Altruism (from the Latin alter - other) is the practice of selfless concern for the welfare of others, which can even lead to adverse consequences for the actor himself.
Synonym: unselfishness, philanthropy, selflessness, sacrifice, philanthropy. Antonym: selfishness, misanthropy.
Examples of altruism:
- donating to charity (money or time);
- helping someone (when you don’t expect recognition for it);
- performing social work;
- missionary work (when a person works in extreme circumstances).
An altruist is a person who selflessly helps those in need. First of all, he thinks not about himself, but about his neighbor. It is believed that a person has altruistic behavior either out of love for one's fellow man or because of some kind of faith or moral principles.
Main types of altruism (reasons for altruism)
Some consider them reasons, others consider them types of altruism.
Nepotistic altruism
Altruism based on family ties. For example, when parents take care of their child.
Reciprocal altruism
Observed in groups (people and animals). When one altruist sacrifices himself for the sake of another group member, but expects self-sacrifice from him in return. For example, vampire bats give regurgitated blood to their fellows who were unable to collect it themselves, knowing that someday they themselves would need such a donation.
Group altruism
This form of altruism involves making sacrifices for the benefit of the group. It is found in a wide variety of living organisms, such as bacteria or lions. An example would be when a person sacrifices himself by going to war.
Moral altruism
It is self-sacrifice for others because of moral principles. That is, if a person acts differently, he will experience dissonance (“contradiction with himself”). Moral altruism exists only among humans.
They sacrificed everything for others!!! (4 photos)
Author: Nikolay
December 23, 2020 08:38
Community: Life Stories
Tags: war heroes, yesterday's heroes deserve respect, saving children
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“Good deeds are short, they are pronounced easily and quickly, but their echo is eternal”
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Mother Teresa It is impossible to talk about Mother Teresa without tears. This woman dedicated herself to other people, lived her whole life in poverty and did not ask for anything for it. Agnes, as she was named at birth, was born in Macedonia. From an early age she was interested in missionaries. And at the age of 18, she said goodbye to her family forever and went to distant India to serve God and people. India in the early 20th century was a land of striking contrasts. The shacks of the poor huddled next to the luxurious palaces of the rich, mountains of garbage festered in the streets, the wretched were born and died under the scorching sun and in a terrible stench. Mother Teresa taught poor children for many years. But chance determined her future fate. One day she saw her son take his mother, who had leprosy, to the city square. He threw it away because hospitals refused to accept it. The woman’s entire body was covered with ulcers, bitten by rats and ants, and the bad smell hurt her eyes. Mother Teresa approached the woman and... ran away. She couldn't stand such a sight. She cried, prayed and asked the Lord for strength to help the unfortunate woman. Mother Teresa is back. She washed the dying woman, consoled her, and the woman passed on to another world with calmness and a smile. Now the nun knew what she had to do. She left her convent and began to live in the slums of Calcutta, helping the poor as best she could. Over time, local authorities learned about the merciful woman and allocated her premises for the needs of the poor. She organized a whole “city” for the dying. Here, all people were treated with respect, regardless of religion, gender, or illness. She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 1979. She came to receive the award in the same white sari with a blue border and refused the banquet. Read more at: https://miridei.com/interesnye-idei/life-stories/chetyre_zhenschiny_kotorye_posvyatili_zhizn_drugim/ © miridei.com
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Victoria Soto American teacher Victoria Soto came to work with her beloved students. It was an ordinary day. But in a minute the world turned into hell. A former student with mental disabilities burst into the school with a weapon and began shooting at everyone indiscriminately. According to the surviving children, the teacher hid them in closets and told them not to come out so that they would not hear. When Adam Lanza burst into the classroom, Ms. Soto said the children were in the gym. Several guys couldn't stand the tension and ran out. Victoria stood in the way of the killer and tried to distract him from the students. He killed her with three shots to the face and left. Six teachers and twenty children died that day. Thanks to Victoria Soto, six babies survived. Six families were spared the worst grief in the world - they did not bury their children. Read more at: https://miridei.com/interesnye-idei/life-stories/chetyre_zhenschiny_kotorye_posvyatili_zhizn_drugim/ © miridei.com
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Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy aristocratic family in the 19th century and received an excellent education. Noble aristocrats approached her, but she refused them all. One day she visited a hospital for the poor. What she saw impressed her for the rest of her life. Heaps of dirty rags, unsanitary conditions, drunken nurses, a fetid smell... The hospital of those years was a place where people were not treated, but died in terrible agony. She decided what she wanted to do - become a nurse. The aristocratic world suddenly turned its back on her. No one else asked for her hand. But Florence didn’t care much about this. She studied many books about medicine and acquired many necessary skills. During the Crimean War, Florence and 38 other nurses went to the front. Of course, it was not easy for her, and these were not just everyday difficulties. No one took women seriously in the medical industry. Wounded soldiers died in their own excrement, rats and lice ran through them, clothes stuck to their bodies, and the smell made them dizzy. The most hopeless were given to Florence. In a short period, she achieved an increase in the number of wards, organized kitchens and laundries, introduced the principles of hygiene, and even took care of the leisure of the sick. She walked around the rooms of her patients at night, for which she was called “the lady with the lamp.” Thanks to Florence Nightingale, mortality fell from 49% to 2%. She returned from the war as a national hero. For the rest of her life, she was engaged in reorganizing the medical system and opening schools for nurses. She never settled her personal life, and before her death she burned all her personal diaries and notes so that no one could know about her most secret thoughts. Today there is a medal named after Florence Nightingale - this is the highest award for sisters of mercy.
