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Infantile Egoism

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Leonid

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"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Ayn Rand


 So, the people who live for the sake of others are altruists. How do we call those who ask others to live for them? I'd call them infantile egoists. For the small child who  totally depends on the others it's only natural to ask his parents to live for him. He doesn't consider their needs or capacities, everything is given to him. The only thing he has to do is to ask. The problem starts when one keeps this attitude in his adult life. He doesn't necessary turns to be a ruthless egotist who walks over corpses but he expects  that others will provide all his needs. This is a root of the entitlement culture which is a hallmark of our times. The inherent infantilism of our age is only too evident-adult people simply refuse to take charge on their life and resent everybody who did and succeed.  Instead to throw tantrums as toddlers do, they demonstrate, occupy private and public spaces, damage property in their claim of equality-read of unearned. The growing Nanny state which increasingly takes over the responsibility of adult people on their own life only supports this trend of infantile egoism. The state in which never growing herds of Peter Pans see a substitute for parents and God Almighty himself , suppose to provide everything and tell them what to do or not to do in order to be healthy and happy and to protect them from those who allegedly steal the wealth which these old age children  never created. They never ever consider the needs of creators or the source of the wealth. For them, as for any 3 years old or prehistoric hunter-gatherer the things are simply out there and have to be collected and distributed equally. We, the adults who know the source of wealth have to stop this carnage once and for all. The only way to do it is as old feminists used to say " stop to feed the rat". Or in Ayn Rand words we have to stop the sanction of the victims and watch the children grow.

Edited by Leonid
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Actually, Infantile Egoist would probably be accurate on more levels than that.  It may have something to do with Nietzsche.

(seemingly unrelated, but fundamentally similar mode of thinking)

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=25327&page=2#entry309790

 

Most Americans these days (the majority, who are moochers), if told to live for someone else's sake, would laugh the idea off without a second thought.  They have this in common with the producers.

But it occurs to me (actually, at this very moment) that such might not actually be another facet of altruism; it might simply be the blatant hedonism that they claim it is.

Or maybe not.  I just thought of it now so I haven't analyzed it at all, but I think it's a distinct possibility.

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Ayh agree, but why not universalised altruists? As they take altruism and apply it to everyone else.

 Because it's not always the case. Many infantile egoists don't ask others to live for them. They simply expect to be provided, period. They view goods and services as metaphysically given natural resources and think that the job of government to distribute them equally. As President Obama, an infantile egoist number one said " You didn't make it!". And this is the core of the problem-the inability to distinguish between man made and metaphysically given, an example of how the wrong epistemology leads to the wrong ethics.

Edited by Leonid
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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

"It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."
“The Soul of a Collectivist,”
For the New Intellectual, 73

 

 

 

How do we call those who ask others to live for them?

 

 

Parasite, freeloader or moocher, take your pick.

 

If you replace the word "ask" in your question with "demand," then those people wish to be masters of slaves.

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"It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master."

“The Soul of a Collectivist,”

For the New Intellectual, 73

 

 

 

Parasite, freeloader or moocher, take your pick.

 

If you replace the word "ask" in your question with "demand," then those people wish to be masters of slaves.

 

The question is what is a philosophical and psychological basis of such an attitude. In my view these people are infantile because they even don't think in terms of slaves and masters. They don't internalize the fact that goods and services have to be created by somebody. For them they are simply exist and have to be distributed equally. Epistemologically  they simply fail to see a difference between metaphysically given and man-made. In fact it's much worse than just a parasitism. A parasite at least recognizes the fact that he needs a host. A master knows that he needs a slave. An infantile egoist doesn't have to worry about such things. His source of good and services is a government which provides and suppose to be as omnipotent and omniscient as alleged God. The origin of wealth is not of his concern. He doesn't make any mental connection between goods and services and man's effort. If he asked how in his view he could be provided, his answer would be " some how". "Atlas Shrugged" of Ayn Rand exposes this attitude in full. Altruism is simply a sophisticated rationalization of it.

Edited by Leonid
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The question is what is a philosophical and psychological basis of such an attitude.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think it's rooted in a metaphysical view of man.

 

If you understand the difference between the intentional and the accidental (manmade vs. metaphysically-given) then there are two ways in which that can manifest itself, corresponding to which you consider to be more important.

If the intentional is more important then that leads to an egocentric view of reality; looking for any given thing's potential to benefit yourself (and this is necessary for a properly rational philosophy).

If the accidental is more important then it gives rise to antihumanism and collectivism; looking at everything as it is, without any concept of how it could be (racism, sexism and environmentalism, in particular).

 

If you cannot grasp the distinction in the first place then a novel, a plague, an invention and the theory of evolution would all be things of an identical order.

