Selfish

Distinguish good selfishness from bad selfishness

You've heard of the "bait-and-switch" con? Well, guess what? This is the "scare-and-switch" con: "Selfish" has two entirely different meanings. One is: "taking advantage of people against their will." The other is: "taking care of yourself and your family first and foremost and to whatever degree YOU deem appropriate." Obviously, the latter is a virtue, and the former is a vice. But if you fail to distinguish between the meanings you're prey to being suckered by con artists of either the deliberate variety* or of the more common unwitting, unthinking "disease carrier" kind.

First they make you extremely fearful of ever being seen to take advantage of anyone unwilling, and then they twist it with the sneakiness of a magician and the cleverness of a lawyer to make you extremely fearful of ever being seen to take care of yourself and your family first.

Then, while trying to get you to accept the ridiculous notion that every kind of "selfishness," even just making money in the private sector (earning a living and growing a nest egg) is morally vicious,** they also try to get you to accept the even more absurd idea that the accumulating of political power by government employees and politicians is morally good. This is sold along with an implicit demand that their professed concern for "others" be accepted without question at face value, together with an implicit threat: "Don't you DARE point out that grasping for and accumulating political power definitely IS a kind of 'selfishness,' only this time of the vicious taking-unwilling-advantage kind!" ***

This is so important that it bears rephrasing: There are two different kinds of selfishness, the good kind and the bad kind. Keep them straight so you don't get suckered. Even more importantly, keep them straight so you can feel proud -- and not ashamed -- of taking care of yourself and your family.

Perhaps now you can appreciate how so many people can get caught up in the fashions of the moment, as popularized by today's politicians, journalists, entertainers and educators. And/or how people don't have (or don't use) enough of their logical, critical abilities or a world-view large enough in terms of both time and geography. If so, I encourage you to question authority, apply logic, and think for yourself from now on. Look at the forest, not the trees. And the centuries, not the months. Or you might risk being lead willingly, as a sheep, to the slaughter. And always remember, as Ayn Rand said with the piercing clarity of her insightful wisdom, "Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive." And here she said, "The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind."

Further, now that you recognize the "scare-and-switch" con, I'm sure you won't fall for it any more. And for freedom's (and honesty's) sake, please don't use it.
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Good selfishness leads to self-expansion

The businessman who, by honest, wholesome, constructive actions looks after his own and his family's needs is engaged in good selfishness. Good selfishness causes a man to seek his own comfort, prosperity, and happiness by also making others more prosperous and happy.

Unlike evil selfishness, which isolates a person and shuts out the rest of humanity, good selfishness reaches out and brings everyone into the circle of brotherhood. Good selfishness yields many harvests—return services from others, self-expansion, happiness, divine sympathy.

To avoid the pitfalls of evil selfishness, a person should first establish himself in the good forms of selfishness, where he thinks of his family and those he serves, as part of himself. From that attainment, he can then advance to the practice of sacred selfishness (or unselfishness, as ordinary understanding would term it), where one sees the entire universe as oneself.

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