Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Sometimes I like to do nice things for strangers. Tonight, for instance, I offered to take a picture of a solitary camera-toting tourist, an offer she readily accepted.

But I'm not doing it for them. Rather, I'm perfectly aware that I'm doing it to make myself feel a little better, to breathe some ersatz life into into that consummately mammalian part of my brain that pretends to get off on altruism. It's a functional arrangement, if not necessarily all that romantic.

7 comments:

Tony F. said...

In college, I focused really hard on differentiating myself from my peers so I would stand out and get noticed by my professors.

These days, I sit around trying to figure out how I can be more like everyone else and earn the kind of money they make.

platts42 said...

I do nice things out of spite. I'm polite and smile at strangers, and let people cut ahead of me in line, and don't act agitated when the person in front of me is slow because I know most people these days don't do it. So I do.

Unknown said...

i don't think it matters why you did it, only that you did. imagine some world were people were nice to each other, but only doing it for their own self interest. compare this hypothetical world to some world where there's relentless blowhards that go around convincing people that they have to believe black is white and also you can't just go around helping people cause thats how communist russia started

Ray Palm (Ray X) said...

But does altruism really exist? If you feel better helping someone else, then the act is still benefitting you. Ergo, everything you do is for yourself.

Ray

Anonymous said...

I don't think the measure of altruism is that you should not get any positive feeling out of it. Rather, I think the pleasure of doing altruistic things comes from understanding that you have helped another center of consciousness in the world independent of but just as real as your own. We each get something out of the altruistic action, unlike the greedy banker who gets something from you at your expense, and who expresses no feeling of responsibility for his part in your failure. Altruism is a healthy expression of your feeling related to other people, whereas truly selfish people are at heart very solipsist.

Mac said...

I wasn't complaining, mind you. I'm actually quite glad that I can see through the smokescreen of "altruism," know it for the convenient fiction it is, and still (by and large) remain a decent person more than half the time.

Unknown said...

this comic, by noted leftist insane person stephanie mcmillan, says your knowledge is a lie

http://www.minimumsecurity.net/art2008/lies72.jpg

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/20/adam_curtis_interview/page1.html

Plus this adam curtis (the trap) interview also has a good counterpoint, though i'm unable to articulate why i think this in the amount of time that would be reasonable for a rapid fire blog comment that no one's gonna read