What is selfishness
Egoism is a trait or life position in which the satisfaction of personal interest is considered by a person as the highest good.
An egoist strives only to satisfy his own needs, possibly ignoring the interests or needs of other people. The opposite of selfishness is altruism.
Selfishness is traditionally viewed as a negative quality, but in small doses selfishness is still useful: it allows a person to defend himself, his interests and desires.
Everyone is a little selfish from time to time. Selfishness is inherent in a person from birth, as an instinct of self-preservation. A person is born an egoist; later he learns to live in a team and take into account the interests of other people. Egoism in its extreme manifestation makes a person the center of his own existence, eclipses the rest of the world for him. A selfish person may lose friends or loved ones because it is quite difficult to build a relationship with such a person.
Society values qualities that are opposite to selfishness, such as sympathy, mutual assistance, responsiveness, and self-sacrifice.
As in many other things, in the desire to satisfy one’s interests one can find a harmonious middle - the so-called reasonable egoism. Such an egoist does not sacrifice himself, but also does not demand sacrifices from others; he can satisfy his needs without sacrificing others. This is a person with fairly high self-esteem, who knows that he has the right to certain benefits and treats other people with respect.
Selfishness and its manifestations
The word egoism is of Greek origin. Ego (Εγώ) - translated as the pronoun “I”. Therefore, egoism is when everything is for me, around me and because of me, where I am the navel of the Universe.
Request: Do not confuse the perception of yourself and your “I” as a continuation and child of God, with “I” as the center of everything in this world.
Each person is the center of his own subjective reality, but not Reality. Each person is at the center of his life (at least he should be ;)), but not at the center of the life of everyone living on Earth and other worlds.
Each person is responsible for his thoughts, feelings, words, actions, choices and decisions - for his own life, but not for the lives of other people, their decisions and actions. He doesn’t decide for others, doesn’t do things for others, and if he does, then this is precisely a manifestation of selfishness.
Unfortunately, we are forced to admit that in the modern world almost everyone (perhaps there are “saint” exceptions) is sick with selfishness. Yes, almost every person is an egoist to a greater or lesser extent.
The main manifestations of selfishness are:
- pride,
- laziness and desire for freebies,
- touchiness and capriciousness,
- criticism and condemnation,
- hidden and overt manipulation,
- sacrifice,
- avoidance of responsibility and excessive control of everything and everyone,
- quarrelsomeness, scandalousness and absurdity,
- coldness and indifference,
- rigid beliefs and stereotyped thinking.
Examples of selfishness in life
- As an example of extreme selfishness, one can consider the existence of Nazi Germany in the period from 1933 to 1945. An entire nation, led by Hitler, imagined itself to be the highest race that could rule this world.
- Rodion Raskolnikov in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky divided people into “those who have the right” and “trembling creatures.” People who “have the right” in his worldview can do whatever they want, without taking into account the needs of others. Tormented by doubts, Raskolnikov commits a crime, thereby declaring that he has the right.
Selfishness and its manifestations: Benefits
In connection with everything written above, the question arises: how did a person allow himself to be infected? How did it happen that he became a victim of selfishness?
The answer is very simple. It is beneficial for a person to be selfish.
Benefits are divided into conscious and subconscious. Both of them work effectively enough to force a person to act in accordance with what is beneficial to him.
Examples of benefits:
Pride I don’t owe or owe anything to anyone, so I can do what I want and consider necessary. And I don't care how it affects others. I know better what is better.
Laziness and desire for freebies Here the benefit is quite transparent - get what you need and want without putting in any effort. Those. without agreement, interaction and mutual exchange.
Touchiness and capriciousness The desire to receive attention and love from the outside, to fill oneself at the expense of others.
Criticism and condemnation The benefit is the same as in the previous paragraph - to get attention and power at someone else's expense, for free.
Hidden and overt manipulation Get what you want without an agreement or interaction, i.e. without putting your power into action.
Avoidance of responsibility and excessive control of everything and everyone The benefit is the same as in laziness and manipulation - to achieve a goal at someone else’s expense.
Sacrifice The desire to receive attention and love from the outside, to fill oneself with strength and energy at the expense of others.
Quarrelsomeness, scandalousness and nonsense The desire to get what is yours and achieve the desired goal at the expense of others, without investing your own strength.
Coldness and indifference Gives me the opportunity to do what I consider necessary and as I consider necessary, without taking into account those around me. That is, without an agreement and interaction.
Rigid beliefs and stereotyped thinking. It gives you the opportunity to always justify yourself and not change. In order to ultimately do what I think is right.
