Looking Out for Number One
Topic: Decline of the West
One of the most pernicious myths of the modern age is the belief that altruism is morally superior to the profit motive. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about this claim is its plausibility. That altruism, selflessness, call it what you will, is superior to self-serving behavior seems obvious. And the moral arguments in favor of altruism take account of everything—except the facts of human nature. Dr. Johnson had it right when he remarked that a man is never more innocently employed than when he is in pursuit of money. How so? Because self-interest disinclines a man to meddle in the affairs of others.
For the altruist, however, his heroic selflessness constitutes a license to meddle—meddle endlessly. Human nature being what it is, altruism is usually paraded as a pretext to bully, to dominate, to dictate—and does so in a way that leaves one’s sense of moral superiority intact. People like that are, if you like, ideological altruists. Fort them, altruism is a dogma, not a virtue. And whatever miseries the altruist inflicts on his fellow human beings, it’s for their own good. Ideological altruism is the original and still the most effective self-esteem program.
Of course there are a very few people—let’s call them saints—who are genuinely altruistic in the pure, spiritual sense of the term. One thinks of Mother Theresa. But most people who profess altruism are imperfect specimens of the breed. How, for example, can a husband and father practice altruism when there are groceries to buy, tuition to pay, the mortgage is coming due and his wife is pregnant with their third child? He has more important—or at least more immediate—things on his mind than “social injustice” etc. “Charity begins at home” has become a cliché precisely because it’s inescapably true for almost everybody.
Generally speaking, therefore, the ideological altruist is a person without ties to country, home, family, friends. In place of these stand various abstractions: “society,” “minorities,” “the world community,” “the environment” and so on. Like the vegan, whose eccentric diet cuts him off from normal human society, the altruist’s profession of selflessness estranges him from individual human beings and actual human institutions. He comes to regard them merely as the objects of his care, concern and criticism.
As for the pursuit of narrow self-interest—or, to put it more precisely—the pursuit of interests limited to one’s self, one’s family and one’s locality—charity begins at home, but it doesn’t end there. Home, family, community—these things nurture the virtue of charity in a way that ideological altruism never can. You want to live for others? Live for yourself.
Posted by tmg110
at 2:28 PM EST
