I'm continuing my reporting on the next installment from Conservative Estimate, the recently founded website that is devoted to demolishing Conservatism.
Yesterday, Alfred George showed how believing in the Myth of Self-interest causes people to live isolated and miserable lives.
Today, he writes about how this Myth makes friendship impossible, and how it poisons life unnecessarily. This installment closes out his consideration of the Myth of Self-interest, and looks ahead to beginning to address a new Myth tomorrow—the Myth of Competition.
Let us leap over the orange pinwheel to consider today’s installment.
Mr. George begins by pointing out that our true personal friendships all hinge on good will rather than self-interest. And they go sour
precisely because Self-interest has entered the picture, precisely because either your friend or you has fallen into selfishness. As is the case with all cooperative aspects of society, friendships are based not on self-interest, but on mutual respect, cooperation, and good will.
Do people really want to prevent themselves from having friends just so they can hold to a theory of Self-interest that is completely wrongheaded, as Mr. George has shown over the past few installments?
As Aristotle pointed out centuries ago, the value of friends is nearly inestimable. “Without friends,” he said, “no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1155a5.)
In all probability, those who believe in the Myth of Self-interest do not see that it is incompatible with friendship. But that just makes them pitiable. They suffer, but they don’t know why. And because they don’t know, they can’t stop. They can’t see that
true friendship cannot exist without good will. So if you want to have true friends in you life, you will expend all your inner resources to develop your benevolence toward others, and to diminish your inclinations toward Self-interest.
Having shown that the most precious ornament to life—friendship—is destroyed by Self-interest, Mr. George then goes on to sum up the entire discussion of the Myth of Self-interest that he has pursued over the past week or so:
The Myth of Self-interest is a cynical and destructive belief that excuses selfishness and weakens the benevolence on which society relies for its solidarity. As an unverifiable theory that has deeply destructive consequences, it deserves neither adherence nor respect.
And then he gives some advice about how decent people can combat the pernicious effects of this Myth:
How can we eliminate the influence of this harmful Myth? Simply by refusing to act according to its dictates. There is no reason in the world why we should consult only our own interests in making any decision we have to make. There is every reason to be benevolent toward others, and to make our decisions by weighing our own interests together with their interests. Most of the time, we should probably even give more weight to their interests, as a corrective for our unconscious propensity to favor ourselves.
This attitude will strengthen the bonds that we need in order to live together in a world that desperately needs less confrontation and more cooperation. . . .
We have all the encouragement we need to decide between the Myth of Self-interest and the virtue of benevolence. All we have to do is choose, and then guide our actions by our choice. This is how Myths are eradicated: people simply choose to stop paying attention to them, and eventually they wither and die.
You can read the whole post
here:
Tomorrow, Mr. George will consider how the the Myth of Scarcity and the Myth of Self-interest sow the seeds of an even more destructive Myth, one which fosters a continual state of combat among people—the Myth of Competition.
I'll be reporting back each day as a new installment appears.