The ‘new’ altruism

898: 

Altruism is really a perfectly balanced two-way road of selfishness and selflessness.

Take the idea of selflessness. It could lead to insufferable saintliness, and that means we’d never be able to keep it up. And the opposite is just as unrealistic - the selfish world leads to trouble, and yet everything we do has a selfish element. A balance is essential but there’s no name for it; ‘altruism’ has been high jacked by the ‘morality mob’. It has been made to look ridiculous. It needs to be redefined.

The would-be altruist is attracted to idealism. One’s strong moral position is meant to be admired. It is intended to give life meaning, but it could very well seem too righteous. The saintly and selfless is in a face-off with the selfish and materialistic; extreme good versus extreme bad; black versus white. One side can only work when it has its extreme opposite to relate to, so if we’re really bad we have to do something really good to balance it. But why not just avoid extremes? We can thrive very nicely by operating low level selfishness and unselfishness; it’s not so impressive and it’s slower to get results, but in the long run it is more consistent. It’s good intention that counts (and makes us happier), to be helping others whilst helping oneself.

Does my ‘new’, slow-but-sure altruism bring the best results? Probably, if only by making me more optimistic about myself. And that’s likely to make me feel optimistic about the future in general. We need both altruism and optimism to brighten our lives in this depressingly violent world. The optimist says, pragmatically, “So what if all this damage has taken place? It can be fixed”. The altruist doesn’t indulge in recrimination or revenge, but employs optimism to ‘up’ the energy, to create attitude change. If altruism is the first sign of optimism it will automatically bring about personal transformation..

Going vegan is one of the simplest and most effective transformations we can make. And even if the rest of the community doesn’t understand it, on a personal level it feels right, and is essential to heighten our optimism.

With there being so much hypocrisy, concerning the crimes committed against animals, veganism stands as a beacon of social justice. It harmonises with Nature and it feels right, as if one is dressed appropriately for the climate. For vegans, anything we can do to promote vegan principle will inevitably be satisfying, and that allows our altruism to figure less prominently and be less showy.