Why do some people think it's rubbish to become more altruistic?

[LassieLove]

I've been wondering about this lately. Why do some people seem to think that it's rubbish to strive to be a better person, more altruistic etc? It seems that these days people idealise selfishness and whenever they hear someone saying that he or she wants to become less selfish, people are like "no, you have to think about yourself! you don't need to feel bad about being selfish! just be yourself!!"

This kind of "philosophy of life" (or whatever it is called) really rubs me the wrong way. What's so bad about wanting to become a more loving, more sincere and balanced, happier person?

[VinceG]

There is nothing wrong with it.

The world distrusts these things because the world cannot understand it. It cannot see it. You cannot put "life and love balance" on a sheet of assets. You cannot put "helps friends out a lot" on a resume.

But the great thing is, people cannot help but recognize these things when you do manage to get them. And because they're in such short supply these days, they can become economically valuable in their own right. But only to the right people. Some companies want your life to be unbalanced, in their favor! These sorts are better off avoided.

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by LassieLove

I've been wondering about this lately. Why do some people seem to think that it's rubbish to strive to be a better person, more altruistic etc? It seems that these days people idealise selfishness and whenever they hear someone saying that he or she wants to become less selfish, people are like "no, you have to think about yourself! you don't need to feel bad about being selfish! just be yourself!!"

Speaking for myself, if someone told me that they wanted to be less selfish, I'd probably want to know what they mean by that term, and what specific behaviors they would like to change. "Selfish" means different things to different people. Also, some people think that things that are perfectly healthy (e.g. wanting to spend some "me time" away from your partner every now and then) are selfish.

[LassieLove]

Hehe, I actually had a conversation like this with a friend:

Me: I've been thinking about altruism lately... I think I want to be more altruistic. 'Cause I've noticed that I think
very selfish things. Like, I sometimes think to myself that if I was to become rich, I would just enjoy my life and not
give much thought or money to charity or to those in need. I would just think: ha, this is MY money, MY freedom, I'm
gonna do what I like with it!
Friend: I don't think you should feel bad about being "selfish", you're not too selfish.
Me: I don't feel bad about being too "selfish". In fact, the reason I want to be more altruistic is because
I've figured life would be more pleasant for myself if I was more compassionate and loving.
Friend: I really don't think you have to start doing charity work or anything like that.
Me: I'm not talking about charity work, I'm talking about ways of thinking. Like, that I could sincerely be happy for
another person's happiness instead of feeling jealous and competitive. That I could be more grateful instead of just
feeling like I deserve much more than I have.
Friend: I still don't think you should become any more selfless. Besides, I'm sure you already are reasonably selfless.
Me: I'm not. My thoughts are actually very selfish.
Friend: Well, I'm sure that most people's thoughts are selfish. There's no need for you to change.
Me: I'm not saying that my thoughts are more selfish than most people's thoughts. I'm sure most people are just as selfish
as I. I don't mean to compare myself to other people. What I mean is that I think I would personally benefit
from becoming less selfish. And however "normal" it is to be selfish, I don't think it's a good thing.
Friend: *still doesn't change his mind*

I totally detest my friend's attitude towards this. Yeah, he was probably trying to be friendly and compassionate or something like that but ended up in fact irritating me a lot by not "getting" what I meant at all... by not understanding that there can be a destructive kind of selfishness and that a desire to become a better person does not equal feeling horrible about being a "bad person".

A comparison: Imagine yourself being a little bit overweight and telling someone about your plans of losing some weight, which you personally feel positive and optimistic about. Now imagine the person you're telling this telling you that you SHOULDN'T lose weight. Imagine the person being under the impression that you are a victim of anorexia nervosa and that you feel very NEGATIVE about losing weight when you, in fact, feel positive about it. Wouldn't that make you a bit angry?

[Agota]

I think that might be because (as Optimist Prime already pointed out), many things that are perfectly healthy are considered to be selfish in our society and people often try to make you feel guilty for doing them.

[elucidate]

Nothing's wrong with it. The worlds needs more loving, compassionate people in it, because it is woefully imbalanced.

I'm not sure why there is such a neg view on "do-gooders"? My father always refers to "those do-gooders" as though there is something really terrible about doing good things for people.

Maybe it makes selfish people feel bad on some level that they aren't doing more, so they make it wrong to feel more comfortable about "being themselves"?

[Harmonium]

People who don't have a lot of power to make things better don't want to feel bad about that, especially if they only (or believe they only) have the resources/energy to live for themselves.

One legitimate thing for me though: you can't just be blindly altruistic, you will attract the leaches. I think you should be altruistic where it is deserved.. Otherwise you are feeding the bloodsuckers at your own expense.

[Acting Like Godot]

If you want to help the world, just improve and develop yourself in whatever way feels natural to you. How exactly this happens will differ from individual from individual, but as long as you're improving and developing yourself, the world will automatically be helped.

Rich, selfish people who never give a cent to charity still benefit the world a lot more than poor, altruistic people who try to donate what little they can.

