Discussion Why is selfishness condemned?

[nigelhernandez]

People tend to say this about suicide but that aside, I don't see why being selfish is bad. No one will look out for you in this life so you should put yourself above others first IMO.

 

[nothingchanges]

everyone already is being selfish and putting themselves first they just act like they don't bc it's culturally condemned

 

[VIBRITANNIA]

if i had to take a guess, i'd say that helping others before helping yourself is considered a "good" thing, or makes you a "good" person. so, by that logic, helping yourself instead of helping other people is a "bad" thing, or makes you a "bad" person.

it's funny, though, since if we were 100% selfless, nobody would survive. and anyways, nobody is a saint. we're all "bad" in some way, shape, or form. it is nice to help others, even when there's little benefit, but acting as if people should be 100% selfless is setting your expectations too high.

(just realizing how much i put good and bad in quotes. oh well.)

 

[Lmd]

Care for yourself is not the meaning of selfish. Being selfish is when you go to the extreme. I don't understand why people still think that take care for youself is something selfish.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

It's just hypocritical virtue signaling for social brownie points.
most human behavior is motivated by selfishness, otherwise natural selection would have wiped out humanity long ago. In fact other species of archaic humans may have been less selfish, less aggressive and more altruistic, which probably contributed to their extinction.
Humans are hardwired to be selfish and to seek their own pleasure and avoid their own suffering. 'Selfish' just has negative connotations. You could equally say they are rationally self-interested, from a biogenetic perspective.

But then a section of those same humans judge and condemn others for 'selfish' behavior, whilst failing to recognize (or maybe they do recognize it, even more hypocritical and insincere) selfishness as a motivating force in their own lives and behavior. Comical.

on top of that suicide is probably one of the least selfish acts, since it is literally about the elimination of the self. Suicide is technically a selfless act.

 

[Valon]

on top of that suicide is probably one of the least selfish acts, since it is literally about the elimination of the self. Suicide is technically a selfless act.

Seriously, this. Suicide is actually the best thing you can do for this planet. You're completely eliminating your carbon footprint, and even though it sounds ridiculous, you're (technically) helping with the overpopulation crisis by a minuscule amount. Although with Covid-19 around and declining birth rates, I dont know how much of an issue overpopulation will be by the end of the century.

 

[GrumpyFrog]

I believe people condemn selfishness...because they are selfish.
The "stop putting yourself first, think of other people" stance is a socially acceptable way of saying "I want you to care about me more than you care about yourself, then I'll consider you a good person". It isn't always immediately evident, since sometimes we are told not to be selfish by people who aren't going to directly benefit from us being selfless, but in my experience more in depth discussion always shows evidence that the person telling you to be selfless in favour of someone else simply projects themselves on that other person you are supposed to make sacrifices for.

In a grand scheme of things, suicide has a minuscule impact on the planet. Adding or substracting one person out of a 7 billion isn't going to tip the scale one way or the other. The impact a suicide makes largely depends on their particular social circle, the ones close to them might be indeed severely affected. This is a difficult topic and there is a lot to unpack in each particular case, but I don't believe you can apply the whole "people are going to miss you terribly!" and "your family is going to be devastated forever!" to everyone.

 

[Mr2005]

Because it's shit

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I have always felt that anytime I seem to care about another person, that it's only because I'm selfishly trying to spare my own feelings. When my perfectly kind grandparents died earlier this year I barely felt anything because I hadn't seen them in a few years due to them being from my dad's side. I literally felt more bad about not feeling bad enough.

Sometimes I project and believe the same for anyone who gets high and mighty and stresses the importance of stuff like the environment or animals. In my cynical mind, some of these people only take up these causes so they can either feel superior for talking other people down. I also believe that some people only care about that stuff when it affects them. For example, the reason Californians are so anal about climate change is because we're one of the regions that experiences it's effects the most since in some parts of California the weather used to rarely ever be extreme until recently. I literally know someone who only spoke about climate change deniers to virtue signaling and feel catharsis for the heat wave we had a few months ago. I can guarantee that most climate change deniers are mainly people who just haven't felt it for themselves so they're being selfish about that too. Humans only have any reason to care about the earth because we live in it, which is selfish in its own way. Personally I'm totally fine with people being selfish as long as they're willing to admit it and don't dress it up as being for the greater good or anything like that.

 

[Xocoyotziin]

I can understand it when you're talking about someone who actively harms others out of self-interest. Suicide does not fit this definition. Grief is self-generated, and it's not something to delay or run away from, because it's proof of love. Unless you're a master at detachment or your relationships happen to end with perfect timing, every relationship that's good ends in grief. It's all too natural and it means it was good. Even if it's painful it pays respect to what you shared. It's hard for me to put into words but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that grief is an offense inflicted on one by another. To me that just seems like not fully accepting the nature of a relationship and relationships in general and then foisting that responsibility on someone else.

But also, what really gets me is when people confuse introverted self-centeredness for malignant selfishness. Self-centeredness imo is more like an orientation or a focus for your attention, not an ideology that screwing people over is fun and the right way to live. Can't stand the kinds of people who get mad when you use the word I too many times in a sentence and say it's an objectively incorrect way to communicate. Personally I've always gotten along better with people who spontaneously offer up their thoughts and experiences over constantly searching for something external to point to. They think it's a way to exclude them but really it's an implicit invitation for them to share their experiences as well.