How Selflessness is Destroying Society

Part II of II on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: My thoughts on the assault on the "self".

In the last post I talked about the Amnesty International bookmark I used while reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand as ironic, and towards the end I touched on what I wish to address in this post. Selfishness, and the decay of modern society from its antonym. Perhaps by the end you will see the irony as well.

First, we need to be careful to define what we mean by selflessness. Not only to avoid coming off as brash, but also to clearly understand why it's such a dangerous thing. To do this, we must first ask ourselves what the "self" is. I've always been of the mind that the self is the Freudian ego, and this makes sense, as every time we describe someone as "selfish", we generally connote that to mean classically "egotistical". For example, if someone seems over-assertive in a group meeting, we say they are egotistical and selfish in that they believe their ideas to be superior to the collective good. But this is an inherently incorrect way of viewing the "self".

The reality is much more simple, and therefore, much more dangerous. We can still look at it in terms of ego, but we need to eliminate the negative connotations of that word, and the influence of the outside world upon it. The "self" is simply you. It is the overarching concept of you. It is your individuality, and subsequently, anything which makes you unique. It's hazardous to understand this, because it immediately calls into question everything one may know about collectivism, compassion, and yes, selflessness.

Rand poses an interesting view on the "self" because she defames selflessness when so much literature and media these days enshrine it. It's thereby easy to dismiss Rand as yet another egotist, arrogant in her ways and maleficent to society. How can anyone claim that selflessness is wrong? That charity is wrong? That the collective good is wrong? Are charity and self sacrifice not what make a society more utopian? The answer is no, that is not the way to create a utopian society, as a utopia can only exist when people are happy.

This concept can be boiled down to a simple aphorism, "Live not for others, but for yourself". Again, this can seem overtly self centered at first, but only if your idea of the self is entwined with arrogance. What Rand posits in The Fountainhead is simply that the destruction of a person's individuality is not only severely detrimental to the person, but also to society. And this goes against so much of what we're taught from a young age.

I've always been told that the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - that it is noble to sacrifice myself and who I am if it means that the world tomorrow will be better, but it's in fact quite poisonous to think that the destruction of the "self" can be holy. When you eliminate the self, you lose self esteem and self respect, and for an individual, those are the two worst things to lose.

Rand illustrates this concept excellently with two characters in The Fountainhead. Howard Roark and Peter Keating, both of whom I talked about in the last analysis, but both of whom are also critical to this discussion. Howard Roark lives for no other man. He denies that anyone else has a right to a minute of his life, and asserts that he alone is responsible for his thoughts and his ideas. Peter Keating is quite the opposite. He requires others to formulate his own opinion. As Roark reflects, "What was [Keating's] aim in life? Greatness - in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy - all that which come from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them" (Rand 606). This is the poison which destroys modern society.

Ask any large enough sample of engineering students for a few reasons on why they picked their field, and a majority of them will cite job security and money as a primary driver. I know I would. Frankly, we want to be rich, but only for ostentation. Music glorifies this to a horrific extent, though the defamation of entertainment and artistic expression is not my goal here - it's just important to be aware of the influences in one's life. It's blatantly wrong to say that there is inherent emotional value in money or fame.

But you might point out a few things seemingly wrong with this argument. One, that I seem to be making a case against selfishness, as vulgar flaunting and envy appear to be selfish things. Two, that it's caustic to claim that compassion is killing society - it seems to be a most brutal statement.

To the first point, it's important to remember how we defined the "self". We're abandoning the usual connotation and strictly looking at the self as a concept of who a person is. In other words, we're looking at self respect, not egotism. When we think about ostentation, we often think about egotism, but it's rather the opposite. If the only reason you seek wealth is to show it off to other people, you've lost your self respect and therefore you have destroyed your "self": you are selfless. If you're trying to be the best at something to prove it in front of others, then you have no "self" to be selfish. It's a common confusion, and one which I find confounds me even after reading The Fountainhead, but I believe it to be more true the more I thought about it.

The second point is what someone who seeks to malign Rand's argument would say: That to think in this manner is at best harsh and at worst totally psychotic. How can you build a society without compassion? In fact, that's not what is being said at all. Again, remember our "self". It is not the classic Freudian ego. It's the ego, but only in the most basic sense of the word. To be selfish in our case doesn't mean to be cruel, it means that one must be compassionate for the right reasons. From the last argument, we can ascertain that the only manner in which one should be compassionate is in a personally honest way. Do not be charitable because other people tell you to, or because you'll get attention for it. Donate because you believe it's the right thing to do.

We see this all the time in the world today. Moral posturing and identity politics not only confuse complex issues and eliminate the concept of rational thought, they also corrode the foundation of what it means to be human. Strip down the brain to it's bear necessities and you have your "self". That which you cannot live without. A person is nothing without a "self", and yet we're increasingly told that it's a bad thing to have any concept of a "self". Some people loudly claim their superiority purely based on their charity - that they cling to and empathize with the less endowed. But this is merely a guise for their insecurity and their unhappiness. If they were truly virtuous, their charity and empathy wouldn't be for public display.

Buddhism teaches us that the ego is the primeval flaw of man - that in order to see the world clearly, we must destroy it. This is simply not the whole truth. Yes, it's foolish to have an overly inflated sense of self importance, but self importance is derived from the convictions of other people, in the same way that conventional egotism is. In order to inflate self importance, you have to first gather other people's opinions and irrationally conflate them with your own, actual, self. This is yet another reason it's critical to define our terms before we can talk about the "self".

From The Fountainhead I took a couple key lessons, though my thoughts on them as a whole are still largely incomplete, as The Fountainhead was just the first of many challenging books I intend to read in the next decade. The first of these lessons is that it's important to be utterly focused on the work which you are passionate about, and the second is that it is essential to never let your sense of "self" be destroyed. No matter how many people preach collectivism over individual rights, one must always be aware of their "self" in the argument.

Rand calls people who live through the opinions of others "second-handers". As Roark reflects, "They don't ask: 'is this true?' They ask: 'do other people think this is true?'... when you suspend your faculty of independent judgement, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life." (Rand 607). This is a large part of the answer to why so many people are unhappy these days, and why selflessness is the doom of our time.

A person needs individual achievement. They need to take pride in something. A major component of depression is a lack of things to be proud of. If you look at your life and you can identify a personal desire which you alone have brought to fruition, then you have something to be proud of. But the problem is that there are an increasing number of people who don't have that pride because they believe it to be a sin. It is a sin if abused, but it's also essential to prevent depression. There are little things more tragic in a developed society than looking back at your own life and seeing that you, your "self", has nothing. That everything you've ever done has been motivated by other people. Even if you've lived a philanthropic life, you cannot be content if it's not the life you made for yourself.

This is precisely why it's so dangerous to conform to societal pressure and lose all sense of "self". It breeds chaos, it incites depression, and it fuels abuse. This is because the "self" isn't tied to modern egotism or arrogance, but it most certainly is tied to self respect. It's perfectly honorable to die for people, but it's wrong to live for them. If The Fountainhead has taught me anything, it's that you must live only for your "self". Be considerate and kind to people because it's the right thing to do, not because other people will see your compassion and think you superior for it. Work with utter diligence and love, not for money or fame, but because you can't live without the work. The world is plagued by "self" sacrifice, and the only counterbalance is to always remember that your "self" is your paramount concern. Not to devolve into arrogance, but to achieve happiness and societal progression through individual achievement and charity.