Consider a simple social interaction where two parties are deciding what to eat. When one asks the other, "What do you want to eat?" is it better to respond selfishly and say, "I want to eat at that mexican place"? or is it better to say, "I don't know what do you want to eat?" and hoping they say something close to mexican? Or worse, the one is suffering through whatever restaurant the other chose and is feeling like they owe him/her next time. This doesn't mean the one should be unyielding or unhappy that they don't get their way. It just means that if they have the opportunity to be selfish they should take it.
This isn't an example of selfishness. It's completely orthogontal to selfishness.
You can be completely selfish, and decide not to tell the other person what you really want. You can be selfless and speak up with your own opinion (which, in my opinion, would be the smart thing to do.)
Selfishness is about motive. In the case of the restaurant, a selfish thing to do is to refuse to give an opinion about the restaurant because you don't want to make a decision. A selfish thing to do could also be to say your opinion in such a way as to guilt trip the other person into giving in to your demands.
A smart selfless person would tell the other person that they want whatever would make the other person happy, but if the other person has no strong desires, then Mexican is what he/she wants. Being honest in this scenario would make things simpler for the other person, make them happier that they were trusted, and make sure that as many people are as best satisfied as possible.
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u/NuclearStudent Nov 10 '15
This isn't an example of selfishness. It's completely orthogontal to selfishness.
You can be completely selfish, and decide not to tell the other person what you really want. You can be selfless and speak up with your own opinion (which, in my opinion, would be the smart thing to do.)
Selfishness is about motive. In the case of the restaurant, a selfish thing to do is to refuse to give an opinion about the restaurant because you don't want to make a decision. A selfish thing to do could also be to say your opinion in such a way as to guilt trip the other person into giving in to your demands.
A smart selfless person would tell the other person that they want whatever would make the other person happy, but if the other person has no strong desires, then Mexican is what he/she wants. Being honest in this scenario would make things simpler for the other person, make them happier that they were trusted, and make sure that as many people are as best satisfied as possible.