When evaluating if something is “good” or not, it’s often helpful to ask if it is universally preferred behavior. If everyone did it, would wellbeing increase over time or decrease? What would the externalities be? What side effects and consequences?
Let’s say you have some options:
Help someone else with their physical needs (food, shelter, clothing).
Help yourself deal with avoidances, unresolved emotional trauma, fears, shame, guilt, etc to find integration and healing.
If everyone did more of category 1, I do think we’d see an increase in wellbeing. We’d see more gratitude, more sense of purpose and belonging by helping others, and we might even start creating more shared goals and systems that benefit everyone more equitably, regardless of where they started out at birth. Importantly, I think this will be needed all the more given the unprecedented economic situation the world is facing.
I also think we’d see some people hurt by it. I know this is a privileged and unpopular thing to say, but it might keep some people in a state of avoidance. I think we’d see a rise in people who have been trained to believe they have to be dependent on others and can not depend on themselves. There would be more expectations and, perversely, some instances of ingratitude where the disconnect grows between the personal cost of producing value and the entitlement mentality of deserving it with no personal effort. I do remember what it was like in high school losing our house and in many ways relying on the charity of others as we lived on a boat. I also remember what my parents were avoiding dealing with. Would those times have been easier if the avoidances leading up to losing the house were dealt with directly?
Now imagine everyone did more of category 2. Are there any downsides? If the yogis, gurus, mystics, and actual followers of Christ’s teachings are to be believed (I’m talking real spirituality, not religion), their physical needs would decrease while their wellbeing, contentment, and bliss would increase. Less consumption, less greed, less suffering. I imagine it would actually result in more of category 1 happening as well, in a natural, organic way. People would realize more of their interconnectedness with everyone and everything around them.
Evolving your consciousness and decreasing entropy there to increase your capacity for love is something anyone can do right now. Even if just for a few minutes of mindfulness meditation, everyone anywhere in the world can do this. Rich, poor, young, old, sick, healthy... everyone. There is nothing more universally accessible. All it requires is consciousness.
If everyone on the planet started focusing on this, where would the world be after a few weeks or months? We have the power to create a better world, and it just might start with creating our better selves.
Clear seeing, clear thinking, and love without prejudice all result in good actions whereas sometimes our best intentions in "doing good to others" only makes things worse.
What do you think? What should the priority be if you had to focus on category 1 or category 2 first?
The problem is the definition of "first," and keeping it from becoming "only." Phrasing it at an either/or (as often happens even inadvertently) is the problem.
You need to achieve a certain level of self-stability/health before you're even useful to others, and before doing for others wouldn't end up causing harm to you. That's a "first."
Once you pass that threshold, it becomes a yes-and. You have enough time/money/resources/whatever to further invest in yourself, and invest in someone else. Yes, that means you're investing less in yourself by doing so, but you're still investing "enough" in yourself that you can spare the resources to help someone else out.
The tricky part is the definition of "enough" and where that threshold is, and what a "good" dividing line between self-investment and community-investment is.
The extremes are obvious and easy to answer. The inflection point is really hard and subjective. But people use the difficulty of the inflection point to avoid dealing with anything but the extremes, or else to argue that even at the extremes it's too hard.
Extremes: Below $10,000 a year income, you really, really should not be donating to charity. You should be on the receiving end. Asking those people to pay higher taxes is ridiculous. Above $10,000,000 a year income, if you're not giving a substantial chunk of money back to your society you're a selfish asswipe. (Whether that's ad hoc charity or properly managed taxes is irrelevant for the moment, and Luke don't you dare get side tracked by "taxation is theft" and that nonsense, that's off topic. :-P )
So, where between $10k and $10 million is the inflection point where you should start paying taxes/giving to charity/helping others? What qualifies as "substantial?" Those are the tricky questions, but the existence of those tricky questions makes it really easy for people to either avoid, or abuse, the extremes.
If you don't like that it's monetary, swap in any other less quantifiable metric and the same basic problem exists. Eg, time helping yourself and your mental health vs spending time helping a neighbor. The same rough outline of the problem exists, and the heuristics are no easier.
Theft is always on topic when discussing morality. :)
Ayn Rand had some ideas you'd probably hate which essentially (from a certain perspective) argued that charity is always harmful in the long run and the virtue objectivism strives for takes a different approach of becoming the best version of yourself which means you'll be able to create so much more value for everyone around you (even if through market-driven means).
As someone who has both received and given, I think they are both needed, but I understand how staying in the receiving side isn't long-term beneficial. Someone making only $10k is not only poor, but most likely their sense of purpose, meaning, healthy pride, belonging, and usefulness to society has diminished and would be in a better place if they added more value that others wanted to pay for with "certificates of appreciation" as Rabbi Lapin calls a dollar bill.