 

That would be a prerequisite for demanding that goods and services be provided automatically, blaming president Bush for a hurricane and declaring that "you didn't build that".  Furthermore, if you cannot grasp the difference between the deliberate and the accidental, how could you define yourself for any selfish sort of morality?

 

That still wouldn't explain it all, but it's something.

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The problem is that unlike our ancestral hunter-gatherers we don't live anymore in accidental world. We are living in artificial environment. Everything around us,  everything we use in order to live, except the air we breath, has to be created and delivered to us. if we find ourselves in the metaphysically given world, naked in the middle of the bush without any tools, we won't be able to survive for 2 days. Since our civilization is based on the principle of labor division, our survival  depends on our ability to produce certain goods and services which we ourselves don't need and which we exchange to the goods we need. Because the world in which we live is mostly man-made, and our survival depends on it, many people have a tendency to view it as metaphysically given, that is-people can have goods simply because they have a need and goods are out there, like the breathing air or sunlight. They view I-phones, computers, education, housing, health services as part of the nature and claim all these and more by right. This is an infantile egoism, an epistemology of hunter-gatherers which was appropriate 40000 years ago, but doesn't apply to the modern world. The educated people do recognize the man-made nature of our world, but claim that because people's lives depend on the man-made goods and services, it is a moral obligation of everybody to provide everybody else with whatever he needs in order to exist, regardless his ability to produce and to give anything in return. This is altruism. As Auguste Comte who coined this term put it  "The individual must subordinate himself to an Existence outside himself in order to find in it the source of his stability. And this condition cannot be effectually realized except under the impulse of propensities prompting him to live for others.".

Since such a condition is simply contradicts a human nature, it could be implemented only by initiation of force. When the individuals do that, we call them criminals. But if society as a whole accept and implement such a principle we call it the State. 

Edited by Leonid
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As Kant put it:

The sovereign, as undertaker of the duty of the people, has the right to tax them for purposes essentially connected with their own preservation. Such are, in particular, the relief of the poor, foundling asylums, and ecclesiastical establishments, otherwise designated charitable or pious foundations. 1. The people have in fact united themselves by their common will into a society, which has to be perpetually maintained; and for this purpose they have subjected themselves to the internal power of the state, in order to preserve the members of this society even when they are not able to support themselves. By the fundamental principle of the state, the government is justified and entitled to compel those who are able, to furnish the means necessary to preserve those who are not themselves capable of providing for the most necessary wants of nature.  " The Science of Rights, sec C.

 

In other words the need of some people becomes a claim for the wealth of others.Kant was a most prominent philosopher in the modern history. He defined the ethical and political trends of our times. Is it any wonder that we are living now in the Age of Entitlement in which herds of infantile egoists demand for free more and more "most necessary wants of nature", like running water, health service, education electricity, transportation, communication, etc, etc, etc...

Edited by Leonid
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  • 4 weeks later...

Actually Im not sure they really want anything at all. They chase after any miniscule pleasure zealously and they howl at every little misfortune. . . But they don't give a damn about anything further than tomorrow.

Look at any collectivist punk who's screaming about the oppression of capitalism (ie reality) and ask him to specify what he actually wants and why.

They can't imagine anything beyond here and now.

Im not sure they know how to want anything.

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 The  inability to distinguish between metaphysically given and man-made leads to epistemic determinism, a notion that man-made products are indistinguishable from that of the nature which means that mind and free will play no role in their production, that creators are conditioned to create by the nature, cannot help not to do that. Politically it leads to an assumption that man-man products are not results of man's effort and don't belong to him by right. As Obama put it " You didn't make it". Therefore the proper way of distribution is not by voluntary exchange, but by the force of government. The meaning of this is that each and every individual has no rights but society as a whole has, which is a blatant contradiction. So every collectivist punk who cries about oppression of capitalism does it via his blueberry cellphone or Apple tablet on Facebook.

Edited by Leonid
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  • 7 months later...

It's a symptom of the influence of deontological philosophies.

When a child is taught that he "must" do certain things, regardless of what those things actually entail, but that other things will always be automatically provided (regardless of his actions), the result is the inability to distinguish between the accidental (such as the changing of the seasons) and the intentional.  It's all derived from the concept of a "duty".

 

For someone to learn to think in terms of causeless rewards and senseless actions, requires that they forget about the causal link between thoughts and actions; instead they learn to use the ineffable "somehow" in their own cognition, as a substitute.  They can't properly conceptualize the Metaphysical - Manmade distinction, on the basis of "somehow"; everything they think and do and say is accidental; the "somehow" has usurped their knowledge of purpose and intention (and the horrible truth is that beyond a certain point, even "somehow" loses any vestige of purpose; duties are not acted on by choice, but because the alternative is no longer conceivable).

 

So the most damaging thing you could possibly do to a child's mind is to introduce the concept of unconditional love.

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