Selfishness : The Human Dysfunction

Photo by Andriy Dovzhykov

The central form of human dysfunction is selfishness. This has to be distinguished from self-interest. It is natural and functional that we should desire a pleasant and meaningful life for ourselves and our loved ones. Selfishness is when we have a need - other than the physical requirements of continued existence - which is so strong that we satisfy it at the expense of our own well-being or the well-being of others, either in the short or long term.

Selfishness is addiction. We can see how addiction to drugs, alcohol, unhealthy foods, gambling, sex, etc., is defined by the detrimental effects, either on ourselves or others, that temporary satisfaction of the need brings with it. And greed (addiction to the accumulation of wealth) can lead to decisions where the well-being of other individuals or collective well-being (think of damage to ecological life-support systems) are undermined.

If selfishness disappeared from the human species we would all have a chance to live lives much richer in pleasure and meaning. In theory, even the least well-off individual would be better off than the most fortunate individual now, because to live on a imperilled planet full of misery is a burden that no amount of wealth can lift.

Of course, as long as there are generous people and selfish people, the generous have to be judicious in how they mete out that generosity. It would do nobody any good if they were simply taken advantage of by the selfish.

But if selfishness is our problem, what is its cause?

An addiction is a strategy for temporarily escaping the pain of existence. In some cases this may be physical pain, but more often it is psychological pain.

So if we are to improve our ability to thrive as a species, the key frontier is understanding our psychological pain and how to relieve it naturally, thus freeing us from our addictions.

The problem with utopian ideas, such as communism, is that they try to treat the symptoms instead of the disease. At least access to the means of satisfying one’s addiction has a pacifying effect. Leave the need and take away the means of satisfying it and you breed even more hostility.

The suggestions I make in my book How to Be Free for doing something to heal the pain of existence are quite modest. I’m sure there is more to know and more and better techniques.

Let’s attack the problem. Let’s share what we know. Let’s seek to know more.

BOOK REVIEW : The Parasitic Mind : How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad

 

Very often the truth hurts. But the truth also sets us free. A safe space may feel comfortable, but only when you leave it do you realise that it was a prison.

This book is important because it is a rallying cry against those who want to make the world a prison on the pretext of kindness - to replace free thought, free expression and the scientific method with various forms of utopian dogma.

Gad Saad is a brave man. (He’ll tell you so himself.) It’s a dangerous business to tell the truth about the Islamic religion particularly. And the subject of biological and psychological differences between the sexes has become a minefield. As Saad points out, it can become risky to talk about things as obvious as the sun in the sky if others are committed to an ideology dependent on denying them.

I have my differences with Saad on a key topic. I won’t say that he is wrong and I am right. I just feel that the issue is far from settled. As an evolutionary psychologist he has a tendency to see superficially similar behaviour in humans and other animals as having the same explanation. For instance conspicuous consumption - buying a Ferrari - has the same underlying cause as the evolution of a peacock’s tail. Fair enough, I see his point. A Ferrari may serve to increase a man’s mating opportunities. But is human selfishness always comparable with the genetic selfishness of other animals? What about the issue of the hunger to assuage the wounded ego? Is the only reason a man tries to have sex with lots of women that his genes want to reproduce themselves. Or can it be that he is trying to compensate for the voice inside that tells him he’s a piece of shit. The two may not be mutually exclusive. A homosexual man who has sex with many partners is not going to pass on his genes by doing so, but it may feed his wounded ego. There are aspects of human behaviour which can be more easily explained once we acknowledge this element. (I’m indebted to the Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith, also a strong critic of “political correctness”, for his critique of the false equivalency issue in evolutionary biology.)

Saad says : “The pursuit of these two ideals [freedom and truth] was not imposed on me by my parents; rather it is a manifestation of my personhood as inscribed in my genes.”This seems to me to be a conclusion arrived at by a false dichotomy - i.e. aspects of our ego are a product either of our nature or our nurture. Now maybe we are all born with a genetic orientation toward the ideals of freedom and truth, and most are then socialised out of that commitment. But it doesn’t make much sense that such a commitment is something - like red hair - which one person gets from their genes and others don’t. The thing with socialisation is that it is not a simple substance we passively consume. We can react against it due to our personal experience. Being hurt by another’s lie at an early age could lead someone to pride themselves on being truthful. At that time when our inborn self-acceptance is beginning to erode, we need to find some self-concept within which to maintain our pride, our character armour as psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich described it. When someone calls us something ending in -ist or -phobe, our defence is “but I’m the champion of truth.” And during the long dark night of the soul when we look inside ourselves and see the swamp of lusts and resentments and bitterness, likewise we say “but for all that, I’m the champion of truth.” Or it might be : “But I’m the guy who banged a thousand chicks and drives a sport’s car.” Our behaviour is not necessarily directly comparable with that of other animals, because they have (as far as we are aware) no conscience and thus no long dark night of the soul.

