Relative altruism

1357: 

If we are vegan and can’t understand why others are not, it may be worth considering what actually has to happen, and why vegans are willing to give away a lot of the benefits of life for the sake of not condoning the exploitation of animals.

Well, we no longer use a huge range of products.  And that's good for saving animals. But we're probably the same old selfish bastards as everyone else.  We do what we do for ourselves.  We eat serious food instead of crap.  We stop associating with social norms which are unethical (and we can't help but feel good about that).  We feather our own nest.  We stamp our own principles on our own life, and maybe we do that without considering other people who might be trying to do the same.  And in that way our own level of self-determination could be seen to be very selfish.  But, there is one very big difference between our 'selfishness' and the selfishness of non-vegans.  Ours is initiated by our outrage at what is happening to defenceless animals, and there’s no denying the sacrifices we are willing to make for them.  If there are collateral benefits for us, then we do appreciate them without feeling guilty.

         

Why do vegans think so seriously about animals and then translate that concern into their daily lives?  Is it because vegans are more altruistic or because they’ve found something more interesting (than anything they’ve previously found)?  Perhaps it's all relative?  Altruism is beyond reproach, because it considers other's (peoples’) interests before one’s own.  But I’d agree with what Nietzsche says, that this definition is demeaning.  More particularly, it’s unrealistic because it is the kind of purity no one can keep up - being so infuriatingly good all the time.

The fact is that we’re all survivors - we have to be selfish thinkers to survive.  We have to be self-interested.  We have to look after our own first.  Charity starts at home.  The theory goes, that we can extend our love to others, afterwards.  Selfish is good.  As survivors we'll do better by avoiding being squashed down.  But it all gets a bit too logical without a modifying factor, without something to stop us crashing into a wall of 'selfish-ism'.  Perhaps we need some easily digestible relative altruism.

         

We should be able to enjoy life unashamedly, but it is possible that that could coincide with feeling good inside, when one is doing something for others and for oneself at the same time.

When we look about us, we can see that there’s a lot of giving-out needed today.  Give here, give there, I get a phone call most nights asking me to ‘give’.  All the more reason why we shouldn’t neglect our own interests which, let’s be honest, we all think about a lot of the time.  Selfish is like incoming energy.  It seems opposite to altruism (which traditionally is giving energy away), so where is the balance arrived at?  Perhaps we have to be very honest here, perhaps it's a matter of a slightly tarnished version of selflessness, which we might call 'relative altruism', since it has to be self rewarding - because if it isn’t, then why deplete yourself?  The glow of 'being altruistic' soon wears off when nobody notices it.

Doing good all over the place, without getting some recognition back, forces us to go looking for it, which is called boasting.  We all badly need praise.  Without it we become resentful.  I give you a birthday present, I expect a thank you.  And when it doesn’t appear, I’m less inclined to bother buying you anything next birthday.

         

Whatever we do, even if it’s a paid job, we need something extra, a lubrication for our altruism to work.  It’s vital.  It makes us want to give more, to recapture that feeling of being generous.   I need to feel energetic and energised by my generosity rather than the pinched feeling of giving the bare minimum expected.

         

At work, you’d do everything high-quality if you could, but that won’t turn the profit.  There happens to be another ethic, an economic one, which makes more money and makes the cogs of life go around.  But what about job satisfaction?  There’s nothing more satisfying than adding quality to our work.  We all like the feeling of quality, at work, and especially at home where we like giving quality to our relationships.

         

By being vegan we give quality to our own life and at the same time to the lives of the animals we are attempting to save from being reared and killed and eaten.  No one is trying to be Mister Perfect here, but vegans are attempting to up the ante.  And that's both useful and rewarding and often quite altruistic, which levels out at a certain contentment - living a life with a strong element of relative altruism running through it.