Condemning Selfishness

[Kwing]

I think it's strange that we have certain ideas of right and wrong, and how we condemn selfishness.

For instance, if I say I want the world to conform to me, to allow me to live wherever I want for free, with free utilities and other people bringing me food indefinitely for nothing in return, it sounds like a selfish request, not because it's impossible to fulfill that request, but because if I could be entitled to such special treatment, why shouldn't everyone else be?

To bring this full circle and state the obvious, it would be selfish because I wouldn't be thinking of others. However, consider my stature, as well as your own, as a human being. I cannot feel your pain, and you cannot feel mine. Society has trained us to try to feel the pain of others, which is why we cringe when we see someone getting hurt, or why we show sympathy to people in need, but the pain we sense in others is artificial; it is only a pain that we imitate within ourselves to the best of our ability.

Behaving within certain standards and cooperating with others is only essential in our environment because there are barriers between us, making us into individual life forms that cannot break the barriers of our unique identities. I am me. I have been me since the day I was born, and I will remain me until the day I die. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to extend my consciousness beyond the experiences of my own body, and neither will you.

Being an idealist, I believe that selfishness is not the fault of individuals who conduct themselves in a selfish manner, but rather the fault of a universal circumstance which makes us unable to sympathize with others as quickly and accurately as we can sympathize with ourselves.

If I don't feel like working in a coal mine because it's exhausting, unhealthy, and smelly, then why should I? It's easier to not do anything, and it feels good to take easy routes in life. There isn't anything wrong with wanting things to be easy. Even if other people around you are working hard, you still have no motivation to behave the same as everyone else.

If I just so happen to enjoy killing other people, why should I stop? The only way I could be dissuaded from doing so is if I could be a part of a collective identity in which I actually felt the fear and pain of the people I killed, rather than being told that I should 'try and feel what other people are feeling' when it's impossible to anyway.

These are just a few things that have been bouncing around in my head. Thoughts?

[HibiscusMallow]

Yes there are many examples of where selfishness is good, if someone stands up to a bully that is selfish but not a bad thing.

[LionzNTiggerz]

I think you're onto something. Being selfish has a bad rap but having a healthy self-concern is important because if you don't look after yourself and take care of yourself, somebody else is going to have to (or you drop out and become a bum, and then you're society's problem).

Related, the idea that helping others is fundamentally 'selfish' (because it feels good to do) gives it subtly negative connotations. But if caring about somebody else feels good (and even inspiring, uplifting), why not do it? It sounds like a win-win deal. So what if you're not a martyr? Where did this idea that you have to suffer to be 'good' come from anyway?

But if you think "why shouldn't I kill people", you've gone too far, because you don't recognize that if you are killing somebody else, you can't do it without killing/numbing/blunting part of yourself. Love is love, no matter who it is directed towards: yourself, somebody else, etc. But love naturally flows out to others when you develop it, as long as there is nothing blocking it.

[Sensationalism]

I think it's important to be selfish but also important to consider others and help them when you can.

[gayhobbit]

Dearest sociopath.

You certainly have the freedom to do what you want, step on who you want. Whatever you choose, the world owes you nothing and others are not obligated to serve you. These two things will never change.

Your issue is not wanting things for yourself, it's wanting things for yourself at the expense of others. Which you have stated quite clearly in your intent.

As common as ignorance is on the internet, I will state the obvious for a recap: You know so very, very little about the world you live in. To be fair to you though, you're at the beginning of your life span and have had little opportunities to become more educated and open minded.

[Sense-Offender]

At 3/29/13 07:56 PM, Kwing wrote: I think it's strange that we have certain ideas of right and wrong, and how we condemn selfishness.

.

[Kwing]

At 3/29/13 08:38 PM, LionzNTiggerz wrote: But if you think "why shouldn't I kill people", you've gone too far, because you don't recognize that if you are killing somebody else, you can't do it without killing/numbing/blunting part of yourself. Love is love, no matter who it is directed towards: yourself, somebody else, etc. But love naturally flows out to others when you develop it, as long as there is nothing blocking it.