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Irene Sendler When World War II began, Polish woman Irene Sendler was 30 years old. When Irena learned about the horrors that were happening to people in the Ghetto, she could not stand by. The Germans were terribly afraid of the diseases that were spreading in the camp, so they let medical workers through. Irena bought false documents from an employee of the Health Department and came to the camp every day. It's hard to imagine that a small, fragile woman was able to save 2,500 thousand children. She led the children through sewers and tunnels, threw them over fences, and carried out the smallest ones in a tool case. Based on a denunciation, she was arrested. The Germans tortured her for a long time, broke her arms and legs, but she did not betray her assistants. Until her death she walked on crutches. Irena never advertised her activities; she always emphasized that she acted together with friends. But she was the only one who lived to old age. Until 2007, no one knew about this woman. But then she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the commission considered that this act was not worthy of an award, and the award was awarded to Al Gore for his reporting on global warming. Aren’t 2,500 thousand saved children worth being grateful and respecting this heroine even in old age? Irena Sendler died at the age of 98, having lived modestly all her life. She didn't consider herself a hero and always blamed herself for not being able to save more lives.
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Altruism in animals
We can only guess about the true motives of animal behavior. One can only analyze various stories recorded by eyewitnesses.
Weddell seal rescue story
In January 2009, marine ecologists Robert Pitman and John Durban were aboard a research vessel off the western Antarctic Peninsula.
They saw eleven killer whales attack a Weddell seal.
Weddell seals
Suddenly, two massive humpback whales appeared and began to help the seal, which at the time was on top of the ice floe. The killer whales managed to break the ice floe of the seal and throw it into the water, but it did not become confused and swam straight to the humpback whales.
Then one of the whales rolled over onto its back and placed the seal on its belly, gently nudging it with its flipper. There, as if on a huge ice floe, the seal remained out of danger.
A rat is a friend to a rat
Researchers from the Champalimaud Foundation's "Centre for the Study of the Unknown" in Portugal discovered that rats exhibit selfless behavior.
The experimenters divided the rats into pairs and gave them a choice:
- open one door and she will get food for herself,
- open the second door and both rats will receive a reward.
The majority (70% of cases) consistently made selfless, prosocial choices with rewards for both.
And their previous studies showed that:
- rats support each other;
- if a comrade is caught in a trap, they will try to free him;
- When they see another rat suffering, they show pain and anxiety.
Residents of Russia who sacrificed themselves to save others
We are used to thinking that the era of real knights - brave and valiant - has long passed. Fortunately, heroes still live among us, but their exploits often go unnoticed. We collected stories of ordinary people who, in a critical situation, risked their lives to save someone else's.
A resident of Irkutsk, electrician Pavel Koshkin, seems to have heroism in his blood. He has three saved lives to his credit. The first time Pavel saved a drowning girl from a mountain river. The second time, in July 2015, on the Shumak River, he pulled a 10-year-old boy and a man out of the water in time. Unfortunately, he was unable to save three women.
Oksana Murashko is an unusual donor, and part-time, she is an insulator in the traction engine repair shop at the Voronezh plant and a mother of two children. A woman’s blood contains useful substances – antibodies against staphylococcus. Thanks to this, Oksana often acts as a donor for young children who do not tolerate staphylococcal disease well, and their health does not allow them to be vaccinated with antibiotics.
Thus, the miracle donor has already performed more than 300 blood donations. In addition, Oksana saved the life of a 15-year-old boy who was undergoing complex heart surgery. “There is nothing heroic. There is simply help,” the woman modestly noted in one of the interviews.
Resident of the Amur region Dmitry Topchu rightfully deserves the title of hero. A rolling stock repairman once risked his life to save a child. In 2013, a man went to the Tynda River to watch the ice drift.
As he approached, he saw two boys from afar: one of them was on the ice, and the second was on the shore. The boy stood helplessly on an ice floe in the middle of the river, and it was clear that he was unable to get ashore on his own.
