Altruist And Egoist Poem by gershon hepner

ALTRUIST AND EGOIST

Beware of every altruist.

Because he wishes to convert
the other to be just

like him, he's liable to hurt
all people who will trust

him, and is thus a greater danger
than someone thinking only

of himself, and both a stranger
to others, and not holy,

not someone who thinks all should be
like him, as is quite willing

for others to do what they see
as for themselves fulfilling,

and like him be an egoist.

Javier Marías, in Table Talk, Threepenny Review, Summer2012, writes (translated by Margaret Jull Costa) about the advantages of the egoist over the altruist:

And that is the perhaps the great advantage of the egotist: his or her capacity to observe without any obligation to feel pity. It is said of altruistic people that they are capable of putting themselves in other people's shoes and of understanding their needs, but this can inevitably give rise to a high degree of confusion: the altruist-who is deep down a stickler for the rules—ends up believing that everyone's desires and needs are the same, and thus performs a kind of leveling process, the effect of which is to make those individuals replace their possible previous desires with others that the person consider to be universal….The egoist is one of the few people who is not trying to convert or save anyone, and is, therefore, one of the few capable of seeing the truth.


6/9/12 #10464