On Altruism and Selfishness

 

Hello, Dalai!

Xerxes in his latest column claims he heard the Dalai Lama, through an interpreter, praise “selfish altruism.” Which Xerxes defines as “working so that the world will be better for you.”

By definition, altruism cannot be selfish; selfishness cannot be altruistic. M-W: “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.” Britannica: “feelings and behavior that show a desire to help other people and a lack of selfishness.”

What the Dalai Lama was speaking of, whatever word the interpreter used, seems to have been virtue. Which is a different kettle of worms.

There are traditionally seven capital virtues in the Christian tradition: faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Altruism relates directly only to charity.

Are the other virtues, those other than charity, “selfish”? They do tend to make the world better, and your own life in it better. They build character. Properly, however, it seems to me the term “selfish” should be limited to actions that seek a benefit to ourselves by harming others.

Selfishness does not map directly to vice either. There are seven vices: pride, anger, lust, gluttony, sloth, avarice, envy. None of them necessarily harms another; although actions inspired by them may. As an addiction to any one of them can take away your freedom of choice and destroy your life, it is not selfish to indulge them: it is suicidal.

For what it's worth, "selfishness" and "altruism" can have no meaning in a Buddhist context, either. The fundamental principle of Buddhism is anatman, anatta: "there is no self."

The Job of Sex

 

The young Herakles chooses between virtue and pleasure

I recently participated in a public poetry reading. There were nine poets featured. Three were long in the tooth. Six were young, in their twenties. Five of these six openly identified on the program or during the performance as LGBTQ. 

This seems to be the trend: the number of young people declaring themselves gay or transgender is growing exponentially.

One thing is clear, at least: people are not “born this way.” You cannot have an epidemic of a genetic condition.

It is happening because sex is boring.

The urge to reproduce is powerful. That first time having sex is powerful, and tends to bond emotionally. But once you separate sex from reproduction and emotional commitment, and make it about physical pleasure, it soon loses its magic. 

Then one of two things happen. Many or most move on to other interests. In Japan, they have always been into rather kinky sex in youth. At the same time, after the kids are born, most Japanese marriages become sexless. But in our current society, sex has been glorified as almost the purpose of life. We have separated sex from love for several generations; the slogan at the recent LGBTQ clambake in a local park, “Love is louder than Hate” is a lie. Sex is not love, and conflating the two reduces others to objects existing for your pleasure. 

And then it can be like an addiction: trying to find some new twist and heavier and heavier doses in order to recover that original thrill. Hence not just promiscuity, but sexual experimentation. Sex with other men; sex in the role of the woman; sex with pain; sex pretending to be an animal …. At some point, sex with children inevitably comes to mind.

“What good thing is yours, madam, or what pleasant thing, if you do nothing to earn them? You do not even wait for desire, but fill yourself with all things before you crave them. …. You rouse your lust by many a trick, when there is no need nor end in children. Thus you enslave your friends, waxing wanton by night, consuming in sleep the loveliest hours of day.” – Xenophon, “Herakles at the Crossroads.”

The problem has grown quickly in recent years with the easy availability of online porn. The young, impelled to it by instinct, are bound to get jaded with normal sex at an early age. Some lose interest in sex; and so in reproducing. And that is a growing problem for society. Others become sex addicts, often publicly advertising their availability, and will, sooner or later, be coming for the children…or dispensing with the requirement for consent.

Courage

 

This image should need no caption for any Canadian

C.S. Lewis gives a pre-eminence to courage among the virtues: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” Without courage, one goes with the flow, goes along with everyone else, avoids making moral choices.

Not that courage guarantees that the choices made will be moral. Hitler was a courageous man; the Fascists made a cult of courage. It is necessary, but not sufficient, for general morality.

This has interesting implications. If a society has grown decadent—which is to say, if it has succumbed to vice—it will devalue courage. Courage becomes a threat to the social consensus. Conformity will be valued instead.

Accordingly, a decadent society will scorn the military—contributing to its eventual collapse. It will scorn the cowboy, the entrepreneur, the eccentric; a moral society will celebrate them.

It will also scorn men, inasmuch as courage is a peculiarly masculine virtue. Women too can be courageous—witness Margaret Thatcher, Madeleine de Vercheres, or the Virgin Mary’s “behold the handmaid of the Lord.” But the more common expression of female courage is in cleaving to and supporting a courageous man against the world. Just as men most naturally manifest kindness by cleaving to and supporting a kind woman. The two operate as a team.

All of this sounds like a condemnation of the current state of our society, doesn’t it?