Overcaring

How much should we care about others?  How much should we do for them?  Two different questions with two different answers.  The first thing to say is that it doesn't matter how we should feel, we feel how we feel-that is a simple fact.  A workable modification to the question might be: how should people be made to feel.  While the degree to which we care about others at this very moment is what it is, society does possess some tools for nurturing empathy and understanding, and drumming up support for specific causes.  Common advertising and marketing, government propaganda, schools, social and political campaigns and agendas, public health campaigns, social media, church services, holidays, friends...  Our hearts and minds are constantly being pulled this way and that by social forces that seek to win us over.  (thankfully, escape from influence is not hard to attain even if the reprieve may be for just a short while)  Its gullible to believe our sentiments are entirely of our own making-we are creatures that arise from conditions, be they environmental or hereditary.  We are made to feel a certain way whether we are aware of who and what did the making, and regardless of whether the makers worked towards the express goal of influence or not.

With the state of things once again reaffirmed, let's ask the questions and not take offense:  How much should we care about others?  And the second, different question:  How much should we do for others?  

To begin, let me describe what, in my opinion, we ought not to do.  We shouldn't care so much about others that we fail to take care of ourselves and live our own lives.  Now this is a rare, nearly hypothetical condition.  I suppose there are people who do in fact live miserable lives because their love for others prevents them from doing anything for themselves.  But by and large I don't think that overcaring is a problem many people have.  You can imagine, however, that society would be pretty strange if all people lacked personal desires and only tended to the desires of others.  It would be a somewhat inefficient, backwards way of going about things; but who knows, maybe such a society would be heaven.  Again, we're talking about an impossible hypothetical situation.  While some of us my successfully abandon our egos and dedicate ourselves to the service of others, it would not be best (or possible, I argue) if such abandonment was all-pervasive in society.  We are better equipped to deal with our own needs than anyone else, so its good that we care about ourselves more than we do the average stranger.

Even though this self-centeredness comes naturally, I think there are plenty of people who are not self-centered enough.  I have in mind parents who don't make time for themselves-they sacrifice all to micromanage the lives of their children.  I'm thinking of people who willingly slave away the day, working overtime to impress the boss, their wife, or their own ego.  Another example is the person who volunteers all their time to charitable pursuits, who then neglects their own health, enjoyment, and financial security.

There is a principal I believe is true:  The health of society is best secured if people act in their own best interest-their best interest being their own health, happiness, and security.  If we all take care of ourselves, people will be better taken care of.  Another way of saying it is if we all take care of other people and not ourselves, people will not be so well cared for.

There are problems with this economic philosophy, and for those of you who've taken political science courses, these problems will sound familiar.  A system wherein individuals predominately pursue their own best interest will be home to economic inequality, sometimes on a stark scale, and will necessarily create "winners" and "losers".  Those who fail to "play the game" well may find themselves victims of those who play too well (if that's possible).  And those adept players will be able to leverage their assets to essentially block the upward mobility of poor players (or those who refuse to play in the first place).

I'm no economist, so I'll go ahead and refrain from making too many more generalizations about how economic systems based around individual self interest compare to those in which individuals predominately work towards the interest of others.  What I will say is that the "evils" of a self-interest society are somewhat straightforward and possible for a government to regulate.  Worker exploitation, lower class suppression, the injustice of making money from money...these and more can be addressed with regulations like minimum wage, welfare programs, and progressive taxation.  Plus, there are built-in, natural checks to a free-market, self-interest economy.  If demand for cheap products are making someone easy money, others will get in the game and the wealth will spread.  Material costs will go up and suppliers will make more money.  The micro-economy for that one cheap product will bloom into something more expansive.  Some may still get a disproportionate amount of the generated wealth, but their income will still be a tiny fraction of the value of the particular industry/trade created.  So long as workers are not pulled from their time-tested, stable economy to help build an economic house of cards, genuine demand for a genuine, new product will generate wealth and increase the quality of life of those who participate in the economy.  (I admit these points are highly debatable, and that I'm not qualified to make firm, factual declarations on the subject matter, but these insights seem right, and I'll do my best to support the claims logically).

Now the "evil" created by a society that adopts expansive individual, social, and governmental charitable practices (charity, non-profits, welfare, etc) are far more corrosive than the disproportionate wealth hoarding by a few individuals.  Liberals (who are not unlike me) may want to deny or ignore the following fact:  When help is overabundant, easily accessible, and free, an individual will more likely choose to expend the energy, organization, expertise, and money (the help) of others than expend or develop their own.  Helping others can be truly heroic when the need is immediate and desperate and no reasonable possibility exists for the person in need to help himself.  But assistance of so many other kinds is essentially a reversal of the correct/best approach to solving a problem-that correct/best approach being: the one in need helps himself by working to resolve his own problem.  Self reliance, self motivation-these need to exist in abundance in a healthy society.

What I'm talking about is not just the unempowering affects of large-scale welfare programs.  Help that's too easy to come by can affect us directly, ultimately in a negative way.  I've experienced this on an individual level myself.  My neighbor across the street is a retired military man who has decades of experience under his belt building and repairing anything and everything around the house.  When Jennifer and I moved to the neighborhood a year ago, Tom introduced himself and made a special point to tell us how he had done big projects on the homes of almost all of our neighbors.  He had more than enough time-and all of the tools-to help us out with anything we needed, any time we needed it.  Jennifer and I were blown away with how nice Tom Knicely really was.  A more perfect handyman neighbor we could not imagine having.

I could have relied on Tom's help for so many of the DIY projects I completed this last year-he was just across the street with nothing else to do-but apart from an emergency roof repair job, all the projects were completed by Jennifer and I alone.  Things might have been much easier if I had stood back and relied on the experience and work of my neighbors, but I wouldn't have really learned things like how to install a toilet, how to wire a ventilation fan, how to make new chimney flashing, or how to roll out roll roofing.  By doing these projects myself, I gained in intelligence and knowledge; and lower back issues aside, the work was good and healthy for my body.

I don't want to brag.  I can be pretty lazy-I neglect all kinds of chores and errands for days at a time.  I consistently fail to write or read or draw or create as much as I aspire to.  But thankfully, hard work comes naturally to me.  Thankfully, I'm self motivated.  I tend to get the job done, and I'm always thinking of how I can improve my health and happiness.  Plenty of people are better go-getters than myself (nonproductive activities are important too, after all).

But I get the sense that there's a significant portion of the nation's population that's below average in the energy and motivation departments.  It's possible that a large percentage of that portion of the population will take whatever help they can get for free, and will continue to choose the action and expertise of others over the action and development of themselves.  Some people are lazy and ignorant, and we can count on them to take advantage of assistance anytime they can get it.  Most people are not lazy and ignorant, but they are made more so by abundant, free help.  Again, I'm not thinking of just a problem with welfare programs or super nice neighbors.  I'm thinking of how a hypothetical society in which neighbors, friends, family members-everyone-regularly involve themselves in each others lives and constantly help each other instead of tend to their own needs.  I believe that this kind of a society would be less healthy (stable, intelligent, proud, energetic, etc) than the relatively self-centered society in which we live today.  I think there's something to this claim.  There's something to be said for individuality, division, independence, and staying out of each others business.  And there's a price to be paid in a society that is too close-knit, in which individuals are too concerned about each other.  This is a point I haven't heard made and that's why I make it.

For my next post, I hope to continue on this same vein and describe another way in which "help" is not simply implicitly good for society.