Why? Because the rich pay much more taxes. Which goes back to the state, and gets redistributed to the poor.

[Orator]

Originally Posted by LassieLove

I've been wondering about this lately. Why do some people seem to think that it's rubbish to strive to be a better person, more altruistic etc? It seems that these days people idealise selfishness and whenever they hear someone saying that he or she wants to become less selfish, people are like "no, you have to think about yourself! you don't need to feel bad about being selfish! just be yourself!!"

This kind of "philosophy of life" (or whatever it is called) really rubs me the wrong way. What's so bad about wanting to become a more loving, more sincere and balanced, happier person?

This is something that relates to value proposition. When I propose my values altruistically in my society I always encounter knocks and shocks. People have a tendency to value things differently in today's circumstances. They say if you are altruistic you cannot survive since you will be singled out in this world of cut throat competition. Everybody is in a rat race for going forward to be in the lead or at the top or to hold the highest ranking person in office or in life or in society.
This freaked me out and I hated the society and the people I lived in. My friends and relatives always insisted that I must work for making a living and how long can I live off my parents' incomes who were living on farms.

While I have set my heart on some high ideals-literature, art, philanthropy, my relatives, including my own brothers and sisters.

[Harmonium]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

If you want to help the world, just improve and develop yourself in whatever way feels natural to you. How exactly this happens will differ from individual from individual, but as long as you're improving and developing yourself, the world will automatically be helped.

I wonder if it's that simple.

It would seem.

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

If you want to help the world, just improve and develop yourself in whatever way feels natural to you. How exactly this happens will differ from individual from individual, but as long as you're improving and developing yourself, the world will automatically be helped.

Rich, selfish people who never give a cent to charity still benefit the world a lot more than poor, altruistic people who try to donate what little they can.

Why? Because the rich pay much more taxes. Which goes back to the state, and gets redistributed to the poor.

In Australia, it seems as though certain rich people have learned all the legal loopholes that allow them to pay alot less than they are supposed to, so that statement isn't always the case...at least not down under.

I agree with your first statement though. Improving yourself has the butterfly effect out in society, and helps without even trying to. Become healthier, and it helps create a healthier society with one more healthy cells out there amidst all the sick cells. You end up inspiring others to become healthier without doing anything...as they notice your energy and your skin looking so good, and want to be like that.

Become happier and it spreads out into society. Same principle...happiness is infectious, just as misery is.

[ZephyrusX]

I think it is conceptually simplistic to categorize human behaviour as either selfish or not selfish. If I give something to someone, I do not do so without being transformed my self for better or worse. Personally, my idea of becoming a better person is striving for more win-win situations in my life without absolutely sacrificing my self for others or sacrificing others for my self. At best, I think you could evaluate human behaviour on a continuum between selfishness and selflessness with some examples being more selfish/selfless than others, but I don't think there are any 'pure' examples. Even if I give money to some charity, I am doing so because it resonates with my values in some way and I feel good about it.

[LassieLove]

Hmm... I wasn't actually thinking about human behaviour so much as thought patterns. By "being too selfish" I mean that my mindset is too selfish. I think too often about how I didn't receive enough love in my childhood etc and that's "selfish thinking". I could focus on the love and nurturing that I did receive and be grateful for it instead of having the mindset of a spoiled child who thinks she's missing out on all the luxuries of life that she "deserves" and feeling bitter about the love that I missed. Things like this I mean.

Again, I don't mean that I don't deserve all the luxuries in life (of course I do, everyone deserves the best), I only mean that I think I should learn to feel more grateful. Yeah, stuff like this.

[ButterflyWoman]

Originally Posted by LassieLove

I think I should learn to feel more grateful.

Good on you. Cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" will improve your experience of life, I can pretty much guarantee it (because I've been there and done that and I'm exponentially happier and more content now than I used to be, regardless of external circumstances).

As for your friend, you're right, he doesn't get it. He had all these weird ideas about how being more altruistic means volunteering to do charity work and giving up your possessions and changing yourself in ways he probably finds unacceptable. He seems to be very anti-change, based on the conversation you report (which I realise is paraphrased, etc.). "Oh, don't change! You shouldn't change! Don't change your way of thinking, or what you do, or anything else!" The underlying message there is "Change is bad, change is scary, change is undesirable" and so on. I don't think it's the "charitable outlook" that bothers him so much as the "change" part of the equation.

Do intend to develop a more open, more grateful, more accepting attitude. It will change your life in immeasurable ways, all of them good.

[FelineNostalgia]

Originally Posted by Harmonium

People who don't have a lot of power to make things better don't want to feel bad about that, especially if they only (or believe they only) have the resources/energy to live for themselves.

One legitimate thing for me though: you can't just be blindly altruistic, you will attract the leaches. I think you should be altruistic where it is deserved.. Otherwise you are feeding the bloodsuckers at your own expense.

I agree, by realising that your happiness is the most important thing (in a non selfish way) you can share that higher state with others and protect yourself from those leeches too

[LassieLove]

Originally Posted by CaterpillarWoman

Good on you. Cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" will improve your experience of life, I can pretty much guarantee it (because I've been there and done that and I'm exponentially happier and more content now than I used to be, regardless of external circumstances).

