We are told to be altruistic. We are told that we should focus on giving to others. That we should sacrifice ourselves to others. Helping others is a virtue.
But let’s look it up from another perspective.
If you are constantly putting the happiness of others at the first priority, then who is responsible for your own happiness?
Okay, but what is the other solution? To be selfish?
Well, the answer is not easy, but how about I tell you that giving can be actually bad in some cases. That giving can be an action for just gaining pleasure. That giving can be a tool for manipulation.
I know I wrote in the previous article that the main component of love is giving and that can give us meaning in our lives. I’m not denying that. The goal is actually to extend the previous ideas and to show how focusing mainly on giving can have bad consequences.
So let’s start by putting ourselves at the center.
The virtue of selfishness
Ayn Rand, a Russian-American writer, and philosopher, who created a philosophical system called Objectivism, explains the idea of selfishness in a whole new light. It may seem provocative, but she views selfishness from a positive perspective.
When I look it up in the dictionary I can see the following:
Selfishness – the fact of caring only about yourself rather than about other people
Okay, seems something people should not do. We should care about others right?
From Ayn’s perspective, this is wrong.
She explains how sacrificing our own values to satisfy others is morally false. She transforms the meaning of this word from the perspective of her philosophy and introduces a new kind of rational selfishness that has a reason as the main ingredient.
In the Virtue of Selfishness Ayn Rand writes:
The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.
Acting by that notion one should see through all the irrationality, desires, jealousy, and envy of immorality. It is to do not what you want, but what you need to do.
Taking sacrifices in giving
And, although Ayn Rand used the word selfishness, Erich Fromm used the word self-love. Both of them thought that in giving one should not make sacrifices of values.
About the false notion of giving he writes in the Art of Loving:
What is giving? Simple as the answer to this question seems to be, it is actually full of ambiguities and complexities. The most widespread misunderstanding is that which assumes that giving is “giving up” something, being deprived of, sacrificing. The person whose character has not developed beyond the stage of the receptive, exploitative, or hoarding orientation, experiences the act of giving in this way. The marketing character is willing to give, but only in exchange for receiving; giving without receiving for him is being cheated. People whose main orientation is a non-productive one feel giving as an impoverishment. Most individuals of this type therefore refuse to give. Some make a virtue out of giving in the sense of a sacrifice. They feel that just because it is painful to give, one should give; the virtue of giving to them lies in the very act of acceptance of the sacrifice. For them, the norm that it is better to give than to receive means that it is better to suffer deprivation than to experience joy.
Let me explain this idea by asking a few questions.
How many times did you sacrifice a part of yourself in order to be liked? Or to get what you wanted?
How did it feel?
If you are sacrificing your happiness then how can another person like you?
If both parties in relationship are placing the other one as first priority what do you get?
Well, you get two unhappy people.
Getting pleasure from giving
Anthony de Mello says in his book Awareness:
Let me summarize what I was saying about selfless charity. I said there were two types of selfishness; maybe I should have said three. First, when I do something, or rather, when I give myself the pleasure of pleasing myself; second, when I give myself the pleasure of pleasing others. Don’t take pride in that. Don’t think you’re a great person. You’re a very ordinary person, but you’ve got refined tastes. Your taste is good, not the quality of your spirituality. When you were a child, you liked Coca-Cola; now you’ve grown older and you appreciate chilled beer on a hot day. You’ve got better tastes now. When you were a child, you loved chocolates; now you’re older, you enjoy a symphony, you enjoy a poem. You’ve got better tastes. But you’re getting your pleasure all the same, except now it’s in the pleasure of pleasing others. Then you’ve got the third type, which is the worst: when you do something good so that you won’t get a bad feeling. It doesn’t give you a good feeling to do it; it gives you a bad feeling to do it. You hate it. You’re making loving sacrifices but you’re grumbling. Ha! How little you know of yourself if you think you don’t do things this way.
Firstly, it is important to mention that Anthony De Mello uses the term selfishness in the usual negative sense (opposite of Ayn Rand’s meaning) so I’ll be using this term in this negative meaning in this chapter.
