To Serve Others

 

I was doing errands this morning and I heard a Christian ad for a charity on talk radio, and the gist of the message is that we are born to serve others, not have others serve us.

 

Ayn Rand would have a real problem with that message, and I object to it too, more than not.

 

Rational egoists like Rand and me think the individual is ethical when he is pursuing his own interests, and, I argue that, if his interest of for self-development through self-discipline is his telos that is a gift back to God, and indirectly benefits all, then that primary goal for his life is honorable and without need of amending.

 

How can the egoistic motive being reconciled with the altruist-collectivist Christian ethics that one is to serve others, and not be served oneself? Before I attempt to answer that, I would suggest that Rand would translate serving others as giving up or sacrificing one’s life to serve others, and she would regard that as an immoral plan. She would advise others not to serve one either, for that is their sacrificing their moral duty to pursue their own interest for the sake of sacrificing themselves for one, and that service, when undertaken, makes one a parasite or mooch.

 

These conflict moral motives require finessing. It could be that there is, in an emergency, a time of war—a just war for one’s nation—or someone requiring much assistance and support, that is is one’s duty to serve others. Most of the time, though, if most all sane, healthy, employed, smart adults were taught to maverize, almost all of society would be populated by people so industrious, composed, developed, prosperous and inventive and fiercely independent, that the false choice to give one’s life in service to others or to have other serve one, becomes irrelevant.

 

That is how I answer this conflict. Where, an egoist needs to serve, and the cause is just, he should do so unstintingly, and maybe by losing his life, or caring for an invalid family member for 40 years, but none of this excuses him from actualizing his telos, his self-interest that is his life quest.