Ever believed in altruism? In friendship? Unselfishness? Forget those. Forget everything you’ve ever known about them. There is no such thing. What is altruism, first and foremost? Wikipedia defines it as “unselfish concern for the welfare of others”. However it does not take into consideration the fact that humans are inevitably and undeniably selfish by nature from the moment they are born. Wikipedia goes on to say: “If one performs an act beneficial to others with a view to gaining some personal benefit, then it is not an altruistically motivated act.” What can be included in “personal benefits”? A number of things. From the immediately obvious such as financial or any other physical rewards, to the more psychological and subtle ones such as happiness, affection, emotional security. We make friends because we need friends. We need them for moral support and much more. We behave in a particular way that will maintain the friendship because we need the friendship. We keep secrets because we want our own secrets kept. We loan money because at some point we want to loan money ourselves. We make favors because we expect to have them returned. We treat people that are close to us in the way we want them to treat us. There is no altruism in this. The concept is only hypothetical and unapliable. Deny this and be a hypocrit. It really is of no importance. We will continue to fake unselfishness, most of us not even realising that on a subconcious level they are more or less thinking of themselves in one way or another, because people need to believe that altruism exists. That people can be noble, above egoism and self interest, that their friends treat them well for no particular reason and expecting no real reward. You can choose to do that and get burned by everyone around you. Or you can choose to expect that every single one of the people you surround yourself with will want something in return, one way or another.
So let’s toast to altruism, it’s the best idea the christians have ever had. Why did Jesus save humanity? Because God sent him on Earth to do it. It was his duty. His destiny. He had to. Want to go to Heaven? Live forever in blessed harmony and virtue? Believe in Him. You might be a good person, but as long as you don’t worship God, you have no passport to Eden. So if one of the most fundamentally altruistic religious ideologies is profoundly mistaken about the nature of unselfishness, what else is there to prove?
Ever believed in virtues? In wrong and right? In bad and good? Ever believed in altruism, in free love and the good nature of humanity as a whole? Forget everything you know. Because in the end, all you know is an illusion.
There are no such things.