The problem of selfishness
Most selfish individuals do not allow anyone into their world, they experience all their inner impulses alone, and do not need outside help, but among them there are those who really need the presence of a loved one who will help, hear and understand. But it also happens that they simply need the physical presence of a person without any emotional impulses. For such people, the absence of others in their lives is tantamount to a state of crisis. But they won’t make acquaintances with just anyone, much less let them into their personal space. It is not easy for them to learn to trust others; they must see for themselves, understand from their own experience what a person is like, and after such a strict test they decide to trust.
The problem of selfishness lies in the peculiarities of personality formation, the circumstances of its growing up, and the correctness of upbringing. At certain life stages of growing up, through the influence of unfavorable conditions, a person develops egoistic character traits. Thus, manifestations of selfishness are possible at any age.
Selfishness in relationships is a big problem because there are two people in a couple and they are obligated to love each other, not one the other, and the other himself. Often behind such over-confidence there was self-doubt, and in order to overcome it they had to work a lot, and as a result of such work, they gave too much effort, and, obeying the temptation, overdid it, and they liked this new sensation. And when such a person has just found a mate, or returned to his current relationship as a completely different person, then problems begin. For a selfish person, everything seems to be normal, even better than it was, because now she knows her worth, which means she can demand twice as much. She does not understand that such behavior interferes with building a relationship, because all the attention and care is given to only one person. A couple is just that: if there are two people in it, then the initiative should come from everyone.
Selfishness in relationships breaks up families and people's destinies. But if a person values relationships, he will work on himself and will be able to change.
Selfishness is considered a problem in the sense that a person who spends vital energy on himself often does not notice how he poisons the lives of others, without paying attention to their needs, he will never be able to feel the joy of a selfless act for others.
Egoism and altruism. If we compare altruism and egoism, we can identify a common idea in them - the value of a person. It’s just that in altruism the needs of others are respected and selfless actions are done for their benefit, but in egoism a person respects himself and realizes personal needs.
The feeling of selfishness can alternate with altruism, depending on what lessons life has brought. A person could once do a selfless good deed, and in return receive misunderstanding and condemnation of his action. Then a defense mechanism turns on in him and from that moment on he will begin to do good deeds only for himself. There is also his mistake here, since you cannot generalize all cases, there are sincere grateful people in the world who will appreciate the action, you cannot be disappointed in people so quickly. There is a problem in society associated with the rejection of either selfish selfish actions or sacrificial altruistic ones. Selfish actions are condemned for catering to the needs of one person, and they try to find a catch in altruism.
The practicality of selfishness
We all know that an adult is supposed to be able to take care of himself - this is ordinary and even socially encouraged independence. It’s good when a person maintains his health, washes his socks, prepares breakfast. That is, acting for yourself is normal. How does such commendable independence differ from selfishness?
It is believed that an egoist cares only and only about himself, putting his own interests above public ones. And when, for example, an adult takes care of a child, it is believed that this time he is taking care of someone else. But surely an adult takes care of a child for a reason? Everything is still practical - just without this concern, he himself will become worse, his own conscience will bite him. And so, in order to avoid pangs of conscience, the function of caring for a child is stitched into the “program” of personal egoism. Thus, while taking care of another person, the egoist continues to take care of himself.
The fact is that it is precisely through caring for others that we gain agreement with ourselves. After all, it is much easier to love and accept yourself, being someone good and worthy of love in your own eyes. This is how our conscience works in tandem with the morality of society. While we take care of others, we continue to take care of ourselves. Mutual assistance is a refined version of reasonable egoism.
Otherwise, it turns out like in the joke about the righteous who pray, serve, strive to go to heaven, but end up in hell, because their righteousness is selfish. Are there other righteous people? On progressman.ru I discussed the topic of such sanctimonious spirituality in a separate article.
Selfishness in its purest form is prudence in gaining personal spiritual comfort. But the fact is that it is precisely this stimulus that dictates absolutely every action we take. All human actions are endless attempts to arrange one’s own life. Even mutual assistance and helping others is just another option for organizing personal spiritual comfort. We never do anything else.
And even an extremely conscious person does not become an idiot. He is still practical and acts based on his own interests. Another thing is that his interests very often turn out to be useful, including for those around him.
And the ruder a person is, the more primitive he acts - he runs from suffering to get a buzz, pushing aside everyone in his path. And in this brutal straightforwardness he acts with some kind of almost animal simplicity. Such practicality is at the level of the primitive system.
A sophisticated personality, in turn, acts subtly, but still selfishly, to achieve his goals. Wisdom, in my understanding, is foresight. An experienced egoist is able to predict the consequences of his own actions, therefore his egoism is expressed in reasonable actions - sometimes in so-called altruism, sacrifice and generosity. It is completely normal and even wise when, for our own well-being, we also think about the well-being of those around us.
