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A treatise on the ontology of altruism (or the lack thereof)

By Zachary Kyle Elmblad

I was presented a question: “Is the act of killing yourself for someone else the purest act of altruism?”

Altruism exists solely as one of the more disgusting concepts man has invented serving as a half-assed legitimization of the argument that man is dependent on others to survive. He is not. Man can survive on basic instinct. Eat, or die. Sleep, or go crazy. Stay warm in the cold, stay cool in the heat. Get out of the rain and snow. We don’t think it we do it. It is not a choice, it is a self-evident natural reaction to an external stimulus. Evolution did a great job of programming these into our brain’s will to keep itself powered by our bodies. A body that the brain it contains controls. Not the brains of other people, which have bodies of their own to contend with.

A selfless act cannot exist because it is a logical impossibility. Selflessness is the metaphysically conceptual counterpoint to the self, and can only logically be a social construct. The self has not achieved a level of evolution that makes it capable of trans-personal interaction. That means you are you, and you are not anyone else but you. Remember your Ayn Rand, and the Aristotle she reiterated so poignantly. “A is A.” Existence exists. You are you. You have no other choice but non-existence, which is death, by your own hand or otherwise.

If the mind can only control itself, it is self-evident that that mind would act in total understanding and will to power only those forces which preserve its mortality. An external and socially-perceived “selfless act” cannot exist without satisfying an active choice based on a moral judgment made in the individualized “selfish act” of critical thinking and decision making. In other words, a “selfless act” must be committed by a “self,” negating the premise that it was selfless. If your desire is to gain kleos through a “socially-selfless” act, you are projecting this concept over a selfish and individual choice to commit such an act, with all the understood implications and ramifications. You deciding to act, as an individual unit of society understanding that your actions will be interpreted by others. You are the architect of those decisions, those morals, and those interpretations. You.

You.

I was asked a rhetorical question the other day, “wouldn’t giving your life for another be the ultimate act of altruism?” Here’s my answer. What kind of self-medication bullshit routine has anyone subjected themselves to in order to think that voluntarily taking your life could possibly be the most selfless act on earth? You have the right to take your own life, it belongs to you, but anyone that tries to tell me that taking your own life is selfless doesn’t deserve to live. Suicide is the cheater’s way out. If you need to take your life in order to save someone else, that means you haven’t exhausted all of your options and you’re taking the easy way out. Taking your own life voluntarily is the ultimate selfish act. How dare you give up? The rest of us are still here fighting the good fight, living our lives and trying to do things that allow us to progress as individuals in a society. You’re now dead, doing no god damned good to anyone on fucking earth, you dumb shit. You’re trying to save someone by taking your own life? Are you kidding me? I’m all for trying to help out your friends, and feeling patriotic enough to fight on behalf of a country you want to defend, but you do it knowing god damned well what is going to happen. No selflessness involved. Anyone who tries to tell you they are being selfless is either misguided or lying.

Furthermore, how could self-destruction be a selfless act, even self destruction by enemy. If you’re killed in battle, that means you failed your fucking mission. That means you did not outsmart the enemy, you did not destroy him before he destroyed you, and it means that you weren’t good enough to evade attack. We can learn a lot from the Greeks. Kleos, pronounced clay-oss (like in oscillate,) is the Greek word commonly translated as “glory.” Specifically, it means what people say about you – after you’re dead. is the closest any of us will ever get to eternal life. is the only nearly tangible concept. What people say about you once you’re dead. Greek warriors gained never ending glory through the selfish act of earning attempting to destroy their enemies. Even if they did die, they did it knowing that if their deeds were strong and bold enough, society would remember them. It’s for the self, not for other. For the self, with the knowledge that you could be helping others through decisions you make YOUR SELF.

Self destruction for others offers a weak premise for the conclusion of the ontology of altruism, because that would be a logical fallacy. How could a self make a selfless decision when the self is both the means and the ends? Self-aware self makes self-aware selfless decision. That doesn’t add up.

Society is a concept invented to pool resources, not to individuate an ethical burden of necessary sacrifice. Anyone who tells you how to think is a piece of shit. That means that anyone who tells you that a fully realized life requires altruism is, too. A fully realized life is one realized through self-awareness, and as a member of a group of other meat bag units that also recognize themselves as individuals. They have their own brains, much like yours. They want to be known, too. They want , too. They want to be heard, they want to be counted, they want to be understood. They want their ideas compared and analyzed, too. We’re all stuck on a rock together, after all, so we might as well band together and try to make it a better place to be in.

The only thing that the idea of altruism does is perpetuate the stupid fucking idea that you don’t exist as an individual. You are one, you have your own brain, with its own synapses arranged in a way to construct the memories that you have acquired through living a life that was self-actuated. We’re bound by the earth, but we don’t have to agree. The only test of your will is to brave death to prove your individuality. The only act of selflessness is to know the truth and die for it. One person to do that was Socrates. He sure got his fucking . He didn’t take his own life, he died proving he was living it to his fully individualized morals, by being forced to take poison. If you don’t know who Socrates is, please do me a favor and kill yourself.

Altruism tries to make a concept a reality. That is impossible. Altruism is a social-construct. It is rooted in a “sense of connection” that does not exist. We are not metaphysically connected just because we are made of similar organic structures. No, No, No. In that regard, and in this context, there is no “bigger picture.” While man may be able to drastically improve his standard of living with the combined knowledge of his fellow humans; why should we perpetuate a concept which requires the denial of the self as an individual and fundamental unit of society, as a beneficial moral choice?

Doesn’t destroying or sacrificing yourself negate the entire premise of altruism as a sacrifice of self for the good of society when society is based on the self as a unit of its own makeup? Altruism destroys the framework of the society it claims to benefit. Altruism is a socially-constructed, commoditized, concept that makes society regress by killing off its internal struggle to reconfigure and progress. By condoning altruism, you’re reversing the whole point of society in the first place- acting together to better ourselves.

Fuck altruism.

-Zachary Elmblad