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Title: What is selfishness? Author: Svein Olav Nyberg Language: en Topics: egoist, individualist, Max Stirner Source: Retrieved on August 3, 2011 from http://i-studies.com/journal/n/html/paper.shtml
I asked about “what egoism means”. I should perhaps also have asked what
egoism does not mean. For there are a lot of misconceptions about what
egoism is. Religious literature incessantly warns us not to think about
our own best interest, but the interest of the heavenly, of Man, and of
just about everything else. But seldom is there found any advise to
follow exactly this own interest. Why then these warnings against self
interest, on and on, again and again? Surely not to counter any opposing
system of ideas. For there have been close to none. What then is left to
counter but — the individual himself! But to counter the individual is
not a position that looks very good, so it has to be disguised,
disguised as an attack on some “Deep Evil” lurking in self interest — in
egoism. So the common view of egoism is far from formed by observation
of actual egoists, but by propaganda in its disfavour. I therefore find
it fruitful to list what I consider the types most typically mistaken
for egoists, both by critics of egoism and by “egoists” themselves:
THE PSYCHOPATH: The psychopath is characterised by a tendency of always
being in the right and of manipulating others. He typically takes little
heed of the interests of people he confronts. The reasoning displayed by
those who identify psychopaths with egoists are usually of the type “He
does not care for others — thus he must care only for himself ...”,
which sets up a dichotomy without any basis in reality. Identifying an
individual pursuing his own interests with a psychopath is a powerful
means of keeping individuals “in line”.
THE EGO-BOOSTER: Somewhat related to the psychopath, in that he tries to
make himself “big” in the eyes of others often at the expense of some
third person. But the Ego-Booster cares a lot about the judgement of
others. In fact — he depends on it. Getting approval from other people
dominates his way of life. His focus is not on himself, but on something
else — his self image.
THE MATERIALIST: The glutton, the carelessly promiscuous and the one who
spends all his time gathering possessions is often seen as the egoist by
people who have seen through the traps above. A friend of mine wrote in
his thesis on Stirner that these were “vulgar egoists”. They sure enough
care for their own interests. But they only care for part of their own
interest, giving in to some urge to dominate them. They either care only
for the taste in their mouths right-here-right-now, or for the feelings
in other parts. They do not satisfy the whole chap, as Stirner wrote.
THE IDEALIST: Not too typical, but still — important. Can range from
the proponent of Fichte’s Absolute or Transcendental Ego, to the person
who has as his sole goal in this life to spread his own ideas. The first
of these is not a proper egoist in that the “I” he is talking about is
not the personal, individual “I” but — an abstraction, the mere idea of
an ego. The latter is just the materialist mentality let loose in the
realm of ideas.
THE FORMAL EGOIST: The formal egoist is perhaps the most elusively like
to the proper egoist. For the formal egoist knows that an egoist looks
to the satisfaction of the whole chap. Actually the formal egoist can
know more about egoism than the egoist himself. For the formal egoist
really wants to be an egoist — and he follows the recipe he has found to
the last little detail, and sets out to find even new nuances. There is
only one thing missing, and that is his realisation that there is no
recipe. Egoism is not a religious or ideological system to be followed
by duty, but simply the being and awareness of oneself.
Now we have defined selfishness in the negative. How now about the
positive; to what degree is egoism positively definable? First of all:
What does it mean to “value oneself”, and is this what selfishness
consists in?
This problematic is in particular motivated by a comment from a
subscriber, Jon Newton, in a discussion of whether egoism meant
following some personal “axioms of value”. First of all, Jon commented
that though underneath all “axioms” of evaluation there had to rest the
deeper Valuing Subject him[/her]self, that would in no way imply that
the Valuing Subject — as a consequence of that alone — had to have a
higher value than even the axiom.
Now, how is the above problematic solved, if at all? First, I think that
declaring as an axiom that the Valuing Subject is of higher value, or to
keep it in some other way as an “act of faith” would be a miss. This
would be again — to place the act of evaluation as being mediated by the
“axiom” or the “object of faith”.
The Valuing Subject is the subject, and viewing something else —
implicitly or explicitly — as the subject, is an act of alienation and
untruth. This does, of course, tie in with the question of the value of
truth, which I will address in an upcoming post. But let us assume that
the person in question sees this, and can value or non-value it as he
wants. No generality is lost by this approach.
So the question is whether a person would or should value himself higher
than anything or anyone else.
