"call me selfish, but..."
I was reading in childfree today, and came across an introduction post that used the phrase, "Call me selfish, but..." and it occurred to me how many people have accepted that they're selfish and therefore bad when they've made a decision in their lives for more happiness or convenience that actually doesn't negatively affect other people much, if at all. (I'm going to leave aside the idea that every action one takes has a negative effect on someone else somewhere.) Here is the comment I spat out:You know, honestly, after spending most of my life living to make other people happy, I have to call bullshit on the validity of the "[overtly] selfish = bad" idea people have going. This is for a couple of reasons.
1. Evolution, etc. Selfish means you survive, altruism toward specifically your own genes (offspring or close relatives) means your genes "win," blah blah blah whatever I don't give a fuck, pick up an evolutionary psych text if you're really interested. (I used to care about evolutionary psychology until I discovered the extent to which people use it to justify being assholes to each other. I don't like using the "evolution" argument but I feel obliged to include it.)
2. Social manipulation (and this is my biggie). In my experience, the only times people have called me selfish was when they wanted me to do something that would make their lives easier while making my life harder, and they needed to use that extra guilt-trip to get me to do what they wanted. Whether it was a conscious manipulation ("I'm dating you but want to have sex with your friend even though you're super not good with that [so I'll guilt-trip your poly ass so hard you won't know up from down]" -- yes, it actually happened, I live an interesting life) or whether it was unconscious ("I need you to make the same decisions in life that I made or think are valid because otherwise I'll have to question my entire outlook"), it pretty much boiled down to the same thing.
In short, I don't have a positive view toward others who use "that's selfish" as shorthand for "you are a bad person to do what's in your own interests, especially when I think you ought to do otherwise." But that's because I'm a bit of an asshole and not inclined to lie to myself, and freely admit that other people's morality doesn't actually matter all that much to me except when it gets in the way of my own ethics and morality. Guess I'm just selfish that way.
Thoughts? (No, I'm not interested in hearing issues re the concept of "childfree.")
1. Evolution, etc. Selfish means you survive, altruism toward specifically your own genes (offspring or close relatives) means your genes "win," blah blah blah whatever I don't give a fuck, pick up an evolutionary psych text if you're really interested. (I used to care about evolutionary psychology until I discovered the extent to which people use it to justify being assholes to each other. I don't like using the "evolution" argument but I feel obliged to include it.)
2. Social manipulation (and this is my biggie). In my experience, the only times people have called me selfish was when they wanted me to do something that would make their lives easier while making my life harder, and they needed to use that extra guilt-trip to get me to do what they wanted. Whether it was a conscious manipulation ("I'm dating you but want to have sex with your friend even though you're super not good with that [so I'll guilt-trip your poly ass so hard you won't know up from down]" -- yes, it actually happened, I live an interesting life) or whether it was unconscious ("I need you to make the same decisions in life that I made or think are valid because otherwise I'll have to question my entire outlook"), it pretty much boiled down to the same thing.
In short, I don't have a positive view toward others who use "that's selfish" as shorthand for "you are a bad person to do what's in your own interests, especially when I think you ought to do otherwise." But that's because I'm a bit of an asshole and not inclined to lie to myself, and freely admit that other people's morality doesn't actually matter all that much to me except when it gets in the way of my own ethics and morality. Guess I'm just selfish that way.
Thoughts? (No, I'm not interested in hearing issues re the concept of "childfree.")