The Truth of Self-Interest

I have been reading an article entitled 'Nice People' written by Bertrand Russell and which was first published in 1931. In the article Bertrand says, "To be a nice person, it is necessary to be protected from crude contact with reality, and those who do the protecting cannot be expected to share the niceness that they preserve."

“The chief characteristic of nice people is the laudable practice of improvement upon reality. God made the world, but nice people feel that they could have done the job better.”

“In general, nice people leave the policing of the world to hirelings because they feel the work to be not such as a person who is quite nice would wish to undertake.”

Bertrand's observations seem to suggest that the definition of a nice person could be that of a person whose perception of reality has been hijacked or distorted by another (and usually by one whose virtues would not fall under the category of nice). 

A question that would undoubtedly be beneficial for all new parents or guardians to ask of themselves would be, ‘is it a blessing or the seeds of a nightmare that I am bestowing, as I set out to define and to further shape an infant’s first impressions of the world?’ To an extent that an infant is willing to trust and to bend to the authority of another, is an infant’s ability to discern a truth of reality from fabrication impaired in that instant.

One of the inevitable consequences of the creation of a nice person is that such a person is blinkered to and unable to engage fully in life, as to do so would challenge the foundations on which their perception of themselves and of the world has been based.  

It is likely to prove a struggle for them to assume full responsibility for their choices and consequences of their actions; there will effectively be a disconnect between their emotional centre and reason - logic will seem to make sense and it undoubtedly will, from the confines of reality from which it has emerged. Not only can this be a tragedy for the experience of life of a nice person but for all those whose lives they touch as well. 

Even on the pretext of being a good parent or guardian and of acting in the best interest of another, what an act of shaming does is to effectively take charge of a person’s navigation instrument; it is through the mechanism of suggestion and in the presence of fear that a framework is established by which a person is consigned to live in the shadows of themselves and to be perpetually striving for the light – and not just for themselves but for all of humanity, which in a context of morality is in dire need of restoration.

Bertrand points to the presence of what appears to be an unwillingness to apprehend truth and its conflation with morality and virtue when he says, “Whoever invented the phrase ‘the naked truth’ had perceived an important connection. Nakedness is shocking to all right-minded people, and so is truth. It matters little with what department you are concerned; you will soon find that truth is such as nice people will not admit into their consciousness … England has brought to perfection the almost invisible and half-unconscious control of everything unpleasant by means of feelings of decency.

At most times the politicians of all parties tacitly combine to prevent anything damaging to the profession from getting known, for difference of party usually does less to divide politicians than identity of profession does to unite them. In this way nice people are able to preserve their fancy picture of the nation’s great men, and school children can be made to believe that eminence is to be achieved only by the highest virtue.”

Bertrand points out that what exists is not only a perversion of truth in the name of morality, but a deliberate pursuit of and maintaining of self-interest as well. He continues to say, “There are, it is true, exceptional times when politics become really bitter, and at all times there are politicians who are not considered sufficiently respectable to belong to the informal trade union … in our own day Communists in Europe and extreme Radicals and labour agitators in America are outside the pale; no large body of nice people admires them, an if they offend against the conventional code they can expect no mercy. In this way the immovable moral convictions of nice people become linked with the defence of property, and thus once more prove their inestimable worth.”

It is interesting that humanity has established some form of hierarchy of morality and truth, meaning for instance that it is possible for an appearance of self-interest in one particular guise to be judged or deemed as being more or less virtuous than another. The basis of the framework of morality is one of justification. 

It doesn’t matter whether an expression of interest of an individual resides in protecting personal wealth and power in the world or of protecting the soul from a vision of sin and of eternal torment, what underpins any concealment of reality or perception of truth is always an element of fear.

This type of fear is not natural to life and can only emerge from incoherence and learned behaviour. The mechanism of self-interest doesn’t want to see reality as it is but as it would prefer it to be and it will go to great lengths to preserve a status quo. As the saying goes, ‘the first casualty of war is truth’.

Bertrand gives an example of how thinking and logic can be distorted so as to justify and preserve a person’s perception of reality when he says, “Nice people very properly suspect pleasure whenever they see it. They know that he that increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow, and they infer that he that increaseth sorrow increaseth wisdom. They therefore feel that in spreading sorrow they are spreading wisdom; since wisdom is more precious than rubies, they are justified in feeling that they are conferring a benefit in so doing.”

It may be true that the presence of self-interest persists and conspires to stand in the way of reason being able to illuminate a person’s perception of the world and of the nature of their relationships; perhaps all is not lost however, as the capacity for intelligence and passage of life is not easily deceived or defeated or else it would be that we would not acquire wisdom.

Bertrand finishes his article with, “The day of nice people, I fear, is nearly over; two things are killing it. The first is the belief that there is no harm in being happy, provided no one else is the worse for it; the second is the dislike of humbug, a dislike which is quite as much aesthetic as moral. Both these revolts were encouraged by the War, when the nice people in all countries were securely in control, and in the name of the highest morality induced the young to slaughter one another. When it was all over the survivors began to wonder whether lies and misery inspired by hatred constituted the highest virtue. I am afraid it may be some time before they can again be induced to accept this fundamental doctrine of every really lofty ethic.”

Bertrand seems to suggest that an infiltration of reason and its ensuing gifts of wisdom manage to advance gradually into a person’s state of consciousness; that this occurs from a combination of exposure to contending theories of reality and of what works; and that this is a natural expression of consciousness as well as of any evolution of who and what we are as human beings.

Something to contemplate at this juncture is the seeming paradox of reality of one will that is expressing in the midst of the many – as resolvable as of the nature of humanity being defined as consisting of individual beings and experience as well as the presence of a collective or hive mind of which we might only be catching a glimpse infrequently; in moments of inspiration and genius.