Pathological altruism
The left derives its sense of moral authority from the supposition that its intentions are altruistic and its opponents’ are selfish. That sense of moral superiority makes it easy to justify immoral behavior, like slandering critics of President Obama as racist–or using the power of the Internal Revenue Service to suppress them. It seems entirely plausible that the Internal Revenue Service officials who targeted and harassed conservative groups thought they were doing their patriotic duty. If so, what a perfect example of pathological altruism.
Oakley concludes by noting that “during the twentieth century, tens of millions [of] individuals were killed under despotic regimes that rose to power through appeals to altruism.” An understanding that altruism can produce great evil as well as good is crucial to the defense of human freedom and dignity.
sent it to you a long time ago
Jun 19, 2013
not only did i send you the facts, the information, but also a link to the pdf…
moonbattery ran with it, you ignored it.
http://moonbattery.com/?p=31851
here is the PDF
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/06/04/1302547110.full.pdf
and here is the WSJ article i sent
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324688404578545523824389986.html
James Taranto gives an obvious example:
Universities altruistically established admissions standards that discriminated in favor of minorities, a policy that proved pathological because underqualified minority students struggled to succeed and even qualified ones face the stigma of being assumed to be “affirmative action” beneficiaries.
note that the DOJ has told the schools to ignore the supreme court… so my son had to give up his honors degrees in STEM genetics as no one wanted him so he could not finish his degrees… they only wanted women, minorities, and gays i guess… why not ask holder?
anyway…
been there done that..
jan to oct…
timely…
🙂
sorry..jun to oct.. not jan
Don’t they mean hypocrisy, not altruism?
“…the influence of biological factors on personality, arising in part from fears that such knowledge somehow would diminish human altruistic motivations. Such fears always have proven unfounded.”
This is a bit disingenuous. The fear has been that if a correlation were found between individual metrics (IQ testing, presence of “gay” genes, etc.) and behavior, that it would be misused. It might even be misused in the case of real markers with only imaginary correlation to behaviors.
This is the history of the eugenics movement in the 20th century, and has obviously caused a lot of real harm. This is the history of racism.
I don’t think the critics of such testing had altruism in mind when they were opposing it.
That said, my belief is that “the truth is the truth, no matter where it leads.” So the inquiries should be made.
I have heard a superb lecture, entitled Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century, on this subject, available on CD or DvD from The Great Courses company. Worth every penny.
You gotta love this example of pathological altruism at work:
“Ostensibly well-meaning governmental policy promoted home ownership, a beneficial goal that stabilizes families and communities. The government-sponsored enterprises Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae allowed less-than-qualified individuals to receive housing loans and encouraged more-qualified borrowers to overextend themselves. Typical risk—reward considerations were marginalized because of implicit government support. The government used these agencies to promote social goals without acknowledging the risk or cost. When economic conditions faltered, many lost their homes or found themselves with properties worth far less than they originally had paid. Government policy then shifted . . . the cost of this “altruism” to the public, to pay off the too-big-to-fail banks then holding securitized subprime loans. . . . Altruistic intentions played a critical role in the development and unfolding of the housing bubble in the United States.”
Yesiree Bob; now that does ring a bell, doesn’t it?
(From Taranto last June; H/T to art, despite the invective he aimed at the hostess).
BTW, this reminds me of Asimov’s Foundation series. There was a “1st” Foundation that focused on preserving scientific/technological knowledge, but later in the series we discovered a hidden “2nd” Foundation, whose expertise was limited to mental powers, like domination…the power of overriding free will.
Set far in the future, there were all sorts of technological wonders like starships and FTL drives. But the 2nd Foundation saw to it that the exploration of mental disciplines/metrics for the rest of the galaxy had never advanced beyond the EKG.
@carl in atlanta
She seems to have nailed it. She managed to avoid all the bullshit excuses for the market crash given by the left.
The idea that they were intending to benefit anyone else other than themselves, is strictly and totally wrong.
I believe it was Eric Hobsbawn, a British marxist, who said that all the killing would have been worth it if communism had been successful. People like that are sick.
