely no sense at all. Can you honestly say that you truly do anything without caring about how it impacts yourself? If you can, maybe you should reconsider your viewpoint. I look at it this way if you answered… “nah, I do things that I don’t care about.”… then I would reply that your answer should have been that you do not “care” to think! The only time we are not being selfish is when we are not thinking. I am not talking about the type of thinking that is considered to be in the realm of the elite and the few. Only a small portion of the world’s people are not capable of the minimum thought processes I am talking about. Look at it this way, the ultimate in selfishness is a baby. Are they concerned with others at all? No they are not, they only care about their own comfort and living and growing. Now I ask you, are babies evil or bad? The answer can only be no. Therefore following that train of thought, is selfishness evil or bad? No it is not, it is just a very basic part of living. It is not a whim or being stingy
So what is the problem with being selfish? Well a lot of other factors start to show up as we grow into adults and they seem to get in most peoples way. To get into that a bit more… lets head on to the next reason that I talked about. I stated that it is good to be self reliant and to be proud of your achievements, well that is harder to do than it needs to be. Remember those factors that I just glossed over, now it is time to bring up a couple of them. Being self reliant… oh… now there is a big bear of a problem. In the world today… is in vogue to be dependant, reliant on and sucking the life out of others. Now how can I get away with that statement? Well that is pretty easy. Look at all the attempts to create national health care, a huge welfare system, social security, multiple mortgages on homes and huge credit limits. To do all those things require more than self, you have forced other thinking beings hands into doing for you. Oh but it is for the “greater good”! Hogwash! What is a greater good than you? Nothing, that is what is great, absolutely nothing! Now if some of these things were good, they wouldn’t be forced upon us. I could pick and choose what to do with the money that I alone have earned. We can’t do that at all. As with something like the military draft and conscription, we are being forced into fighting the “wars” of others. If we were more self reliant, we wouldn’t have something as silly as an IRS at all. We would have a government that doesn’t tell us how to spend our money (Which is a product of our time, thought and energy) on what it deems necessary for the greater good. To see people that think it is good to force me to do things that I have not made a choice in makes me extremely sad. I think we would have a much better world for all if you, me and everyone else spent our earnings on the things that would directly benefit our lives. Can this be done in the world today, I would have to say no, but we should all strive to correct this problem by speaking with our actions and our spending habits. To be more self reliant is a good goal and unfortunately, the world is against the individual and self reliance. Many people seem to have the evil goal of destroying the core of what is only natural. To come closer to the goal of self reliance, we need to stop hiding behind the shield of the “Greater Good” which is more like the “Great Falsehood”.
Pride, oh isn’t that a bad thing? I would say no, but there are huge organizations that say otherwise. I mean, I think that to work and live without pride in what I personally have done is a flat and meaningless existence. I can only think of one term that is the opposite of pride, and that is shame. Should I perform acts than makes me ashamed? The answer can only be no, so therefore I must act with pride if I am to continue to do anything at all. Living a life of shame is not an option, but it seems that a lot of people are content to try to live that way anyway. So what organizations am I talking about? Oh quite a few actually. I will have to say that it seems that a lot of religions make it seem that it is a sin or evil to be proud… wasn’t the Devil ( in Christian Religions) stated to be too proud when he was an angel? Also a lot of voluntary agencies use shame as a means to force people into providing for the agency. Look at blood donation and food programs. They try to make you feel guilty and shameful for having something others do not have. In the case of blood, shouldn’t the idea be that you should be sure to store your own blood to possibly save your own life in the future. Isn’t that idea a much better one? I would think so, and I, for one, would be much more inclined to provide blood if that was the focus.. Giving blood would be looked at no more than something that everyone does to preserve their own lives. (Bringing out the concept of self reliance). Since I mentioned food programs, wouldn’t it make more since to remove the restrictions that cause people to not have enough food in the first place. Instead of sending food to war torn countries, shouldn’t we remove the causes of war in the first place? If we can’t remove the causes quickly enough, shouldn’t we provide the means to end the war quickly to minimize the amount of damage to the countries economic infrastructure so that the individuals can provide their own food. I am not saying giving arms away to countries, which a lot of countries do and have done in the past, but to deny tradingg with countries that do not provide their citizens with freedom and individual rights. When I say deny tradingg, I mean… everything, not some limited “humanitarian only” trade, food, medicines, fuel… anything and everything. If we were serious about rights, there would be only a hand full of nations that we could even think about trading with directly, and if we viewed individuals has they truly should, we would not even trade with nations that trade with countries that deny individual rights. Only by being firm in our principles of individual self reliance and rights to think and act independently will the world be a place where people can make the most out of who and what they are. Now enough of pride and self reliance, on to thinking and acting in a manner that is positive for you.
