Altruism as a reference point

1048:

Living within a partially unknowable universe, we have to make the best of things.  If we do it with affection we make things go a little smoother.

We respond to conflicting messages from within: our instinct might tell us to give-out and give with affection.  Instinct also tells us that life isn’t just about doing good but also about optimising our opportunities.

I’m weighing up my choices.  At first, the selfish choice seems the most attractive way to go but, on after-thought, so does the selfless. There’s some part of us that knows when we do things, for instance, the sake of the kids, it will somehow feed back again to ourselves, later, sometimes much later.

If we can get away from the righteous overtones of altruism, we can see it’s just a more intelligent way to do things. In the bigger picture, co-operation, compassion, empathy and generosity are not so much divine values as workable ones. The practice of altruism brings us to maturity, something essential to mothers and fathers. If you are a parent, the child screams for attention and the parent comes to the rescue. The child screams many times, the parent comes to the rescue many times. Altruism, in this form, is best for both the child’s development and the personal sanity of the long-term parent. But altruism isn’t just one thing, rescuing, giving, selfless. It doesn’t work that way. It’s simply a reference point, from which one chooses to be hard or soft, indulge the child or deny the child. Each decision, swayed by instinct, edging away as far as possible from the me-first principle, edging towards the interests of the ‘other’.

It’s the same with the ant in the sink. Altruism is never very far away, nudging our choices. It might not be clear what the choice should be, but it IS clear what it should not be - never harm-causing. So if we turn this around we can see that non-violence can never be anything other than motivated by altruism.