Dear Editor:
We are all self-interested. It’s about survival. We are driven to get what it takes to have food, shelter, clothing, and medical care; the minimal requirements to continue to exist. Pure self-interest is about ME ALONE.
Lots of purely self-interested fellows are on a second or third marriage, because existence is all about THEM alone. Others can look after themselves. Responsibility, community, society, these are foreign notions to the purely self-interested. It’s a lonely, mostly pointless way to live.
There’s another kind of self-interest called ENLIGHTENED Self-Interest. This tells us it does no good to have all the gold in a community that is wracked with disease, hunger, and despair. This tells us our well-being, our meaning, our joy and fulfillment does not come strictly from within.
The cliché is “no man is an island,” which tells us we cannot operate by looking out for ourselves and ONLY ourselves. The Christian Bible is almost exclusively about this theme.
There are many examples around us of enlightened self-interest, and most are ardent capitalists. Take the example of HEB, a highly successful grocery store chain. Yes, they stock their shelves and sell goods to the public for a profit. And they make a LOT. But, even casual observation of news events will reveal that HEB is highly charitable. They donate food to the hungry. They help fund scholarships. I saw just yesterday a convoy they put together to take supplies and equipment to the Kerr County flood zones. This was volunteer work and expense, done for the community. They didn’t HAVE to do it.
A purely self-interested company (or individual) would not even consider such acts of helpfulness to the community … heck, to give hand-outs to people we DON’T EVEN KNOW!?! This would never occur to the purely self-interested or the narcissist.
I suppose it has to do with how we were brought up by our parents. The purely self-interested parent would teach the ME ALONE style of living, and to consider others as threats, as competitors to be defeated, or as enemies to be destroyed.
The parent with enlightened self-interest would teach kids to be kind, empathetic, and good neighbors. Oh, by all means, be CAPITALISTS, too. Make money, do a good job, improve your life and that of your family. This is not mutually exclusive to being enlightened. In fact, the more successful you are, the more you’re able to share good fortune, if that is your inclination. Or, you can claw for ever more money, to hoard without a thought to your community.
As I began, we are ALL Self-Interested. The question is, are our lives better if we only look after ourselves and our needs and wants, or is our life more fulfilling if we are open to making our community and our world a better place? Our founders phrased it, a desire for “a more perfect union.” Preachers will admonish us to “be our brothers’ keeper.”
The cynic would say, all acts of kindness don’t count, because they are done to make the HELPER feel better about himself. Cool! That’s the whole point, to feel better … to feel GOOD … while doing things to help others. Want to feel better? Try it … it WORKS! It’s much better than counting your meager shillings while grumbling about those “lazy, undeserving, leaches” in society who want to “TAKE” from you. Yes, wallow in victimhood. We have a president to show you how it’s done.
Jeff Harrison
Buffalo TX
