Greed/Selfishness

Slate.com today stumbled upon the possibility that, maybe, just maybe, greed might be able to solve some, if not most, of the world's really big problems.

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran's story notes that taking nonprofits and attempting to calculate which are doing the best jobs has transformed the nonprofit world from "sleepy, underresourced, and inefficient to market-minded, well-funded and eager to change the world."

Help me, please!

So, after finishing Feed and posting a little about it, I read an article about how Oprah's television spot could be filled, but the real question was who would fill her spiritual leader role.

The article noted some reality chick - Bethany - with whom I'm passingly familiar. It noted that she has a self-help book that counsels that "big changes come from small choices." It's a mantra that I love. To often the really big problems in our lives seem overwhelming, but could be changed by some small change, if we'd only see the chain linking the two. This is especially true before all the consequences of a choice have played out. Does this make sense? So, choice A, while seemingly insignificant, ends up being a very bad outcome B.

A simple thing like complaining about your spouse to a coworker about a "male" behavior, while it seems small, dominoes. Since the conduct is "male," its not changeable, so you don't try. You end up complaining to others instead of working on it with the spouse. This builds resentment both ways, as the complainer hates more and more conduct and the complainee feels henpecked. This results in more unchangeable conduct. Soon, a marriage lays irretrievably damaged and both hate each other.

Anyway, this got me thinking: there are probably more self-help books than one could count. Most, or at least a large number, seem to offer good, if not always helpful, advice (or is it the other way around?). Yet people will tell you we are more dysfunctional, trend addicted, media led, status conscious sheep then ever.

So, are the books not working? Are the books working but only to slight affect, and if so, is that really "working"? Are we actually getting better (whatever that means)? Are we getting better, but not at a rate that compensates for the negatives in the society and culture around us?

Maybe the books are simply wrong about their advice, though I'm disinclined to believe this. I think it probably goes deeper than that.

Maybe I'll try to come up with an answer in a future post.

For selfish reasons - the discussion continued

"We don't call the man living in a cave selfish for not providing anything to
society, but we call the individual on welfare selfish, because we pay for it."

You could argue, as the author herself did, that this is a bit roughly hewn. Perhaps it is. But I post it because I think it also makes a great ancillary point. And that is that in a world ruled by a selfish ruler, whether you were a janitor, Mother Teresa, an astronaut, Bill Gates, or Madame Curie wouldn't matter.

For the sake of ease, let us concede that all added to, or at the very least didn't detract from, society. They lived their lives as they saw fit. Selfishness virtually requires at least a minimally productive life becuase there is little in the world more selfish than being extremely good at what you do. In 99% of cases, that takes a lot of time and investment spent on yourself.

Perhaps the one exception to the list would be Mother Teresa. It's best we don't go too far down that path, but suffice to say that for every single giving act Mother Teresa committed, there was a receiving act on the other end. Potential for a balanced ledger. Perhaps the giving multiplied and outweighed the taking. Perhaps.

I've now completely lost where I was going with this. I warned you not to go too far down the Mother Teresa path. Now you've gone and gotten us entirely lost in this deserted wood. And its dark. Oddly dark. Creepily dark.

And are those the red eyes of a selfish person I see...

Selfishness run Wilde

One of the blogs I follow has the following quote:

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

- Oscar Wilde

If you know me, then you know that, unlike most other people, I'm not skeeved by the concept of selfishness in the correct formulation. I think in general it gets an undeservedly bad reputation.

This Wilde quote caught my eye because I'm kind of on his side on this one. What could be more "bad" selfish than to want other people to live like you do? The entire idea is anathema to my libertarian principles.

But that got me thinking: what exactly would you call "living as one wishes to live?" If forcing others to live that way is selfish, what would Wilde's alternative be called? If living as you wish isn't selfish, what is it? And what would be the boundries?

We run into two problems: due to its bad reputation, the entire concept of selfishness is vaguely and poorly defined, studied and investigated. People spend large portions of their time thinking, studying and writing into advice columnists on how to help others or what to do for others. Upon coming across the mere mention of selfishness, however, most people balk and repell. End of conversation.

Suggest to someone that they are selfish and you've almost certainly earned a rebuke, or admonishment, if not an enemy. The conversation, if it doesn't stop entirely, tends to break down to the point of senselessness. No one, or very few, would concede to selfishness.

Suggest someone is selfless, and you've generally been considered to have heaped great praise on them, despite the fact that you've essentially said they place little value on themselves.

This dichotomy is most readily present in parents/child rearing. Parents will tell you that having a child is the most selfless thing you can do. Many times, you'll hear it told to childless couples that they are "selfish" or its too bad they wouldn't give up their selfish ways to have a child. And yet, the reasons given for having children are entirely selfish: they "wanted" children; they "wanted" someone to love; "they" felt it was the right time; they "wanted" to save their marriage.

In fact, bringing a child into the world is one of the most selfish things you can do. I'm not a huge environmentalist, but I don't think it can be refuted that more and more children aren't great for the earth. If you believe overpopulation exists or can exist, more children probably isn't the answer. If you buy that people = pollution, then people + more people = more pollution.

Having a child is at heart a continuation of your genes/lineage, which is just about the most selfish thing you can do. But even divorced from that basic natural explanation, I'm hard pressed to come up with a selfless reason to have children. Adoption, where you are "rescuing" a an existing child, is selfless, perhaps. But nothing "requires" that child you birth into the world to be brought into the world. There isn't a conveyor belt conveying children into the world - if you don't have one it won't be placed into some forgotten warehouse of ignored children. Birthing a child isn't caring for a neglected child already existing.

I'm actually hard pressed to think of any reasons having a child would be selfless. I guess rearing a child simply for a spouse, though your selfish desire to keep the spouse would have to be considered. Perhaps if you birthed a child for a third party - as in a surrogate. Hey, look here at what we've done: we've managed to come to the conclusion that people who give their kids up for adoption are the most selfless, pious people on earth!

And yet - the very suggestion that having a child is selfish would probably garner you crazy looks.

Under Wilde's formulation, choosing to have a child might or might not be selfish, but forcing others to only have so many would definitely be "bad" selfish.

Unfortunately, the first part of the equation, the part Wilde hasn't addressed, probably doesn't get answered, and probably won't, because no one wants to address the topic.