Thinking and acting in a manner that is positive for you, what does that mean? Well this is the place where I will finally bring other people clearly into the picture. So far I have been trying to push the idea of looking at only the individual in a vacuum, which we are not a part of. Being selfish in the surroundings of others is something that we all have to strive for and is the hardest part of being a part of a society (a group of individuals associated by location and other factors). How can I allow for relationships, companies, governments, and children in a world full of selfish people. Wouldn’t everyone be antisocial? Wouldn’t there be no large world spanning companies? Wouldn’t there be anarchy and minimal infrastructure? Would there be no long term family units, education systems to help in the development of children? The answer is no to all of them.
People would actually be more social, respect of and valuing of other individuals would be much more common. Relationships would have a much better chance of being long term and very fruitful for all. Actually, I even think that people would be more honest and that crime would be a very isolated event. Why can I say all that? Well lets look a bit deeper. First off, being more social, I would say that it would be a natural offshoot of thinking and acting in a positive manner. We would seek out individuals that add to our ability to achieve our own goals. To seek those individuals would require much better social skills than the average today. We would have to quickly and correctly display what we where all about, our goals and reasons for doing what we are doing. In today’s society, people are forced by false pressures to settle for least than optimal conditions. To not to voice their individual opinions on subjects that directly effect their ability to reach the highest goals for themselves. For example, people are sometimes ashamed to understand the reasons they spend time and effort on certain other individuals. There is nothing wrong with speaking and spending time only to people that interest you. Why should you even bother with anyone else. The driving force should be spending time on individuals that you can trade with., that have values and goals that you understand and respect, that will not be a barrier to your own goals.
What about working for a company? Well that is a good question. I think that the number of jobs would increase dramatically and the pay would make a bit more sense if people spent more time on valuing their individual efforts. The number of filler jobs would go down, and jobs that people want to work on would have to increase, an individual that is selfish and just would settle for nothing less and an employer would not keep individuals that slow down or stop the business from growing. People now have a lot of jobs that are there for the wrong reasons. Government sponsored tax breaks, looking good to the “community”, silly “service” jobs that are dead ended and have very little value at all. If people respected themselves first, things would have to change, and I think for the better in the long run.
Governments… an organization that can have a large impact on the individual, is a minimal requirement for a society that is composed of a group of selfish individuals. The government would have to be considered a republic only. A democracy is impossible. Votes would slowly move away from being the deciding factor in what the government does. The deciding factors would become more logical and based on values that maximize the individual. Since most people would want their taxes to go away entirely… excessive programs and taxes would have to go away. People would be expected to pay for the services that they as individuals want. No tax breaks or subsidies would survive. People would join in insurance like programs for most of the services that they would require. There wouldn’t be things like the Tennessee Valley Authority, or FEMA or heck… I doubt that there would be such a thing as National Education. Most services would be private, I could only see a few things the government would actually have direct control over, things like the military and the justice system ( courts, prisons and police ).
As for children, they would definitely benefit from selfishness. The focus of raising self reliant children would bring about generations of people that think more and act in even more positive manner, reducing the negative aspects that somehow continue to thrive in societies. The children would also tend to be raised in much more stable and open environments, where the parents are very productive and proud of all that they do, including raising their children.
All in all, I can’t see anything wrong or negative with being selfish. But I will leave you with a couple of rules to being truly selfish. One, you cannot violate the rights of others to accomplish your own goals. Two, You can not be fraudulent in your representation of yourself. Last, but just as importantly, you must do your best to think at all times, making sure that your actions bring you pride and positive outcomes.
I hope to revisit this subject in the future, so comments and opinions are more than welcome. Well it also seems I still managed to draw this article out after all.
author- James M Long copyright 2001
