Egoism And Pleasure

Many proponents of psychological egoism state that each person is motivate by seeking his own gain, which he finds pleasurable, and avoiding the uncomfortable, which pains him.

I am a psychological altruist who has always believed that people are passionate, irrational, selfless and self-destructive. In that way I assert that they are motivated by seeking their own loss, which they find pleasurable and preferable in a sick twisted way, over seeking their own gain, which should be pleasurable to them, but that causes them pain and disapproval of such beneficial aims.

This is why this talk of pleasure and pain is a necessary one, but is almost impossible to sort out in any exact, precise fashion. Educated approximations of definition are as close as we can come.

Yet , in another, contradictory way, it seems as if, at least at first glance, that people are psychological egoists, seeking pleasure as good, and avoiding pain as bad.

People like living, sex, ice cream, gambling taking it easy.  They do not like dying, hurting, spinach, saving money, and working hard.

People will dump anyone that the group disowns. They will hang out with boring, rotten or unpleasant people if the group grants them high social status. They will  throw under the bus, any nonconformist, independent thinker or great soul that has no social prestige, adding nothing to the popularity ranking of the joiner, and can even cause him to lose all social standing should he insist on standing by and with the great soul, spurned by the committee. These people are selfish and seek  their own interests first, so it seems to be evidence favoring that people are innate psychological egoists.

The pleasure that these people seek is irrational, excessive (fanatical), groupist and typical of nonindividuated persons that group-live. The pleasure that they seek is not good for them, and the pain that they avoid is often ennobling and character-building for them.

The individuator is rather logical, temperate and prudent. He will purse pleasures that are harmless to others and himself, or that contribute to the well-being of the community and himself. He will endure and wrap his arms around pains that are his duty, obligation, self-sacrifice or his self-disciplining  now for future growth and character building attributes.

Another thought about pleasure: if an individual were a self-realizer, very conscious, very knowledgeable,  very wise and very in touch with the truth (able to easily and clearly distinguish between reality and fantasy and true versus false statements), he will know what is in reality and pleasure and what in reality is painful. He will know what pleasure to pursue, and which one to flee. He will know what pain to embrace, and which pain to toss into the trash bin. he will also have calibrated what degree of participation in any pleasure or pain is in conformity to the natural law of moderation.

The liar, the nonindivduator, the wicked person and the self-deluded person will not be alert enough or sage enough to know truth from falsehood, reality from fantasy. Being group-livers, a woven, bewildering cesspit of games, competition and deceits, over time as they grow in slavery, corruption, hatred and falsehood,  they lose their aptitude for differentiating between good pain and bad pain and good pleasure versus bad pleasure, and how much to indulge in any of these.