The Gum Tree for 2005 September 9

Filling out secondaries and I got this prompt.

Ohio State:

18. Please define altruism and provide an example or two where you exhibited altruistic behavior in your past activities. (600 words or less)

Personally, I thought this was a pretty useless question, so I answered the question the people should have asked. This is what I wrote:

After reading this essay prompt I wanted to resolve something in my mind so I started asking questions, and before long I got into a heated debate with myself. This is how the debate went. I asked: what is the meaning of altruism? Isn't altruism the unselfish concern for others? Well, yes it is but can anybody really be unselfish? Isn't everything we DO something that, in the end analysis, fulfills our own selfish desires or self-centered nature? I suppose that is what most philosophers have said. Saint Augustine, among others, wrote that the best we can do is live a life of enlighted self-interest.

Well, how about today; I mean we are much more enlightened in our modern rational thinking today than back in the dark ages; right? I don't think so. Look at our whole civilization and the foundation of modern life. Adam Smith said that there is an "Invisible Hand" moving all transactions in business that usually results in the good of all parties. That Invisible Hand is the self-interest of each person involved in the transactions that occur. That pretty much rules out altruistic action. Furthermore, we are taught in Economics class that there is no free lunch, and therefore we must work to prevent the starvation of ourselves and those of our family, clan, or social class.

Wow, perhaps it is not too late to apply to business school. I really should learn how to make my lunch, right? Additionally, I need to make sure that I make a big enough lunch in order for my family to have all the lunch they need. Isn't that altruistic? Well, no. You are still working in your own interest. What if I worked for the lunch of a complete stranger who I will never see again, and from whom I will never get remuneration? There is no free lunch; that is what the first law of modern economics says, and that includes other people who receive goods and services from you. I suppose that I never exhibited altruistic behavior in that case.

On the other hand, the Judeo-Christian tradition tells us not to worry about lunch. Take no thought as to what you shall eat or wherewith you shall be clothed. Consider the lillies of the field: they toil not neither do they spin. All that we need will be provided. I am like the college student who has his room and board already paid for. All I have to do is study and learn to do the REAL work that I was sent here to do. What is that work? Well, it is the work of changing my nature to BE good, and furnish my mind with lasting principles. I am to BE good to others, whether they are my neighbor or a complete stranger.

I suppose to work altruistically, I must BE altruistic. The being gives way to the doing of altruistic works. My whole life can be exemplary of altruistic behavior if I am altruistic, every word and deed. I may fall short of the ideal of altruism, but that is why I am here at school to learn to develop these attributes. The Greek philosophers were first to nod to this principle and they named this attribute caris. The early Christians also advocated this principle of being or becoming good; that was once know as Charity. Charity of today is made up of money and the act of giving it away to some benificent end, and says nothing about the motive of the giver or the gratitude of the benefactor. Once altuistic change happens in myself, I then have the ability to "alter another,” and that is the literal meaning of altruism. The purpose of my work here is not to learn how to get bigger and better lunches, but rather to learn how to BE charitable, or altruistic. Perhaps I will not achieve that ideal anytime soon, but that part of me seems to be winning the struggle in my mind.

P.S. The title is in reference to an altruistic study of Chimps where red dots were put on their foreheads and they were given mirrors to see if they would try to rub the dot off the mirror or their own heads--altruism.