The truth of the Self

"All our striving follows from the necessity of our nature…the foundation of virtue (virtus, power) is the endeavor itself to preserve our being, and happiness consist in this-that a man can preserve his own being…There is no nobler motivation than the striving for self-preservation. Since reason demands nothing which is opposed to nature, it demands, therefore, that every person should love himself, should seek his own profit…to act according to virtue…Many suppose that the principle which obliges every man to seek his profit, is the basis of immorality and not of virtue and sense of duty. [But the truth is] the exact opposite.” Spinoza, as quoted in “Spinoza,” Karl Jaspers.

In saying this, we must draw the line between selfishness and the self itself. There is a vast difference between concern only with one’s self and the dignity of the self. Many philosophers have noted this, as for example, Rand, Nietzsche, of course, Spinoza, Plato, and many others. It is as if the ancients were anticipating the true and full meaning of a free market or capitalistic society, in which productivity of the material and, consequently, the spiritual improvement of humankind is measured by the individual sense of self worth, and the self-reliance intelligent people have. Spinoza’s thesis here goes far beyond economics, but his core belief could be the birth place of the emergence of the self as a free and self-sustaining individual ready to take on all aspects of one’s culture, especially the sense of individual productivity and contribution to the world, and to reap the rewards of such productivity as proprietarily belonging to ones self. This should take the mythical sense of altruism off of its absurd pedestal.