I do not support selfish ideals and consider all roads leading to and from them to be perpetually corrupted and inevitably self-defeating. Corrupted for any analysis or judgment of the justifications of the selfish perspective will be infinitely inaccurate for the sheer variety of the masses and the infinite amount of varying factors that effect each individual. Self-defeating for if our society or the world in general were to function solely on selfish ambitions it would be torn apart and shatter all areas of our global society and regresses to a primal state. Barbarians were selfish, Gandhi and other leaders of our evolving society was not. In fact I believe civilization's progress itself is marked by our loss in egotism. Mainly because if everyone where to live by a selfish philosophies society could not function for it would be everyone for himself and in the end no one will get what they want. We would have to revert to the big stick lifestyle, for that is in essence the most selfish of philosophies where one is only as good as he can get. Don’t ask me to explain this in detail, everyday life is full of these little lessons. Simply the fact is that regression is biased on selfish desire and indulgences, as is corruption. Once one begins to believe that his own feelings, desires, or comfort is more valuable than his fellow mans, its is the first step in the wrong direction - towards regression. For it provides him with the ability to override his sense of fellowship which leads to unity and mass benefits, to serve his own ends. Although this may be more satisfying superficially or physically, mentally and spiritually one would suffer. That is why I stand against egotism, and couldn’t allow that statement to go unanswered. This is as fleshed out as Im gonna make my standpoint, I realize there’s a million was I could clarify this or make it more conscience. But it giving me a freaking headache to sum up something I assumed was modern nature. So feel free to add to it, cause that it.
Societies have been attempted following your ideals, and they have all failed. Either this is because your conclusions are wrong, or because humans, no matter how strongly they wish to, can never be anything other than human. Millions of years of evolution have programmed our chemicals and synapses to look out primarily for themselves. True, we have reached a philosophical state of being that is in many ways "above" such primal origins... but to no avail. We can know of a higher state, but it is yet to be proved that such a state is attainable. Which is why we worship the fictional characters of lore, the Jesus and Siddharthur. These created persona's embodied the spirit of something we FEEL we should possess, but are unable to. I have my own, very ugly theory, regarding this. I think the people that preach sacrifice are trying to con us. When I look at the people who most loudly condemn materialism, they are hoarding as much as they can for themselves. Hillary Clinton gave a very long speech on this subject before she bought a 1.5 million dollar house and signed a 7 million dollar book deal. She is far from alone. Every religious evangelical lives in a mansion built by the dollars of the poor and sacrificial. Communist leaders always lived like royalty. Here is the gist of my theory: If someone wants a ton of things for themselves, they will say the exact same things as someone who wants little for everyone. Hear it again: The people that want to hoard, are going to say the exact same stuff as the people who want us all to go without. Their motives are the exact same, for OTHER people to have as little as possible. So, it is best to ignore everyone who spouts anti-materialist BS. Because it is impossible to determine which group they are in from their words alone. Instead, we should look to the actions of those people. I think there is an evolutionary tool, so far undiscovered, to create guilt in those that have, to better the chance of those without to get something in return. Let's not be suckers.
Ive been thinking along similar lines myself really, ive become aware that within the past 80-100 years we've have two entirely opposed 'ideologies' emerging simultaniously in the west. On the one hand we have the 'cult of the self' which has never been as popular - consumerism on the rise, women matching men in their hedonistic lifestyles, self-help style books and rhetoric on the increase. While at the same time, running counter to this we have environmentalism on the rise, vegetarianism becomming a more and more popular lifestyle choice, and ecology is now part of everyone's day to day language. Its worth remembering that the notions of 'caring for the environment' and preserving species just did not exist untill very recently, quite incredible really. What intrigues me is (which you partly covered in your own post) will one ideology win out over the other? or is this a mearly natural balancing effect? Prehaps the war is never won and isnt supposed to be, maybe this constant flux is simply reaching its intended state of equilibrium, who knows. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
To act unselfishly is impossible - all choices are value and the attainment of value implies benefit. Moreover, one needn't be "selfless" to appreciate the value of others, specifically if that value is also beneficial to oneself.
I think you are confused about the word egotistical, this extract from a hugely lengthy post suggests selfish motives and a considerable ego.
The notion that egotism and/or selfishness is evil and/or counter productrive assumes that it is the goal of intelligent selfish people to cheat, steal, lie, and physically harm others. Such behavior might result in short term gains, but in the long run, it is bad social strategy.
