I'm Selfish! Are You?

A few days ago I noticed a new blog linked to me, Master of None written by Michael Williams. Being curious I went over to take a look around and found an excellent site. It's very well written and has rapidly been becoming one of my favorites.

There was one post in particular that stood out for me though. It was his posting titled "Education: America's Panacea." His whole premise that Americans put too much faith in education to change the unchanging is, in my opinion, correct. Man does not change because of what is taught in a classroom. Rather man changes because of what is taught in the classroom of life.

Mr. Williams brings up three separate examples of wrongs that education has not changed: poverty, racism, and drug abuse. And he is correct in that education has not solved any of these issues. Poverty, when defined as the bottom 10% of the economic strata, can statistically never be eliminated, unless you believe that Marx's pure communistic society is possible in any world outside of the theoretical. Drug abuse can only be overcome by a desire on the part of the abuser to change. No amount of education in the world will reform an unrepentant drug abuser - I know because I've seen them knowingly ruin their lives (in the physical sense of knowingly destroying their vital organs) for a 10 second high. Knowledge meant nothing. I'll come back to the racism in a minute, but he's right in his conclusion that education had nothing to do with the societal rejection of racism.

He then continues on to assert that man is inherently evil and that we are so because we are selfish (among other reasons). I disagree.

For a long time, I have believed that man was inherently good. We didn't always act on our goodness, but by and large, we were good. I've spent the last three or four days trying to reconcile man's goodness with his actions and have actually, to an extent, readjusted my position. Man isn't born pure and then corrupted. No, man is born in a neutral state (tabula rasa) and everything from there on is acquired by a form of education or conditioning.

One of the underlying assumptions of this position is that the basics of being human - those first things we learn after we're born - are subject to Darwinian evolution. Traits that are good for mankind, like societies, religion, conscience, and laws will expand and evolve. Traits that are bad, like racism, murder, and theft will eventually wither away to near extinction (I'm not crazy enough to believe that they will ever die off entirely).

The good traits of humanity give man structure, security and hope. The bad traits cause harm to others and ultimately to the possessor of those traits. The good traits are needed for the building of great societies in which everyone benefits. The bad traits are a reversion back to the law of the jungle.

Now the three bad traits I listed can all be considered to be selfish traits. They assume the primacy of the person who possesses the traits. So if selfish traits can be defined as bad traits which will be evolved out of the mainstream, how can selfishness be a good thing?

The bad traits are all examples of the extreme of selfishness. And like any good idea, selfishness, when taken to the extreme, can be a bad thing.

But selfishness has actually been the greatest engine of good in the history of mankind. Selfishness is the basis that underlies the capitalist system. Selfishness is what underpins our individuality. We are who we are because we are selfish.

Capitalism has been far and away the closest to the ideal economic system that has ever been devised by mankind. It does more to provide for our needs than any of the other variations of control economies have. Capitalism is based on people selling what other people want. But why do some people sell their time, their labor, or their resources to others?

Because they're selfish. They think that whatever the buyer is offering, be it cows and chickens in the ancient barter systems or cash in the modern economy, is worth more than the item that their selling. They want to possess the most possible value because it will give them the best standard of living. They don't care a whit about the other party involved; they're acting on pure selfish, hoarding motives.

Selfishness for time has led man to create machines to do labor. Every machine that has increased efficiency or speed has been built, in one shape or form, to gain more leisure time - time for ourselves. It also led indirectly to the invention of the automobile and the airplane.

It is also selfish to have our own beliefs and to judge others as wrong. It might make us feel better and it will probably make them feel worse. Isn't it kind of selfish to make others feel bad while you feel better in return?

But that is what makes us individuals. Mr. Williams and I don't see eye to eye on this issue. And it's selfish of me to take exception to it in a public way. But if we didn't have points of disagreement or difference what would make us individuals? Without difference, we become part of a collective mass. No one is any better or any worse than anyone else. But through our selfishness, we differentiate ourselves and become individuals.

Selfishness also drives us to achieve more. Selfishness drives us to be better. Selfishness drives the Darwinian evolution of our societal character traits.

Racism in America hasn't been discarded (more or less) because of education. Rather it was officially discarded because of a selfish desire on the part of the whites in power to be magnanimous and to "grant equality" to the blacks. A critical mass of white support had to be achieved before making such a declaration. One of the reasons that racism has waned so much in the last 50 years is because of a selfish desire of that white critical mass to evolve out of their children as much of the racism trait as possible, so that the parents could feel better about themselves for "having done something to help the problem."

Man isn't inherently evil or inherently good. Who we are is a product primarily of evolved character traits and can be influenced just a tiny bit by education. When man does good, it is for selfish reasons; when man does bad, it is also for selfish reasons. Selfishness, in moderation, is a good and even desirable trait. It is the extreme of selfishness that we find so detestable.

Mr. Williams is right. Education is not a panacea for all that ills us in America. Freedom is still the best medicine for our problems.

And freedom is best protected by those who are reasonable and selfish about their freedom. For a reasonable and selfish person will understand that to protect the most individual freedom, it is necessary to have equitable rules for all.

Be selfish for the common good.

And read Michael Williams blog while you're at it. It's worth the time.