Great article. Kind of sheds light on the uneasy feelings I get with people that “care” too much. My neighbor lady “cares” so much for her dogs that they’re all fat as hell from people food and are living more miserable lives because of it. But I guarantee she’s certain it’s love and compassion.
History of “altruistic” movements reads so: noble cause is the bait on which evil politicians enlist useful idiots in their hunt for money and power. This is the history of communism, Nazism, Greenpeace and all “progressive” movement since Great French revolution. Medieval heresies were this type phenomena, too.
(Full disclosure, I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker) IMO we all share a certain arrogance in being “right” and presenting our opinions as such. Who has not entered a debate without thinking that his/her position was correct and an opponent’s was in error. I suggest that where the left becomes psycotic (in the clinical sense of impaired contact with reality) is that they extend this premise to a false logic: If our position is moral, right and just (which we know it is), then our adversaries are immoral, wrong and unjust.
IOW, an adversary is not just another point of view but metaphysically a dark force that must be conquered at any and all costs.
I offer as evidence Obama’s own descriptions of his opponents, be they Republicans holding America hostage, rednecks clinging to their guns and religion or police acting stupidly.
One of the benefits of dehumanization is that it makes it psychologically easier to order people and have them obey commands to kill.
There is less of a psychological cost for people who think they are stepping on ants, when executing humans. On the other hand, people who are told to kill their family members or loved ones, will have an extremely high resistance value to that command and usually cannot be made to obey absent some strong leverage.
The Left claims themselves as being atheists or non religious, but if you look at how their belief system is constructed it is basically a kind of fanaticism and zealotry, as bad as anything you ever saw from the old days.
Altruism(Cough, Gag..!!)of the Left: Kolyma, Vorkuta, Magadan, Lubyanka, Lefortovo, Great Leap Forward, Killing Fields, etc, etc..
100+Million last century to the gods of the Radical Left. 30-million starved in the Communist Terror Famine of ’57-’59 in China alone.
Givers is what they is. Givers.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
There are literally several thousand years of wisdom in that little proverb and many others like it, yet unless someone writes a sciency sounding article on “Pathological Altruism” all that wisdom is ignored these days. There’s a down side to children not getting an education in morals and ethics through religious training and in the schools.
I find it amusing that altruism’s dark side is described in the article as “an innovative idea” that “could revolutionize … social thought” when Ayn Rand railed extensively against altruism over 50 years ago (though IMHO, she went too far and made a caricature bogeyman of the concept, but let’s not get sidetracked).
Here’s a reasonably good definition of the term:
altruism: the principle or practice of unselfish concern for the welfare of others
Among other things, Rand argued that altruism-based morality focuses on who benefits from a specific act rather than carefully analyzing the overall consequences of the act. I believe she was correct in this, and whether or not someone has an “unselfish concern for the welfare of others” is no way to judge the moral quality of their actions. And yet the PR job for altruism has been so effective almost no one questions it. Hence the need to define a special term, “Pathological Altruism,” the assumption being that plain altruism is inherently good.
Of course we should be suspicious of a policy or act proposed by someone who is apt to benefit from it–though by itself, this is not sufficient reason to dismiss it. On the other hand, it’s absurd to automatically look favorably upon some policy or act simply because the person endorsing it seems to have nothing to gain from it or allegedly is doing it only out of “unselfish concern for the welfare of others.” The policy or act should be evaluated based on its own merits–the effects and repercussions it engenders–not the supposedly noble intentions of those who back it.
Are people seriously claiming that Democrats are unselfish and desire to benefit others through self sacrifice?
What was that thing one cannonfodder said, that they didn’t expect to be paying for the healthcare they think others should have?
Ymarsakar, 12:46 am — “Are people seriously claiming that Democrats are unselfish and desire to benefit others through self sacrifice?”
Well, heck, Ymarsakar, they’ll give you the shirt off someone else’s back.
“”Are people seriously claiming that Democrats are unselfish and desire to benefit others through self sacrifice?””
Ymarsakar
Not the ones in power. But they’ve hoodwinked millions of voters/supporters into thinking exactly that. Mostly they’ve done it by using a corrupt media that 24/7 demonizes any opposition to themselves, to the point that many people only see a choice between incompetent democrats and those mean, selfish and uncaring bastards.