Then Dmitry was not at a loss, drove up and jumped out of the cab, taking off his jacket. “If I fall through the ice, so as not to interfere,” he thought. Through the resulting jam, I reached the ice floe and pulled out the child, tightly grabbing his hand. Dmitry hid his act for a long time from his work colleagues and still does not consider it heroic. “The worst thing would be if I didn’t have time,” he said in an interview.
Sergei Rogov, a rolling stock repairman from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, also did not think that he would have to perform feats while on vacation with his family in 2009. While with his wife and daughter in the village of Ilyinka, Bogotol region, the man noticed that the neighboring house was on fire. Sergei remembered that the neighbors had young children and immediately jumped out to help.
After breaking the window, the man climbed into the room and pulled a six-year-old boy and his baby brother out of the fire. Sergei made it just in time - just a couple of minutes after he and the children got out, the ceiling in the house collapsed. “I understood that I was taking a risk, that perhaps once I entered the house there would be no turning back, but I had to save the guys at any cost. In my opinion, there is only one choice in such a situation. There is no other option,” he said later.
A resident of the Astrakhan region, Evgeniy Sannikov, is confident that the names of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War must be preserved in the memory of contemporaries. That is why the factory engineer has been participating in excavations of warriors for 12 years now.
During this time, he made more than 40 search expeditions, raising hundreds of remains of Soviet soldiers and reburying them. At the same time, Evgeniy implements all excavations at his own expense. For perpetuating the memory of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland, the man was awarded a medal.
The meaning of the word self-sacrifice
Examples of the use of the word self-sacrifice in literature.
Without finishing, Beowulf even shed a sentimental tear, moved by his own self-sacrifice.
Talking about the past war, Andreas Jallak invariably spoke of Abram Blumenfeld as a man of boundless courage, always ready for self-sacrifice.
Wanting to testify to Margarita’s satisfaction with how nobly she behaved and with what self-sacrifice she fulfilled her mother’s behest, he ordered the bringing of fifty excellent canvases that belonged to him, including those that Balthazar had once sold him, so that the Klaas gallery was completely restored.
Need is as much a servant as it is a mistress of its object, as humble as it is arrogant or arrogant, it needs an object, without it it is unhappy, this is its loyalty, its self-sacrifice, its lack of egoism.
This is how Saint Vidikon died, having committed an act of self-sacrifice that turned contradiction against itself.
I'm not talking about high valor, nobility, generosity and self-sacrifice - they can hardly be found anywhere else except in theater and novels: no, I'm talking only about those virtues that are charged to everyone as a duty.
Fermina Daza accepted this extremely luxurious punishment, hoping that this final self-sacrifice would prevent her from completely sinking.
For the real development of humanity is possible only if there is a readiness for self-sacrifice on the part of the individual for the benefit of society, and not with the painful ideas of cowardly wise men and critics who want to remake nature.
The Russian man, Karamazov, is at the same time a murderer and a judge, a brawler and the most tender soul, a complete egoist and a hero of the most perfect self-sacrifice.
The general fate of these methods, as well as the dictatorship as a whole, is ultimately resolved by the course of world development, which, of course, does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes the correct policy of the proletarian dictatorship, consisting in strengthening and developing the alliance of workers and peasants and in all possible adaptation to national conditions, on the one hand, to the course of world development, on the other. After the experience of the Canton uprising, playing with the formula of a bourgeois-democratic revolution means going against the Chinese October, because without the correct general political orientation, revolutionary uprisings, no matter how heroic and self-sacrificing they may be, cannot give victory.
Self-sacrifice, the blindness of love is plausible and psychologically justified in the young Juliet, who is completely in the power of Leone Leoni.
The touched old pasha, who must have not had much hope in the ability of his elders to self-sacrifice, even rose from the soft minder to hug Hamid.
Inspired by the thought that he will soon become the only chief of the Center, and also by the fact that two dozen representatives of the emigration have gathered around him, in front of whom it is worth showing off, Mladenov gives praise to the young and reliable guard of fighters, to which the deceased belonged, and speaks of feat, heroism and self-sacrifice , as if Tony fell on the battlefield, and not at the hands of his jealous boss because of a stupid bed story.
Between these two groups are the masses of skilled workers and white-collar workers, who have difficulty making ends meet, who are unable to maintain their, by no means high, standard of living on one salary, who have proven their ability for self-discipline, self-sacrifice and patriotism for decades, and thus no less, as I believed, responsible for our scourge - strikes, and guilty of the fact that every time the wages of the low-paid were increased, they demanded that they be increased at all levels.
Alena: Women find themselves in the role of Crusaders because of a preconceived attitude towards love, which they identify with self-sacrifice.
Source: Maxim Moshkov library