I don't fault anyone for being poor! But I think it's pretty simple to say that's not an ideal state to be in and, if possible, it would be better to be in a different state. The only path I see to getting there involves tending to yourself.
I'm not sure I share your perspective that if a person makes $1 selling something valuable to 1 person, they are moral but if they make $1 selling to 10m people they are now immoral unless they give that money to someone else without an exchange of value (charity). Doesn't make sense to me. Do rich people have a greater responsibility to fund things to improve the world? Why or why not? I think the answer relates more to our feelings and sense of "fairness" and less so with just math. At some, as you said, it becomes subjectively uncomfortable for a small number of people to control a large amount of wealth.
Good, because that's not what I said at all. :-) I was using the example of someone at one extreme who has no bandwidth for "helping others" (financially or otherwise), and someone at the other extreme who has a huge amount of bandwidth for "helping others." That "helping others" isn't "by selling them stuff." Point being, both extremes do exist, but the inflection point in the middle is fuzzy and squishy and hard to pin down even if you are being genuine about it.
Yes.
Be careful there; you're drifting into an extremely Amero-centric "Protestant Work Ethic" territory there, which is both myopic and harmful. :-)
If you work 60 hours a week to make ends meet, you get the "pride of doing work" but... have no capacity left for "tending to yourself." If someone in that situation isn't tending to themselves, it's frequently because they can't, because of systemic blockers in place that don't allow them that opportunity. For those who do have sufficient capacity to help others, addressing those systemic blockers so that others have the opportunity to do whatever self-work you're talking about is highly valuable. Not in a point-counting capitalist understanding of "value" but in a social-emotional sense of creating net-positive goodwill in the world. Which may indirectly have a 2nd or 3rd order effect of more capitalist-value down the line, but that is not the point or goal of it.
To turn to someone spending 60 hours a week barely making ends meet and say "you need to tend to yourself" is straight up victim blaming.
Also, Ayn Rand can bite me. :-P
But that's how the argument you're making can be interpreted. One activity done at scale changes the responsibilities to society by the nature of the scale? I'm not convinced. If a service is valuable and people wish to pay for it, why does it matter if they pay 1 time, 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times, etc...?
I'll flip this on its head and say to not help and encourage that person to obtain new skills (focus on themselves) so they can eventually work fewer hours and add more value to their community (i.e. get paid more) is worse. I think they would stay perpetually in a state of victimhood if they don't recognize the value of improving themselves and investing in themselves first instead of working like crazy for everyone else.
You can call that victim blaming if you want, but that mindset is what has broken every first generation rich person out of a state of having nothing to having much.
from a non-humanitarian, utilitarian point of view, I would say it it necessary to help yourself first; in fact only to help others when that help comes at little cost to yourself.
to make it clear though, helping friends and family (kith and kin, your in-group, your tribe) is helping yourself as a mutually supporting network. OTOH, that means being wary of helping people in your kith and kin group that never reciprocate help (or gratitude).
because once you start taking chunks out of yourself (time, energy, emotion, $), you are hurting yourself. if you make it a habit to pull chunks out of yourself, sooner or later there will be nothing left
and if you do have the extra resources to give, and feel the need to, why not?
just be careful
I think the is the human norm; most people are lazy. See any system where welfare is employed, and you'll see a large chunk of people (I really cant tell if it's a majority or a plurality) plop down into a cycle of dependence and resentment.
Instead, I suggest that people look to those that need help, and recruit those that are deserving into your tribe, making it clear that they are to reciprocate when they can; building them as humans to become needed by others in turn
Thanks! Great analysis. I do think tribes are a good approach, but I wonder how we can avoid the negative aspects of tribalism.
I usually say there are three kinds of things that screw up goverance; rent-seeking, do-gooding, and tribalism.
the first two always have negative effects...but tribalism can be good or bad. It just depends on the values of the tribe.
If you get a chance,check out "Forging The Hero" by John Mosby
http://warhammersixpress-com.3dcartstores.com/Forging-the-Hero-Who-Does-More-Is-Worth-More_p_12.html
I think there's the good selfish and bad selfish, bad selfish being your traditional greed and thinking of only yourself, good selfish being a carer taking a break from their dependent so they can breathe, meditate and reflect so that they are not setting themselves on fire to keep others warm.
Ultimately I think category 2 should be the focus, as a lack of category 2 can increase chances of those requiring category 1.
Even those who might be a potential recipient of category 1, they should endure the struggle for at least a little bit, while it might be a painful journey it could still be one worth going down for a life lesson, to realise that we're not going to starve to death if we don't eat that day, sleeping on the floor won't kill us. To care for them is to deprive them of a certain discomfort, and it might be that very discomfort that they need.
It can be a lot easier to prescribe category 1 than tough love, we should be mindful of this.
Well said. I know the times I lived on a boat because my parents lost the house due to financial struggles shaped my life in a good way.
