Hi, I hope you're enjoying this gloooorious snow day of ours (yes, I'm writing this much in advance). Not to attack you or anything, but on today's post, I'm here to tell you that you're selfish. I'm selfish. Hell, we're all selfish. OPA!
As Joy Williams says it, "it seems as though far too much attention has been lavished on you lately" (935). People generally think in their self-interest; okay, we've all known that. But what about the good deeds we do? What about donating to charitable causes, holding the door open even though the next person about to enter is ten feet away? Am I selfish then too?
So, last year, I went to this school club called The Space. While it sounds ambiguous and almost mystical, essentially we just talked about concepts and societal institutions that interested us. Most of our discussions ended up being about the education system or selfishness. Whenever we talked about selfishness, I automatically got on the offensive. "People donating is still selfish, because they do it to make themselves feel better", "at the end of the day, everything you do is inherently to benefit your circumstances, opportunities, or self-worth". To that, I did and still do react like this:
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| Ok, and???? |
In my opinion, analyzing the intention of good deeds is tiring. If someone donates to a charitable cause, why does it matter if they do it to make them feel better about themselves? At the end of the day, a donation is a donation, and those on the receiving end surely won't care what anyone's ulterior motive is. This is why distinctions need to be made on the different variations of selfish; it's too broad of a term. One form of selfishness is the negatively connoted one, the greed that expands to lack of consideration and empathy for others. The other form is more low key, and shouldn't necessarily have an unfavorable connotation- a selfishness that isn't paired with material self interest, but mental- when you do something to enhance your self worth.
Anyways, back to the earlier question: Am I selfish when I donate? According to 16 year old Eliya Imtiaz, "yes". But is that a bad thing? No. Since selflessness is almost impossible, this holiday season, I want YOU to employ the 2nd form of selfishness, and donate when you see the Santa hats outside your local Kroger.
I love this post! Your title is a good spin-off of Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp. You include a more positive aspect than the overly pessimistic one Joy Williams employs. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really creative post! I love that you admitted that we are all selfish- it made the post very relatable and intriguing. The optimistic outlook was a nice closing. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of our discussions about selfishness when we read "this is water." I like your perspective, well done!
ReplyDeleteYour take on the topic of selfishness was unexpected and unique yet very true. We spend a lot of our time worrying and debating about intentions and whatnot but what really matters is our impact. Very well done! Also, like how you incorporated Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp.
ReplyDeleteWow Eliya, I really like your post! I almost expressed some similar ideas in my blog post this week, where I refute Joy Williams's criticism of hunters. I nearly wrote that even though killing animals for fun may seem disturbing to many, the positive effects of hunting should be primarily considered, since the positive effects of hunting are related to consequences, and the ideas of hunters are related to motivations. I was then going to argue that consequences are more important than motivations. I ultimately decided to use a different argument instead, but I still strongly agree with your point that consequences should be considered over motivations!
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