It might be tempting, like so many have done, to say some sentence to
the effect that if X is a necessary ground for valuing, the X is
necessarily valued — or even the highest of values. In my case,
substituting “oneself, the (Valuing) Subject” for X would thereby yield
the claim that one should value oneself the most.
But I do not think such an attempt via “a priori” judgement would get us
very far if we were honest about it. For such an attempt would at best
give us that I had a conditional value [derived, instrumental] from my
values, and only for a certain limited period of time, given by these
values. As an example, I could have valued the propagation of the
species above all, and readily sacrifice myself when this goal did so
require. All this without the contradiction an “a priori” argument like
the above would require.
Instead, I propose we ask “What does it mean to value oneself the
highest?” or “What does it mean to be an egoist?”. Indeed, what does it
mean to “value myself” at all?
One answer might be that to “value myself” means to value my existence.
But “existence”? Now what is really that? An empty, eternal staring into
blankness is still “existence”. But not what I would call very
interesting, less even attractive. Something is missing. But what?
Now, to “value myself” would mean, I suggest, to value that which makes
life valuable to me. That means that when I enjoy a good book — when I
do what I value the book for — I do not sit there (ho-hum) valuing my
existence, accidentally having a book in front of my eyes; rather it
means that through the act of valuing the book, which is what I value, I
thereby do value myself.
It is almost circular. I “value myself” when I value that which — I
value. I value myself when I allow my own judgements of value qua
(Valuing) Subject be what is in the end valued.
In contrast, “not valuing myself” would mean to negate my own value
judgements qua (Valuing) Subject. It would mean to let a Fixed Idea get
the better of me and leave its judgement as the final or one instead of
my own; it would mean to let the Fixed Idea brand my values as “sinful”,
“un-human” etc. and — bow to it.
That was the theory. Now what is the practice? Lots of unresolved
questions. Good. That’s one reason I created Non Serviam. But this gives
a very different picture of the Egoist than what is normally being
promoted throughout society. Society’s “Egoist” is nothing more than
just another example of what I’d call a “spooked man”; a man who instead
of plainly following his own interests — i.e. his own values — follows a
Fixed Idea that is accidentally branded “My Own Interests”.
Society’s “Egoist” is a charicature who does not pet cats since oh
horror! — the cat might benefit from it too, who does not like other
people other than as means to gaining material advantage — “for of
course an Egoist can see no value in other people, his gaze is all
directed at one person” — and who’s got as his prime imperative “Do not
give to beggars!”
As a contrast, let us take some real Egoist, as described by Stirner: He
does not only enjoy people when they are safely packed away in material
books, but also gets pretty charmed by the smile of a little baby. He
pets cats for enjoyment, and loves to sit for a friendly chat with his
friends — possibly over a glass of wine given to this friend.
Think about it. If Egoism is not about making life as enjoyable as
possible, i.e. about realising one’s values without interference from
Fixed Ideas, what is it? Society’s charicature would soon find himself
in a logical mess if he thought about this. Not only would he fade away
in a Scrooge-like asceticism, but he would begin to wonder why this
bugger tomorrow who incidentally identified himself-now with
“himself-in-the-past” should ever get a little benefit from himself-now.
He couldn’t even get a glass of water.
As for ever being able to “axiomatise” my own value judgements. Is it
possible? Stirner certainly did not think so. “I create myself each day
anew” and “I am the creative nothing” are sentences that express this
existentialist sentiment.
I lean to the same judgement, and do in particular not see present-day
reductionism as a solution to the problem. First of all, I do not think
reductionism is universally valid, and secondly, even if it were, our
mere biology would probably be of such a nature as to make our values
incapturable through fixed axioms at the level on which we normally live
and breathe.
The above paragraph is of course merely my opinions. I think that most
arguments count in their favour, and hence adopt these opinions as
“mine” at the present time. I used to be of the opposite opinion, i.e.
that reductionism was the truth, but after a discussion with a friend
who found reductionism to be untenable, we switched opinions — both of
us!
Anyhow, even given that for some period of my life my values were of the
character that they could be axiomatised: Why should they? Would they
ever express anything new in regards to my values? If they did, would
not that mean they — contradicted them, and thus had become Fixed Ideas
and — false?
«The self must become concrete, and this it
becomes through the process of action. [...]
[T]he abstract man, as only general self, is
abstract as long as he is not yet a proprietor.
Only as proprietor is man a particular and
real man.»
— August von Cieszkowski
Teleology of world history
(ch.3, Prolegomena to Historiosophie)