But they’ve hoodwinked millions of voters/supporters into thinking exactly that.
So the occupy crowd and the regular Democrat voters are full of charity, good will, and self sacrifice instead?
If that was true, why are they making others pay taxes to pay for the things they want? Why don’t they liquidate their assets, go do missionary work in Africa, or give it all to charity and the poor?
“The left derives its sense of moral authority from the supposition that its intentions are altruistic and its opponents’ are selfish. That sense of moral superiority makes it easy to justify immoral behavior, like slandering critics of President Obama as racist—or using the power of the Internal Revenue Service to suppress them…”
That is the Left to a T.
The Left is self-righteous, smug, self-satisfied and bloated with pride.
In ages past, the slightest examination of conscience would show them how wrong and sinful they are. But this is not ages past, is it?
The source of the problem is irrelegion. There is no God, and so no sin. If no sin, then the Leftist can do no wrong, and everything it does is right. If there is sin, it is for anyone who does not see it that way.
The Left is a mass of insanity, immorality and contradiction.
But you’ll never convince even the first one that they are on the road to hell, however understood, and are dragging everyone down there with them.
Without a God as ultimate authority, they raise a Deus Ex Machina, a man made God.
For what else was Obama hailed as a messiah?
MJR wrote:
Well, heck, Ymarsakar, they’ll give you the shirt off someone else’s back.
This shows the nasty, “pathological” side of altruism:
1) People advocating policies that are generous with other people’s money can still claim to be unselfishly concerned about the welfare of others–so long as they don’t personally benefit (though quite often they do, in subtle, hard-to-trace ways).
2) And for the people whose money is confiscated to pay for such policies: hey, look on the bright side: we’ve given you the opportunity to be nobly altruistic. You should thank us!
BTW, I am so sick of the following kind of argument (from the article), the cause of which is relevant to “pathological altruism”:
Note what’s missing here: the blatant “pathological” unfairness to the white, Asian or other non-approved minority students who were discriminated against in order to make room for “underqualified minority students.” Evidently they don’t count in the moral calculus of such arguments.
This is an insidious, indirect effect of altruism. One is only permitted to criticize the policy in terms of its negative effects on the minority students it was intended to help. To do otherwise might show concern for oneself or one’s children–which is not allowed since altruism demands “unselfish concern for the welfare of others.” Thus the warped moral accounting of such arguments which intentionally ignore the wrongs done to an entire group of victims, tossing their plight down the memory hole.
At least here we can appreciate the rich irony of an article about “pathological altruism” falling prey to its subject by unwittingly serving up an argument based on “pathological altruism”!
Dr. Schoeck wrote a book on envy and pointed out that altruism is a manifestation of envy. Altruism is vice masquerading as virtue.
The ook is here.
http://www.amazon.com/ENVY-A-Theory-Social-Behaviour/dp/0865970645
Gary, sounds more like human sacrifice from the Aztecs. A somewhat different brand of self sacrifice than altruism, since I’ve never heard them called such
At least here we can appreciate the rich irony of an article about “pathological altruism” falling prey to its subject by unwittingly serving up an argument based on “pathological altruism”!
I think the article is actually excusing and fronting for Democrat causes. “Pathological altruism” hints that if the altruism wasn’t pathological, it would go a different way.
But do people here seriously think the Demoncrats and their Leftist money launderers are going to develop real charity, lose their selfishness, and get back on “altruism”? They’ve never Been on that road to begin with. The article seems to be trying to push the agenda that if it was only “not” pathological, that it would be slightly different or better.
But these guys aren’t going to change.
To clarify, by article I mean Oakley’s referenced sources and quotes in the link.
“”“Pathological altruism” hints that if the altruism wasn’t pathological, it would go a different way.””
Yamarsakar
It would. It’s called being good and it goes on all the time to the benefit of everyone on the planet. These acts mostly fly under media’s radar because the persons doing beneficial altruism don’t have the dysfunctional need to be pointed out or recognized for it.
The Left does not allow the good to exist. There in lies the contradiction.