Confusion

 

Even great moral thinkers like Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager get it wrong sometimes. I just saw an online snippet where an interviewer asked Jordan what makes people unhappy, and he replied that the more you focus on yourself, the more unhappy you will be. He blames postmodernism and capitalist consumerism, but he chides people to not pursue their basic appetites, to be satisfied right now, saying that is what a 2-year-old does.

 

My complaint is that these moral giants failed to uncover the undetected paradox operative in most moral theory, that people that are narcissistic, self-absorbed, selfish, and seeking base pleasure in line with their base appetites to be immediately gratified: they are miserable, unpleasant sinners because they are self-satisfying and self-interested, rather than self-denying and other-interested. Only selfless young people serving others find happiness.

 

The truth, which I have uncovered (perhaps Ayn Rand too), is that people  are miserable, unpleasant sinners because they are group-oriented and other-centered, and that is in line with their basic evil natures. To be other-centered is to be filled with hate, and self-haters are selfish and self-indulgent people.

 

To be a person of enlightened self-interest, who is fulfilling and developing one’s talent, ability and moral and spiritual goodness, is to be the person whose life is happy, filled with meaning, gratitude, love and unselfishness.

 

Jordan Peterson is for moral responsibility, individualism and free will, but his not recognizing this paradox at work, makes him self-contradictory by being pro-individualistic at the same time that he believes people are self-centered and that is the source of evil in the world, and that is how they become miserable.

 

Dennis Prager is just as confused and self-contradictory: on his happiness hour today, he pointed out that people that are self-referential are unhappy. This is morally equivalent to what Peterson said above.

 

Prager loves individualism and loves liberty, but he too thinks, like Peterson that people are not basically good (they are not), and that self-interest is selfish and evil, and other-interest is noble and good.

 

I listened to one of Prager’s Dennis and Julie shows last night, and Prager vigorously denounced the very common ambition—very common in America--in teenagers and young adults to work to become famous. Prager warned that seeking fame ruins many, many young lives. I fear he is equating seeking fame with selfishness and self-interest, so that makes young people selfish, ergo miserable failures.

 

I would alter that from seeking fame to personally, in the young, seeking to self-realize. This requires very hard work, self-discipline, and self-sacrifice in the name of finding and serving one’s life’s telos, self-actualizing for a lifetime. That is what young people need to get after, and if fame comes, fine, and if not, fine.

 

Seeking fame is a group status game, and is based on personal insecurity, whereas self-esteem is raised based upon personal merit and accomplishment as one self-realizes over the decades.

 

Both Prager and Peterson are altruists that are moderate, value capitalism, free will, liberty and individualism, but they are still too altruistic to suit me.