The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and @amazon.com

I just talked to my father. He's making me quit the play at Henley Hall.

Acting is everything to me. He's planning the rest of my life for me and I. He's never asked me what I want. I know what I'll say. He'll tell me that acting's a whim and I should forget it. Just tell me to put it out of my mind for my own good.

Did a parent ever call you selfish when you chose something bad, a career, maybe that you had in mind for yourself, but your mom or dad didn't want you to go into that is a perfectly good career? Why do those words "Don't be selfish" have so much firepower? Why did they fill us with confusion? You think to yourself, I don't want to be selfish, but I want to do things for myself, with me to discuss. This is Mr. Peter Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz is the chairman of the board of the directors of the Ayn Rand Institute and the founding editor of the newsletter The Intellectual Activist. He is the editor and contributing author of Return of the Primitive, the Anti-Industrial Revolution. By Ayn Rand. Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you. Ellen. Peter, you've called the word selfish a package deal.

What's a package deal?

Well, the package deal is the combining of two things that are essentially different and treating them as though they were the same by means of non-essential similarities. And selfish is a perfect example of this, where people have a negative evaluation of it because they regard selfishness as consisting of a mindless brute who walks over other bodies to gain his goals. They regard the criminals, terrorists, people who blindly follow their whims, heedless of the consequences to others. These are the typical examples of selfishness in people's minds, and they then naturally conclude this is something bad. But this is a very false view of selfishness. It's a package deal because it is combining these examples, which, in my view, are not examples of people pursuing their self-interest. They're these. These examples are packaged with actual examples of selfishness, such as the independent individual who sustains his own life by his own effort, by his own work, does not climb over the bodies of others, is honest, has integrity, is productive, earns his own way, does not sacrifice his life for others, nor expect others to sacrifice theirs for him. That's the kind of person who represents what I regard as the ideal of selfishness. And if people were able to distinguish between these two and see that selfishness really refers to the autonomous, self-sustaining, independent individual who doesn't sacrifice others to himself, they would have a very different moral evaluation of selfishness.

So you're saying a package deal is when you take two things that are dissimilar. For example, I think you once used the example of a surgeon and a plumber. You know, they're both people who take care of problems.

Yes, they both take care of the problems. So a problem solver would be either a surgeon or a plumber. So if I have a problem with my toilet, I call in a surgeon, yes, if you didn't, if you put had a package deal for those two. Now that's kind of a an obvious example. I don't think people would make that error, but there are better examples which are common in our everyday lives, apart from the issue of selfishness. For example, take the idea of sacrifice. Now, most people would package together the idea of an individual who, let's say, wants a certain career, is studying for it at school, and is persuaded to forgo his studies in order to change bedpans at a local hospital to show how "quote" moral he is. Now this is a person who then is making a real sacrifice. Maybe he's going to fail at school. He's going to have his. Of your impediment in his in the pursuit of his career, whatever he does it, because he's told that he has to sacrifice for others. Now that's a sacrifice people then put in the same package deal. Any hey,

I got to interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw here it is the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it @amazon.com the selfish path to romance that is interesting. He does

it because he's told that he has to sacrifice for others. Now that's a sacrifice people then put in the same package deal any desire that you forego for any reason, such as this student who decides to apply himself and study hard and not go to the movies and not go to the dance with his friends instead, he wants to prepare for some important schoolwork or some important exam, because he's planning long range. Now, this is a person who's very selfish. Is the person who is pursuing what he regards as being beneficial to his life in the long run, he's simply sacrificing. Excuse me, that is even the wrong word. He's simply trading. He's exchanging the short-term pleasure for a long-term value, okay? And people package the two together and that's another example of how you've got to distinguish things that are essentially different.

Okay? So with selfishness, I mean, with sacrifice, the problem is that a person may take genuine examples of sacrifice, such as the student who, say, is a medical student and needs every moment of his time to study the body, the anatomy or the nervous system, and instead, he's out there changing bedpans, as you said, and he's sacrificing because he's not educating himself on the essentials of his career, which would be the nervous system or anatomy. He's, you know, anyone can change a bedpan, and you're saying that what happens is people lump that together with genuine examples of self-valuing. I'm going to study for my medical exam test tomorrow in anatomy and not go to the movies tonight. That's not a sacrifice. I'm choosing my better value, my higher value, which is my career over the short-term movie. Yes,

you've got to identify the essential characteristic of various ideas or concepts, and the essential of sacrifice is giving up a greater value for the sake of a lesser value. The student who gives up his studies in order to change bedpans is not doing that because he benefits from spending his time changing bedpans. He's doing it because he thinks it's morally right to sacrifice, whereas the student who applies himself for long-range goals is saying, I choose to go after the value that's more important to me, that's more beneficial to my life, my long-term career, and give up a short-term pleasure in exchange.

I want to review selfishness again so it's critical for your own happiness, so that you don't fall into this confused mess that you're able to say self-valuing, self-interest, valuing my long-range goals, my productive goals, my friends, my hobbies, my career is good, and that's different from the bully, the schoolyard bully, the terrorists, the criminal, the corrupt politician. Yes,

the irony is that those people really have no self. Those people have given up their selves. The bully or the dishonest person does not really value his self. He goes after ways of manipulating other people in order to sustain his life, and that's in the long term, very self-defeating. Peter, where could a person find out more information on this? Where could they do more reading they should

certainly read Ayn Randy books, particularly her novel, Atlas Shrugged, and her nonfiction work, The Virtue of Selfishness. Those would be two good places to start.

And you have a bookstore? What can you give the bookstore?

The website, it's AynRandBookstore.com, a y n r a n d bookstore.com,

well, thank you so much for joining us today. Mr. Peter Schwartz, and hope you'll come back again sometime. Okay? Ellen, thank

you for inviting me for more. Dr. Ken Podcast, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's

an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and Dr. Edwin Locke.

It is important to take your life character and values, career, romance, ideas, friends, hobbies, leisure activities seriously. If you do not, they slip away, and life becomes increasingly empty and meaningless because nothing is truly important. This is why a sense of humor is not a primary virtue. That said, a healthy playfulness and humor are delightful add-ons to a relationship. They help reinforce the premise that life is fun and joyous. Learn what your partner considers funny. There can be a substantial difference of opinion in this realm. Make clear what you dislike so you won't be exposed to it. You

can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance @amazon.com.