As for your friend, you're right, he doesn't get it. He had all these weird ideas about how being more altruistic means volunteering to do charity work and giving up your possessions and changing yourself in ways he probably finds unacceptable. He seems to be very anti-change, based on the conversation you report (which I realise is paraphrased, etc.). "Oh, don't change! You shouldn't change! Don't change your way of thinking, or what you do, or anything else!" The underlying message there is "Change is bad, change is scary, change is undesirable" and so on. I don't think it's the "charitable outlook" that bothers him so much as the "change" part of the equation.

Do intend to develop a more open, more grateful, more accepting attitude. It will change your life in immeasurable ways, all of them good.

You may be right about my friend. He's politically conservative and anti- gay marriage, too. So he probably has an issue with the idea of change.

[Cado]

Originally Posted by VinceG

The world distrusts these things because the world cannot understand it. It cannot see it. You cannot put "life and love balance" on a sheet of assets. You cannot put "helps friends out a lot" on a resume.

I think it's more accurate to say, "because you can never disconnect from your own self-interest" and we're conditioned to think that acting on our own behalf-ie, being selfish-is the worst possible thing you can be. Couple that with cynicism and age-old religious teachings that say man is fallen and incomplete and every "selfless" act is greeted with a question: "what's in it for you?"

Nevermind that you can do that %^&$ just because it feels good. No, either you suffer or you're not a good person-there's no in-between, and there's no praise for the humble.

I think the general dichotomy of altruistic vs. self-serving is inherently flawed and we'd be better off dropping those words and redefining the concepts from scratch. Altruism is a nice idea but it's unachievable, and acting for your own sake can hardly be considered a bad thing when you exercise discernment and restraint. A reboot with 3 or 4 more nuanced terms would serve us better, I think.

[cacheborn]

"What other people think about you is none of your business." - Sean Stephenson.

[JDuff]

I believe that just because we may be selfish, we can become far less selfish if we try, and keep trying. Therefore, to argue that selfishness is OK because we are not willing to invest the effort, is to beg the question, i.e. selfishness is OK because I am selfish and want to stay that way.

Although you can never become completely unselfish, do we really want to say that we are incapable of donating more money towards directly spending lives, as opposed to spending money on things that have a relatively minor consequence on our own well-being?

Also, just because we have evolved a certain way, doesn't imply anything about the moral status of actions. As we develop the capacity for reason and our brains evolve, we develop the capacity to evaluate our actions in new ways. Therefore, what seems justified today may not in 100 years. For example, people may come to think it is unacceptable for millions to be starving, malnourished, dying of easily and cheaply preventable diseases and so on. To say that we are justified in being selfish and allowing this to happen, simply because we are currently of that mindset, is not a very good argument!

In other words, I believe that from an objective standpoint, everyone's interests counts equally and that the good should be maximised. From a subjective standpoint, we are morally obligated to take everyone's considerations into account equally. The extent to which we fail to do this, is the extent to which we are selfish, in the effect that we give our well being higher priority than that of others. From a moral standpoint, I believe this to be unjustified. So an improvement in morality coincides with treating everyone more equally with respect to their well being and happiness.

When I give money to charity, often I don't feel very good about it. I would prefer not to do it. I think about what I would spend the money on instead. I have to battle with myself to do it, because my reason dictates that objective it is better, whereas my selfishness and my subjectivism says I should favour myself. So I don't buy the argument that when I give to charity, somehow I am doing it for myself. I am doing it despite my preference for myself.

Therefore, my simple explanation for why people think it's rubbish is because they are trying to justify to themselves why they should act in ways that benefit them a little, as opposed to other people a lot. They don't want to face an uncomfortable truth, that far greater benefit, objectively speaking, could be obtained by acting differently.

[Ne Cede Malis]

Originally Posted by LassieLove

I've been wondering about this lately. Why do some people seem to think that it's rubbish to strive to be a better person, more altruistic etc? It seems that these days people idealise selfishness and whenever they hear someone saying that he or she wants to become less selfish, people are like "no, you have to think about yourself! you don't need to feel bad about being selfish! just be yourself!!"

This kind of "philosophy of life" (or whatever it is called) really rubs me the wrong way. What's so bad about wanting to become a more loving, more sincere and balanced, happier person?

Anyone who thinks altruism is rubbish - hasn't thought about it! I think most human beings are altruistic as long as 'the cost' to them isn't too high. I don't like the word selfish - people use the word negatively, I prefer the concept of being self interested - this doesn't mean that everything you do is about you.

Society works when we remain connected and self interested, collectively and individually. And it not just about money or sex as one might be tempted to believe because of popular culture and advertising!

When we think of the cost - imagine what the cost would be if human beings weren't altruistic at all. That really would be scary!

Those who rubbish the notion are giving in to their cynicism, perhaps because they feel disillusioned. We can all feel that way sometimes, can't we?

Ne Cede Malis