Selfishness and egoism are bad.

Are they?

What do we really mean by these two moral characterizations?

Is egoism just another word for selfishness and vice versa?

Altruistic mafia

Have you ever met someone who would even consider egoism and selfishness virtues? Even the mafia claims to be highly altruistic and generous, at least toward those who obey its laws. On the other hand, most religions also preach against egoism yet act selfishly, at least toward those who obey their laws. Is the parallel between the mafia and religious institutions meant to be cynical?

It is just as cynical as Niccolò Machiavelli’s “Prince” is when he explains what political reality is, not what should be. For this reason alone, his book is perhaps the most disgusting piece of advice for politicians in all of history, because he explains what works in reality rather than what should work. In that sense, he was way ahead of evolutionary theory. But whereas with evolution we tend to accept that there is no point in lamenting what should happen, since what may be acceptable on paper (in the dreams of intellectuals) fails in reality. Everything that happens (reality) turns out to be sustainable. So, at least, evolutionary biologists no longer dream (at least I hope they don’t) about how nice it would be if this or that species evolved in a different direction than it actually did. As such, they are not considered cynical.

Why does the majority reject selfishness?

How is it, then, that the few among them who have dared to declare selfishness a virtue, like Niccolò Machiavelli, are considered repulsive? By contrast, we have a long line of moral philosophers who have proclaimed how people and their political leaders should act and are considered visionaries. How is it that strict evolutionists forget the fundamental laws of evolution when it comes to memetic reality? For example, how is it that Richard Dawkins not only forgot the last chapter of The Selfish Gene but also discarded fundamental evolutionary premises in his work after 2000?

My answer is: we are still not mature enough to face reality. We may never be that mature, at least unless we take Jacques Lacan’s distinction between the real and reality seriously, Kant’s distinction between the thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, or quantum physics, which has recognized the fuzziness of matter at the quantum level (the quantum uncertainty principle), seriously. As much as one should never look God directly in the eye (that’s why one should bow when approaching dignities), it is unbearable to see the Real behind reality.

The virtue of selfishness

However, it was not only Niccolò Machiavelli who could see the real behind the ethics of The Prince (of all politicians), but also the most famous writer of the 20th century. She is not as well-known as she is well-read, which is even more paradoxical. She is considered the most influential American writer, even though she is rejected by academia and almost all intellectuals worldwide.

How is it that Ayn Rand, whose entire body of work centers on selfishness as the most important human virtue and altruism as the most critical vice, and who even gave one of her books the title The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), has sold more than 1.4 million copies to date? I find it extremely interesting and provocative that even those who support her extreme economic liberalism fall silent when asked to express their views on selfishness.

My explanation for this seeming paradox, that on the one hand she is considered one of the most influential writers of the last century, while at the same time most of her admirers tune out her praise of egoism, is that the political correctness that has developed since the early 20th century intellectually overrides the arguments against her, while she is deeply understood at the level of common sense. Ayn Rand’s work touches on common sense, and it is not her fault that common sense contradicts intellectual “sense.” So, we are faced with a situation where it is privately admired, where common sense still functions unabridged. Yet, in public discourse, which is globally focused on politically correct ought-utopias, its morality is rejected.

Physical selfishness

So, let me rationally and, hopefully, intellectually validate selfishness as a virtue that underlies genetic and memetic reality and should also participate in morality, which concerns what should govern our words and actions. And on the topic of rationalization, I don’t want to compete with Ayn Rand. She has done her job! However, surprisingly, she didn’t consider selfishness in terms of evolution, physics, and branding. Why?

The starting point of her objectivism is a simple axiom: A is A.

That A is A not only grounds objectivism (against subjectivism) but also provides space for branding as an evolutionary amalgam governing both the biosphere and the physical universe. That A is A and not B or C or anything else opens up the common-sense truism that if A has the possibility of acting in a world, it must act in such a way as to posit the property of being A and reject all variants of acting that would make A something else. If A is to be distinct from B, it must secure its identity. Only after A has secured its identity can A collaborate with B. A, which for some reason would take on properties that would evolve it toward B, would suddenly have no value in collaborating with B, since B would already have all the properties that A would provide in the collaboration. Such a B, needing “A properties”, would look for A’, which would turn out to be A with A properties.

I have just explained the role of branding and the physical necessity of selfishness. One must be selfish to cooperate with other selfish entities. In an entirely altruistic world, where all needs are universally accepted, collaboration would be impossible. Collaboration is only possible among entities with distinct identities. As I mention in many places on this blog, total equality is nothing but total physical equilibrium, a state of the highest possible entropy, a death. It is not too pompous to say that all who preach physical equality preach for death. There is also no need for a law in such equality, and thus no possibility of being equal before the law.

Selfishness, then, is inevitable not only for the biosphere but also, as recent decisions about the universe show, for all matter and energy in our known universe.

Let us check what altruism means, for that sake.

Altruism

There is nothing wrong with altruism that arises out of a person’s need to be altruistic. When I give to a needy person out of my deeply irrational (everything in evolution is irrational) selfishness, it creates favorable opportunities for both the needy and me. But when it becomes a social obligation to give, when altruism is part of social pressure, a whim, then such altruism degrades into what is currently destroying Western society. And if such social pressure becomes a legal norm, like a tax system that eliminates the two agents of altruism, then Atlas Shrugged emerges.

But then one would ask: how does common sense also tell us that cooperation is far better than acting in isolation? Isn’t selfishness and cooperation mutually exclusive?

No, of course, they are not.

First, you must understand that entities come in different sizes. Human-sized entities include humans, animals, and plants. But much smaller entities, like cells, genes, and memes, exist as entities just like humans; the only difference is our consciousness. But there are also larger entities, like families, corporations, states, and galaxies. As interconnected, complex entities, each entity is subject to the rule of identity: No identity, no reality! Several laws apply to quantum and extremely large entities, but only one: the law of identity, the law of selfishness.

Let us explain this simple law using the human body as an example. There are about 30 to 40 trillion cells in the human body. Of these, bacteria make up 1 to 3% of body mass, which means that in a 70 kg human body, there are 1 to 2 kg of bacteria. As such, they are part of our identity, but each bacterium in our body also has its own identity, raison d’être, and distinction from all other bacteria. Without them, we would lose our identity (we would die), but we would also die if there were too many of them. Their cooperation with the rest of the cells in our body does not take away their own selfish identity, any more than our identity is hindered by their presence in our body. But our egoism immediately kicks in when they attack us in too great a number.

Hostile immigration

Another case where the issue of altruism is particularly troubling is hostile immigration. It is not surprising that the Western intellectual majority, driven by “liberal” media and led by academia, derides all identitarian movements. To them, A is not A. According to Western liberal intellectuals, the male is not masculine; it can be anything. It is against the “liberal” view to ban an option that 2 plus 2 equals 5. For them, it is wrong to protect your identity, your family’s identity, and your community’s identity by banning those who don’t want to adhere to community values.

I intentionally mentioned a few real-life examples that would have been unimaginable to Ayn Rand. She presents them as a warning of what could happen if we continue to follow destructive altruism. And here we are. What she feared is here in the form of the intellectual mainstream.