I honestly think that we cannot help other effectively if we are not in peace with ourselves! We need to do good to other people, as well as nature, but at the same time we need to take care of us, one thing complements the other! :D
I personally have been through hard times lately (mental-wise). I’m not 100% fit yet, but I have committed hard-core into category 2. I usually am always happy and cheerful and I have plenty of spare energy to help others. But when I’m not in that shape, nothing but my close ones and I exist.
What i want to say is that I totally agree with you. When I’m fit I make everyone around me happy. And when I’m not I have to 100% commit into making myself happy again in order for me to make everyone else happy once more...if everyone followed this rule (while accepting me-time of others that need it) the world would be a different
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Curious, do you think if you focused on category 2 all the time (even when you are happy), could you a reach a more sustainable pace where category 1 stuff happened more easily and frequently? That, I think, is the hypothesis that I'm thinking through.
First I need one question answered. Why have you specifically said "physical needs" in category 1? I personally have kinda ignored that part and have envision mental needs for that’s what i help to heal.
So i have pondered about that a bit more. I think that i AM following the "ruling" of category 2. But as i said in reality I am happy vast majority of the time therefore that time to help others exists (but almost exclusively with the mental well-being of people rather than their physical needs.
That’s why I fully agree with you but my emotional rant may have misled you:). I am just weird due to the near permanent happiness - therefore categories 1 and 2 are kinda merged during the times when I am if you know what I mean.
I'm a category 2 thinker but it comes with empathy. I think the Golden rule found in every religion depicts this; do unto others, as you want them to do to you. If everyone applied this rule, we'd cut out like 90% of the wrongs in the society.
What do you think of what is called the "silver rule"?
I think I prefer it.
It sounds like the golden rule but with a positive reverse spin. At the end of the day, the most important thing is empathy and generally avoiding dickry
It comes in phases for me. I do some work on my self, then I try to use that to help or educate others. Then I eventually get stuck at some point, so I then go back to working on me.
Similar question for you that I asked here. What do you think? Is more time in category 2 create a sustainable way to do more of category 1 stuff even if it's not the focus?
Yes I do think that makes sense, but I also think opposite is true as well. It's possible to self reflect through being selfless, so I think it depends on the person, and their situation.
That all being said, I think the majority of people need a ton of category 2, because we have way to many misguided people causing more harm than good with their "helping". It's kind of like how the issue of feeding the world is not an issue of food production, but that our economic system says it's better throw away than giveaway food, because it costs us to giveaway and hurts profits. So I guess that needs more people working on #2, so they can see the value of feeding people over the cost of doing so, and then we can create a new system that reflects our new values.
Geez, i think I wrote myself in a circle with this one, but I'm gonna keep that as my answer. Basically it's complicated.
Coincidentally, I just wrote a post about how longboarding is my #2, which is why I do #1 by building community through longboarding. So cool to see we are each on the same vibe, in our own ways.
I think it is far wiser to help yourself first as it allows you to better help others. Isn't there a rule on planes where you secure your mask first, then assist others? I mean, if you can't breathe, how effective will the aid you offer really be?
And is tending to our own consciousness the breath of life?
Unrelated: did you ever do a post on the Steem/Hive stuff? I seem to remember seeing some comments and posts that were disappointing that seemed like support for Steem, even with where it was inevitably going. I mean no shame/guilt, I'm just curious how your own thinking evolved over time and how transparent you were on that process. Thanks.
In my own opinion, I really don't care who I am going to help as long that I am showing mercy and compassion to the person who really need help. Beside, as a Christian, God will judge me for the good things that I do whether other people trick me for something that I do not know if they do is right or wrong?
But what if there is no god? Who defines your Christian God for you? I have some experience with this stuff and from my own story, it was only later that I realized how much of that story was being dictated by others.
If there is no ultimate cosmic judge (and that certainly is a comforting believe there is one!) then it directly matters if you are tricked because the harm caused is real all the same.
But yes, mercy, compassion, all good stuff.
If there is no God, who created everything? How can you explain the water and air and even your life or blood? I have my basis about God and creations that others don't have...
All the good things that we do are by the God's will and guidance of his angels.
Not good to the others who can read this because sounds weird and OA, but this is the fact. This is our purpose on earth, to please God... ☺️
We're monkeys on a rock, so where do you get this sense of entitlement of knowing all the answers to life? Just because we don't know, there must be God?
I think that helping others is not good for them, only in an extreme case is good help others. I mean if you don't know how to solve a problem and i solve it for you. You don't learn how to deal with problems, indeed the only thing that you can learn is that in case of trouble you can delegate your problems to somebody else. And it is not good for you, instead it is good for me, because i can improve my skills. So while i'm improving you are remaining at the same level.
So for me if you want to help others, don't help them directly but maybe give them some advice and let them solve their problem them self.