To summarize Anthony De Mello mentions three types of selfishness:
- giving myself the pleasure of pleasing myself
- giving myself the pleasure of pleasing others
- Sacrificing while giving (doing it with a bad feeling)
So the first one is the usual meaning of selfishness. That is when people do what they want and they do that for themselves.
The second one is selfishness disguised as altruism. That is when it feels good to give. That is when you think you’re a good person by giving. Maybe even you feel better than others who don’t do that.
The third type requires sacrifices. That is when one helps but complains all the time. That is when you accept an invitation from people that you don’t like. That is when someone accepts a dance when they don’t feel like dancing just so they avoid the uncomfortable feeling of rejecting the other side. After all, sometimes it is better to avoid a bad deal than to have it.
The point being is that selfishness can easily be shown as giving and helping. We like to play it safe. We are comfortable not risking presenting ourselves. It can seem that we are focusing on others but in the end we are at the center of thought.
The giving manipulator
Let’s say you like a person.
What do you want?
Well, in this case let’s say you want that the other person likes you back.
So what do you do?
You give something to them. You give them a rose, you give them chocolate, you give them your time. When they need you you are always available. You try to lose their problems. Maybe you even heard from others that you are a good person. Furthermore, you are feeling good because you think that.
And isn’t that a good compliment?
Even if sometimes you don’t feel like it, you still help them.
But, what happens?
You see that the other person doesn’t reciprocate. It starts to get tiring. That person starts to be the bad guy/gal. And then you can see that the other side was really disrespectful. They didn’t say thank you. They didn’t answer your message. You feel left out. You are disappointed.
How can someone behave like that?
It seems the person changed somehow. And it isn’t fair. How much effort did you put in and the other side didn’t appreciate it. You did something, you gave. It feels off and uneasy. You are mad at the other person because he or she didn’t reciprocate. The trade was not mutual.
But let’s look it up from another perspective.
When we gave what did we have in mind? What was the reason for behaving that way? What was the reason for doing the “good” deeds?
Let’s get back to beginning.
Oh wait, we wanted to be liked. That was the basis of our behavior. And in that process, we sacrifice ourselves. It seems there was a certain kind of expectation raised. And we attached ourselves to it. It is scary to think about it but we wanted actually to manipulate other person actions by sacrificing our values.
Finally, did we actually see and know the other person? Or did we just project onto our wishes and desires?
In the end, we gave. We got pleasure. We sacrificed. We complained. We held resentment.
Oh, did I just explain what happens when you fall in love?
Nevertheless, maybe now it is more clear why did Ayn Rand deny altruism as a virtue.
Know to say the i
Ayn Rand mentions rational selfishness, and Erich Fromm mentions self-love, you can call it also caring about yourself. The meaning is all the same. The wording is just different.
And that means being aware of your flaws and strengths. It is to be aware of all the non-productive desires. Of all the self-sabotaging. To discover your values and instead of manipulating others, sometimes the solution is to let go or even to leave.
I like this quote from Fountainhead, Ayn Rand’s novel:
To say ‘I love you one must know first how to say the ‘I.’
For one to be able to give fully, one should first start with yourself.
How can you give, if you are in need?
How can you love with empty hands?
And this is exactly what also Maya Angelou talked about:
I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me ‘I love you.’ … There is an African saying which is: ‘Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
That does not mean you should give up from giving or that you shouldn’t try. It can be exercised. That is the reason Fromm calls loving an art. It can be taught.
I think the main keywords here are balance and awareness. Think about yourself. Think about others. Listen to yourself. Listen to others. Refine and iterate. Until you don’t have to think about it.
Anthony De Mello in Awareness said:
Charity is never so lovely as when one has lost consciousness that one is practicing charity. ‘You mean I helped you? I was enjoying myself. I was just doing my dance. It helped you, that’s wonderful. Congratulations to you. No credit to me.
The rational selfish or self-transcended person actually does not know that he helps and gives. He has that part deeply ingrained in his unconsciousness. That’s the key. I’m actually doing it for myself. Isn’t that beautiful? To love with your whole being.
So be careful next time you give, and if you think you are a good person, there is a very good probability you are wrong.