This is important, because the issue of the human condition of the wounded ego and guilty conscience may be crucial to an understanding of the ideological parasites that Saad is discussing.

When feminists talk about “toxic masculinity” they are not making it up out of the air. In individuals, masculinity can take a toxic form. Rape, wife bashing, gay bashing… There are many instances where a man’s ego becomes insecure in a way which makes him feel compelled to inflict violence, humiliation or power dominance over someone more vulnerable than himself. The problem is the way the concept is misused. Masculinity is not inherently toxic. Stoicism is not toxic. Willingness to use violence to protect others is not toxic. What makes masculinity turn toxic is the addition of malevolence arising from the wounded ego. And this also turns femininity toxic. So we should be able to come together on the recognition that malevolence is our joint enemy, and that the healing of the wounded ego is the long term solution. 

Parasites feed off of the weak and vulnerable. Perhaps the ideologies Saad documents are the vultures Jesus referred to when he said of the end times :

"Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." Matthew 24:28

These ideologies are spread from academia and through popular culture, but why do they find such a receptive audience? We don’t live in a good time for the retention of a healthy flexible ego. Broken marriages, access to all the most disturbing aspects of life at an early age over the internet, the breakdown of community and shared values, lack of opportunities to spend time in nature… All these things can contribute to children growing up into ego-wounded adults.

The Social Justice Warrior role can be particularly seductive to desperately wounded egos. What do they need? A way to “prove” they are a good person. Something which protects them from any aspect of reality which might feel painful to them in their wounded state. And something which allows them a guilt-free outlet for any malevolence. This is similar to the mentality which targeted “the witches” or was behind the Holocaust. A simple belief system which enables individuals to believe that evil exists only outside themselves. 

So we need to challenge the idea pathogens themselves, but addressing the issue of how we heal wounded egos is also crucial. A person with a healthy secure ego is one who has the flexibility to change in the light of newly discovered truth and one who enthusiastically embraces any form of cooperation which serves the common good. We need such people.

Saad suggests adopting the spirit of the honey badger when fighting for the truth. There may be times when that is appropriate. He gives the example of a bakery which sued for defamation when accused of racism. That’s an appropriate response in that case, because if someone defames one business and gets away with it, that will encourage people to do the same to other businesses. But when Saad describes his “honey badger” behaviour on Twitter, I’m less sure. He talks about an exchange where he referred to someone as “a retarded schmuck” and “degenerate”. Now if I didn’t know the person who used those terms - if this tweet was my introduction to him - my first thought would be that I was encountering an insecure individual who was unable to make his arguments through cool reason and was expelling his frustration at his own impotence by using cheap putdowns. Crude ad hominem insults are usually resorted to by the person in the weaker position. This is why so many people call Saad a “racist”, “sexist”, “Islamophobe”, etc. By calling someone a “retarded schmuck” isn’t he just sinking to a similar kind of behaviour? The big dangers when fighting someone are that we may sink to their level, become more like them, and maybe even let slip some of our own malevolence.

Be the rock of truth against which the deluded smash their bloodied fists and thereby advertise their impotence. That would be my suggestion, where it is possible to do so. A tremendous sense of authority comes with being able to remain calm in the face of abuse. I think this is what Jesus was pointing out when he recommended turning the other cheek. A hot-tempered response is a signal of weakness. Speak the truth far and wide and fearlessly, but let the abuse hurlers expose their weakness by their own behaviour. Engaging with them is a waste of your precious time.

So I may look at things a little differently from Gad Saad on some questions, but the door needs to be pushed back open which guarantees us all an open forum within which to use reason to explore reality and look for solutions. He has taken on a Herculean part of that task and he deserves our support. The more of us who join the fight, the less courage is needed by each. It is always hardest at the start. If he can do it, we can do it, and, in time, everyone can leave their safe space and find freedom.