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Thanks for getting back to me. EDIT: I realize I conflated "people moving to Singapore" with "majority of US expats moving to Singapore." Thanks for catching t

Thanks for getting back to me. EDIT: I realize I conflated "people moving to Singapore" with "majority of US expats moving to Singapore." Thanks for catching that, my bad. -- I guess I'm curious about your use of the term "narrowly selfish". What do you really mean by that? You also say that it would be more "principled and selfless" to refuse to compromise one's ideals, but... I can't help but feel that's a really context-dependent thing. For instance, can you think of examples where a person's refusal to compromise leads to the suffering of others. You said you wouldn't endorse it in Derek's case, because he'd be forgoing love (and encountering misery). There are many worse cases- think about gay kids growing up in a homophobic family, for example. And worse. So I feel like there's some unnecessary complexity in what you've expressed- I think what you describe as "principled and selfless" behaviour is a luxury that some people (if not most people, especially those who are poor, handicapped, oppressed, etc) can't afford. You said that you can't imagine that you'd physically survive in a situation wherein you'd have to compromise your values. Yet you also acknowledge that there are people who live in such situations. So are these people "narrowly selfish?" Is Derek being narrowly selfish? What's the utility in calling a person narrowly selfish? Thanks for engaging me, visa

strlen 13y ago
Well, you're implying that I think selfishness is purely negative. I don't: I'm selfish in many other ways; pure selflessness can be just as bad (as you've very well described -- parents snubbing children because of a different sexual orientation!). To put in other terms, selflessness and adherence to principle are virtues in the same that bravery is a virtue; yet we don't aplaud the bravery (or selfless, or adherence to principle, etc...) of a suicide bomber much for the same reason -- the immense suffering the rest of their action caused to others. We would, however, aplaud this in (to use a hypothetical example) a fighter pilot defending his country from a nuclear strike by ramming the incoming bomber with his aircraft after they've ran out of missiles or cannon shells. I'll also point out that my native language is Russian, where there isn't a word like selfishness: there's egoism and egotism, but not really a world like "selfish". If you lookup "selfish" in the dictionary, you'll find a more value-free translation of the word. My poor chances of physical survival would also not be due to compromising my values: it would be due to inability to adopt to surrounding society's values. Military service in former USSR, for example, is very different from Singapore -- bullying of nerdy/weaker/etc... enlisted men by officers is an endemic problem and has driven many recruits to suicide (lookup "Dedovschina"). The smart way some people took is by committing themselves to officer corps (for a much longer term) and (to fit in) becoming bullies themselves -- something I'd never be able to do.
- visakanv 13y ago
  Ah! I think we are much in angreement then; I misinterpreted what you meant by selfishness. ThanK you for taking the time to clarify, I appreciate it. It's so interesting to see how different people interpret these terms so differently, indeed it's amazing that we manage to understand each other at all. Cheers and love.

strlen 13y ago

Well, you're implying that I think selfishness is purely negative. I don't: I'm selfish in many other ways; pure selflessness can be just as bad (as you've very well described -- parents snubbing children because of a different sexual orientation!). To put in other terms, selflessness and adherence to principle are virtues in the same that bravery is a virtue; yet we don't aplaud the bravery (or selfless, or adherence to principle, etc...) of a suicide bomber much for the same reason -- the immense suffering the rest of their action caused to others. We would, however, aplaud this in (to use a hypothetical example) a fighter pilot defending his country from a nuclear strike by ramming the incoming bomber with his aircraft after they've ran out of missiles or cannon shells. I'll also point out that my native language is Russian, where there isn't a word like selfishness: there's egoism and egotism, but not really a world like "selfish". If you lookup "selfish" in the dictionary, you'll find a more value-free translation of the word. My poor chances of physical survival would also not be due to compromising my values: it would be due to inability to adopt to surrounding society's values. Military service in former USSR, for example, is very different from Singapore -- bullying of nerdy/weaker/etc... enlisted men by officers is an endemic problem and has driven many recruits to suicide (lookup "Dedovschina"). The smart way some people took is by committing themselves to officer corps (for a much longer term) and (to fit in) becoming bullies themselves -- something I'd never be able to do.

visakanv 13y ago
Ah! I think we are much in angreement then; I misinterpreted what you meant by selfishness. ThanK you for taking the time to clarify, I appreciate it. It's so interesting to see how different people interpret these terms so differently, indeed it's amazing that we manage to understand each other at all. Cheers and love.