That seems like a pretty unstable claim to me. As I stated earlier, our automatic sympathy for others is something we've been taught by society. I don't think that killing other people does anything to you - there are plenty of individuals of all species who hunt, kill in self-defense, or just flat-out kill for sport and are unchanged afterward. I think what you call 'numbing' is just a shedding of social constructs.

At 3/29/13 09:16 PM, gayhobbit wrote: Dearest sociopath.

Your issue is not wanting things for yourself, it's wanting things for yourself at the expense of others. Which you have stated quite clearly in your intent.

As common as ignorance is on the internet, I will state the obvious for a recap: You know so very, very little about the world you live in. To be fair to you though, you're at the beginning of your life span and have had little opportunities to become more educated and open minded.

Actually, I'm not a sociopath. When I see someone seriously injured, I do cringe, and I do sympathize with others. By the same token, the idea of altruism confuses me. Even though I have certain altruistic traits embedded in my being, when I try and ask myself why, I come up short of answers. To me it seems as if sociopathy should be the norm, and that susceptibility to socially cohesive behaviors is abnormal. Although I understand that our ideas of morality exist so that we can exist as a species, I fail to understand how people lack a filter that rationalizes their own behavior. So much of how people act is so Pavlovian and automatic that even when people do act in the interests of others, it's almost not as if they think about it at all, but just something they've been trained to do.

Because I hold a lot of indifference toward others, I don't think I've ever really wanted anything at the expense of others, but I touched on that subject in this thread because I felt like it was important to ask the question, "Why not?" We are all victims of our individuality, and it would seem that we've been put into an environment where our physical selves yearn to behave in a selfish manner, our social selves yearn to behave in a selfless manner, and our intellectual selves try to strike a balance between the two. I guess that what I'm getting at is that when someone's behavior is destructive towards others, perhaps the saying applies, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

Perhaps I am somewhat inexperienced, but I think that asking these questions makes me less ignorant than people that just do what they do without questioning it.

[LionzNTiggerz]

At 3/30/13 04:52 PM, Kwing wrote: [I just deleted it all to make room]

What you said gives me two thoughts. The first one is, to what degree is selflessness an innate trait and to what degree is it a social construct? I totally agree that loads of what is done in the name of selflessness is people just trying to fit in. If you are generally seen as a good person, then you will get the benefits that come with that, such as other people being more willing to help you with your own endeavors, people will more easily be nice/friendly to you etc. But I also think there is a more fulfilling reason for empathizing with somebody else. It just feels good to authentically connect with another human being. It can feel genuinely meaningful and inspiring and 'deepening'. You are on to something, that we are really conditioned creatures, way more than we realize, but I know that some of the most meaningful experiences of my life have involved real, unapologetic, radical love.

The other thought is about the notion of being unchanged by an experience, especially such a powerful experience as killing a human would be. I am basically changed by everything I do to some degree. If I spend an hour fucking around on the internet, I feel usually chilled out. If I spend 5-6 hours doing it, I usually feel cranky. If I go and hang out with people I like, i usually feel happy and sociable afterwards. If I get trapped into talking to somebody I don't like, I feel disconnected and tired. If I get angry at someone, I initially feel empowered and strong, but later I realize that I have lost touch with a nice kind of sensitivity.

If I hurt somebody's feelings, I can feel bad for them afterwards. Sometimes I feel guilty, and yeah, that is just conditioning. But sometimes I think about what it's like for them and I feel a little bit sad and want to cheer them up and try and make them happy again. That's the part that I don't think is conditioning, because it isn't something I'm supposed to do, it's something I want to do.

(If you only read part of this, make sure you read the last paragraph because it captures the essence very well)

[Ceratisa]

Acting for ones own interest = Selfish?

[supergandhi64]

don't think too hard about it . . . here are some general guidelines; go with the flow, follow your heart & do god's will

--supergandhi64

[LionzNTiggerz]

At 3/30/13 07:13 PM, supergandhi64 wrote: don't think too hard about it . . . here are some general guidelines; go with the flow, follow your heart & do god's will

--supergandhi64

Clear the mind. Do not think. For all is one. Embrace the walrus. True beauty lies within. Two birds in the hand are worth one in the bush.

O yea, & don't take urself 2 srslyt!!! LOL!!!!!