When people call you “selfish”, they’re trying to intimidate you into doing what they believe you should do.
Failing to do what THEY want you to do, they say, is selfish — and therefore automatically and always bad.
So, what happens if you do what they want you to do? It makes THEM happy. But isn’t this selfish of them, to intimidate you into doing what they want you to do?
Let’s say I want $1000. You have $1000, and I don’t. “Don’t be selfish,” I say. “Give me $1000. You have the money; and I don’t.” OK. Let’s say you give in. “I shouldn’t be selfish,” you think. “ANYTHING is better than being selfish. So I’ll give it to you.”
I now have my money. And I’m happy. It pleased MYSELF, selfishly, to get that money from you. I shamed you into it. But if it was morally wrong of you to keep that money and be selfish, isn’t it just as wrong for me to keep the money, and selfishly enjoy it?
Always be wary when a family member, a friend, a religious person, or a politician tells you not to be selfish.
Shaming is their game … and the accusation of “selfish” is their most potent weapon. It’s more powerful than gulags, guns, armies, or mobs of irrational socialists. Those things are powerful, but the shaming is the means through which they never, ever get held accountable for their evil. Because nobody wants to be the “selfish” one to say, “You’re bad, and you’re wrong.”
Today, the issue is all around us. “Don’t be selfish. Wear the goddammed mask!”
What if the mask doesn’t work? And if the mask DOES work, then aren’t you already safe by choosing to wear one? Your mask keeps the germs out, right? And if your mask doesn’t keep the germs out, then how will mine?”
“That’s not the point,” we’re told in a foaming-at-the-mouth response. “The point is not to be selfish.”
The vast majority of people caved, on masks. Even post-vaccine, we’re told, “You still have to wear masks, because the vaccine won’t be enough to stop the virus. But you better get the vaccine — or else!”
Everywhere I look, I see compliance. ANYTHING is better than being shamed by a minority of people who are control freaks, “Karens”, sociopaths, narcissistic twits who would never, ever have achieved anything of value in any other way.
Now the powers that be — nearly all of them sociopaths and narcissists — realize they can get away with anything. “People will wear masks in order not to be selfish. So we can get them to do all kinds of things, in order not to be selfish.” Like what? Well, lockdowns that are permanent, as they are now in most states. (There are no plans to reopen, and you will not ever see reopening, in most states.) And gun confiscation, which has already begun, including in my own state of Delaware — where they won’t even pay you to hand over the guns. They’re saying (and legislating), “Hand over the guns in 90 days. If you don’t, you’re a felon.” They’ve started with “ghost guns” (guns without serial numbers), and they will move up the chain until all weapons of self-protection (including from the government) are gone.
There’s literally no end to what people can be coerced to do … when they’re afraid of being called selfish. Prove me wrong. Show me noncompliance, show me justified anger, show me even small acts of disobedience. You cannot find any. And the reason is: shaming.
If you stop being afraid of being called selfish, and you start seeing the self-refuting contradiction and inherent injustice in the whole catastrophe of our era, the game of the tyrants and nutjobs is over. There can be no manipulation in your personal relationships, and there can be no tyranny with your government, if you stop apologizing for being “selfish”.
At least, not without a major, major fight. And I’d much rather see fighting than the placid, fearful and morally pale compliance spreading — like the worst form of cancer — throughout our once vibrant, free society.
Fear of being called “selfish” is a far greater virus than any COVID germ could ever hope to be.
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