Egoists vs second-handers

Even the most sanely selfish actions can be undertaken for all the wrong reasons. Another example: healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle, as part of personal development, is an inherently selfish choice, and yet, normal people manage to do it for all the wrong reasons, namely, for others.

Recall the best scene of The Book, where Keating announces his wife that he wants to erect a house “of his own”. (By the way, the best scene of We The Living is the one where Kira goes to see a Soviet picture with Andrei.)

Rational, selfish, and growing human beings make healthy lifestyle choices for themselves. Normal people, if they do so, do so for others:

• as a way of controlling others, the worst second-hander being the one who seeks power over others, in randian terminology, or in my own, because in their personal development they are still in the baby-stage in which they are unable to grok the difference between human beings and toys, since making “good” choices gives them a sort of superiority on others, and gives them excuses for forcing their lifestyle upon others;
• to appear good or interesting in the eyes of others, since normal people have no respect for themselves, they value what others think above what they think themselves (or again, check Aunt Ayn's crystal clear explanation in The Book).

2008-11-07