I am concerned overall with the trend toward selfishness. It is seen in personal interactions, social interactions and distressingly in political interactions. Interactions couched in selfish terms suggest “my way or the highway” or “I’m right and you’re wrong.” One can easily look back at far too numerous circumstances where selfishness erodes civil interactions and leads to breakdown of personal bonds that are so crucial to interpersonal relationships. And acts of selfishness are not easily forgotten or forgiven.
One might argue that selfish acts were momentary transgressions and let’s move on. I would argue quite the contrary. It is too easy to forget the past and slip back into bad habits. We should always be moving forward, resetting our moral compass at every turn. Only then can we serve our fellow citizens in a worthy manner. Selfishness is the abyss that is so difficult to climb out of while ignoring others along the way.
I understand the need to protect our national interests in an oft-selfish way, but this path can easily carry over to internal affairs. I agree with David Brooks (NY Times columnist) as he notes “that [when] selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs, it grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath.”1
Political interactions rooted in selfishness accomplish nothing in the end in my estimation. To “win” at the expense of others is not winning but rather losing. When we lose the ability to see beyond ourselves, we have lost our innate ability to recognize our shared humanity and our responsibility to each other. I do think that selflessness tends to be more innate, and selfishness is more of a learned behavior.
Selfishness pits you against me, us against them. It implies that things are black or white or that I can ignore what you are saying. Why are we so gung-ho to pit fellow citizens against each other, often belittling, demeaning or demonizing each other? Those are precisely the conditions that have led mass incarceration and a whole multitude of inhumanities in the past. It also reminds me of several things below—
- It is un-American—That is not what I have been taught my whole life. I think of my father’s service in WWII as an exercise in selflessness, not selfishness.
- It is not Christian—Selfishness is not the moral ethic that underpins Christianity or the other religions of the world. Quite the contrary, service and love are the message.
- It easily breeds fear-mongering—as soon as we easily adopt a posture of selfishness, we quickly slip into a position of spreading fear to note that those of like minds should be fearful of others. One need look no further than the Jim Crow era to see how “effective” such actions can be.
- It is “anti-poverty”—those of our fellow citizens who are living in the throes of poverty are even further victimized in a culture of selfishness. They are seen as less deserving and easily pushed aside, their needs subservient to those that are more deserving because they have the necessary resources. In the words of Bryan Stevenson2, the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL, “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” Justice is not possible in a selfish society.
- It is anti-children—Perhaps most frightening to me as a pediatrician is how selfishness will lead to the lack of a concerted efforts that will be positive for our children. A selfish society tends to ignore its children, not embrace all of them. Such a society tends to reject those most vulnerable children. The American Academy of Pediatrics, a staunch advocate for children, notes that the decreasing access to health care for children and families will be detrimental to the physical, mental and financial well being of our children and families. And remember that the health of the parents of children, especially those in poverty, is crucial. Healthy children with healthy parents can be engaged citizens.
I am not naïve. I know that evil exists in the world and vigilance is absolutely necessary. Shouting, labeling and calling out people because of our preconceived notions in a selfish society makes us less safe, not more safe. Losing our values in the handling of our civic affairs as citizens, becoming more selfish instead of selfless, is a giant step in the wrong direction.
Bishop Michael Curry (Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church) posits that the opposite of love is not hate.3 The opposite of love is selfishness, and selfishness is “a life completely centered on the self.” He further notes that “life becomes a living lie…[and that] selfishness is the most destructive force in all the cosmos, and hate is its only symptom.” He later equates faith as another word for trust, the antithesis of selfish actions.
Selfishness is well reflected in a quote from a book that I recently read, The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler.4 A reflection by the main female character – “But there seems an atmosphere everywhere these days in America, a malevolent vibration in the air, every citizen so quick to righteous rage, some tribal defensiveness, seeing the fault in each other’s arguments, rather than some larger common field of compromise, if not agreement.” This malevolent vibration has indeed increased recently and erodes our social fabric.
Selfishness does not and will not serve us well. We must recommit to the principles of the American dream and reject the notion of us vs. them. The role of a citizen is to improve their own life, the lives of their fellow citizens and the life of their community. Selfishness makes that next to impossible.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Stevenson
- Curry M. Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. Avery, 2020. 272 pp.
- Butler N. The Hearts of Men. Pan McMillan, 2018. 398 pp.