The Entirety of Self

There's this thing people constantly do where they think they're talking about the same things, when in fact they're talking about radically different things, and nobody notices because those things exist as part of vast constellations of meaning that have been kind-of-normalized against subjective reference points that people mistakenly believe are objective.

That is, people use words differently, and don't notice because they're using so many words differently that what they're saying still makes sense from the perspective of everyone else.

But occasionally you run into situations where it seems like somebody is talking utter nonsense with conviction. At this point I'm no longer certain there are actually any people who speak nonsense with (true) conviction, in spite of how convinced I was of this when I was younger. Now I think they're saying something meaningful that simply doesn't translate.

One of these nuggets of meaning is when certain people talk about Self.

So, to begin with: You know that thing people talk about, when they talk about how death is tragic, because an entire universe, or a perspective of a universe, dies with each person? Related SMBC comic that might help explain. Sometimes, when people talk about "Self", they're referring to that entire universe; this appears to be particularly common in Buddhist-adjacent perspectives.

This is actually a pretty neat way to look at the world, when you start examining it, and realize what it means for interpersonal relationships; if I treat "Self" as the entire sphere of my experience, then that means that other people, or at least the way I perceive, mentally model, and consider them, are actually part of my "Self".

"Hang on," an imaginary interlocutor might say, "this just seems like sleight of hand to redefine 'Self' in a less instrumentally useful way in order to prioritize a less individualistic view of society". And, no. We don't actually need to employ the word 'Self' for this purpose - we can instead describe one's personal subjective environment. Or, poetically, we can describe it as a personal universe.

The words don't particularly matter, the useful thing to draw from this perspective is the realization that the universe is, in fact, personal, and that everything we experience happens within our own heads; every triumph and every defeat. You see somebody who looks sad, and, if you have a good model of other people, you feel a bit of that sadness, through your model of them. This sad person exists entirely inside your mind, without actual respect to what the "real" other person is experiencing; maybe the real person is acting, or just has a resting sad face. Or maybe they actually are sad; the point is that your experience of their sadness exists inside you, independent of their emotional state.

More, your personal universe has an extent in time; you have expectations about the future, memories of the past.

So when some people talk about “Self”, they’re talking about this big enormous thing that is everything they experience, that actually includes other people, or at least their models of other people. And they’re not actually wrong.

But neither are the people who talk about “Self” to refer to the thing in the middle of all of that. The point isn’t that anybody is wrong - the point is that the people who talk about “Self” in a way that includes other people have something interesting to say about what it means to be selfish, or selfless.

“Oh. Oh shit.” Yeah. Man is a social animal. Still think Ayn Rand is a terrible human being with terrible ideas? Go back and read her again. “Wait, what? No, she clearly didn’t include other people in her concept of self, the entire book is about how you shouldn’t have to care about other people!” Go back and read her again. "No."

Okay, go read Karl Marx. Das Kapital is an objectivist criticism of feudal capitalism. “No it isn’t.” Go read it. Read what Karl Marx thought of the welfare classes. “To each according to their need!” Marx didn't write that. "Yes he did! It's right there in ..." Yeah. Right there in what? In a criticism of - what? He wrote it, yeah, but he didn't originate it, and his commentary on it amounts to a point that it cannot be achieved without a list of prerequisites, one of which is "after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want". Life's prime want. You want to work. You're not forced to work; you want to work, it's something that brings you joy, brings you happiness. "From each according to their ability", in this context, is not a suggestion you extract anything from anybody, it's a natural byproduct of people wanting to work.

"Okay, but, again, to each according to their need!" Sure; that, again, is a byproduct of people wanting to work. When people want to work, when they enjoy working, there's going to be plenty of excess to go around. And there is no welfare class; they're working, too, and like everybody else, so productively that there is an endless excess. The fundamental criticism Marx has of feudal capitalism is, when you get down to it, alienation. Alienation is the central theme of Atlas Shrugged; in the same sense that we can say Das Kapital is an objectivist critique of feudal capitalism, Atlas Shrugged is a Marxist critique of the then-modern capitalism. This is neither accident, nor coincidence.

"Okay, whatever, this is dumb and you're just twisting words around to mean anything."

Words don't mean anything on their own. But the idea that they mean something on their own, that I could twist around, is a useful fiction when you don’t want to engage with an idea. Seriously: Go read Ayn Rand. Isn’t it weird how, in a story about selfishness, the central characters will do anything for one another? Seems kind of … selfless.

Look at the selflessness of her villains, by contrast; look at their behavior, look at how their evil manifests. They don’t care about themselves - and they don’t care about anyone else, either. Why, in Ayn Rand’s book, does selfishness look like selflessness? Because those are the same things. And caring about yourself, and caring about other people, are also the same things. Why does selflessness look like evil? Because when “Self” includes other people, when it is Selfish to take pleasure in the joy of others, selflessness is not a purpose so much a void, an empty hole where values should live.

Watch: It’s selfish to do something that benefits yourself. With me so far? Good. It’s selfish to do something that benefits your close friends and relatives. Did I lose you? You have $1,000, and you can choose between giving it to your daughter, and a stranger you’ve never met; is it selfish to give it to your daughter instead of a stranger? It’s selfish to do something that benefits the people you care about. It’s selfish to do anything at all that causes anybody who lives in your universe to live better lives. That is the “Self” which “Selfish” refers to, that’s literally how we fucking use it, every day. That concept of “selflessness”, of “altruism”, that black pit of misery, that is what Atlas Shrugged is railing against.

All you’ve got to do is notice that everybody you know, and have ever known, live entirely inside your head. Self. How wonderful and inclusive a concept.

“Okay, you’re just being annoying, and you’re eroding a very useful word.”

Is it useful? Really? What exactly does it distinguish between? The thing you use “self” to refer to is an imaginary concept, a character walking around a fantasy universe of your own devising. Your “self” is the protagonist of your story, but all the characters in that story inhabit the same universe. If you’re a particularly average person, you don’t even track separate mental states for all those characters, and you think that if you’re angry, all the characters are angry. If you’re a particularly above-average person, you can track separate mental states for all the characters.

But hey, why are you sad when that character is sad?

Because that character is you.

But no, actually, the word “Self” IS useful; the concept is useful, because otherwise I have to substitute in this complicated structure in which I talk about “Self” as the protagonist, instead. But the ambiguity isn’t a problem, and it doesn’t erode anything; indeed, it’s a useful ambiguity, as I hope this article may help to demonstrate.

But pay attention to how somebody is using it. Because otherwise somebody will say it is selfish to do something that helps somebody you love, and you may not notice the sleight of hand that is taking place.