Selfishness and heroism

Throughout our lives we are repeatedly told by others not to be selfish. We learn that being selfish is considered negative, antisocial behaviour. At the same time we feel an innate tug to take care of ourselves first, knowing deep within that failure to do so will mean our inability to care for others. 

The constant admonition to be unselfish, accompanied by the violin strains of great virtue, if adopted, becomes sacrificial. Those who take it to heart give up their desires, their dreams, their lives, indeed their own selves, all in the pursuit of the love and acceptance of others. When people say to us “Don’t be selfish” they usually want something from us that we won’t give them. When someone accuses us of being selfish, what they usually mean is that you are not tending to their needs. “Give Donny a piece of your cookie” mother tells Anna. “No” says Anna “I am hungry”. “Don’t be selfish now” says mother. Anna reluctantly gives up her cookie. “Good girl” mother says, and Anna experiences mixed feelings of approval by her mother and disappointment at not having the cookie, but more importantly with herself. This is how it starts. Anna is hungry and wants her cookie. Donny wants a piece, and all of a sudden Anna is selfish not to give it to him. Before long, Anna is giving up everything in order not to be considered selfish. Her cookie. Her seat. Her career. Her dreams. Her life. Anna soon finds that she does not love herself. Indeed, she does not even know herself anymore, for she has become so devoted to the care and concern of others, that she has neglected her own needs and desires. Her unselfishness, considered a great virtue by those who want something from her, has now become her greatest burden.

What is selfishness and why is it such a virtue? Virtues are supposed to make us feel good, yet this one tends to raise mixed feelings within us. Consulting my trusty dictionary, I find that “selfish” means “devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one’s own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others”. It is the “regardless of others” part that becomes a problem, for surely there could be nothing wrong with caring for ourselves. If we explore further the definition of “self” we will find that it means “consciousness of one’s own identity”. How did “self-ish” or “belonging to the consciousness of our own identity” come to mean concern ONLY with our own needs to the exclusion of others? Perhaps it is because when we are conscious of who we are, then we are out of the control of others. We are able to determine our own dreams, hopes, desires and live our lives in accordance.

But this is not at all to say that when we are in this state, we totally ignore the needs of others. There is a balance to be struck. There IS virtue and nobility in helping and giving to others. There is something uplifting about serving others even at our own seeming disadvantage. When we are in this mode, then the discomfort is temporary, for it is superceded by the gratification of giving of oneself.

I visited the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto today. The moment I rounded the corner of the building, I was blown away by the strongest moment of recognition – of a photograph of a young man carrying a dying child, with a screaming girl running beside him. It was the photograph of one of the first children killed in the Soweto riot that brought the horrific situation in South Africa to international attention. This photo of anguished children and a dying child that was transmitted around the world, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I recognised it instantly.

As we moved away from the photograph towards the museum entrance, my eyes fell to this quote from the mother of the child holding Hector, now etched in a marble step: “Mbuyisa is or was my son. But he is not a hero. In my culture, picking up Hector is not an act of heroism. It was his job as a brother. If he left him on the ground and somebody saw him jumping over Hector, he would never be able to live there.”

This is what occurred to me when I read the mother’s quote at the Hector Pieterson memorial: could it be that the young man who snatched Hector up in an effort to save him, was just being selfish? For how would he have lived with himself had he left Hector to die? His mother understood this. He was saving himself from a life of remorse and regret had he run away empty handed. He knew in his heart that he would not be able to live with himself. He was being selfish in the truest sense of the word – that is, conscious only of his identity as one human being a brother to another. Mbuyisa, in that moment, understood that he and Hector were one – and that to pick him up was an act of the greatest selfishness. And that is what heroism is – knowing who you are as a human being, one with all humanity, and acting in accordance.