By Gary Bennett
I’ve been thinking a lot about selfishness lately. It’s been in the news.
The refusal of many people to get the Covid vaccine or to even do the bare minimum and wear a mask to protect themselves, their children, and the rest of us has certainly brought this ugly trait forward.
But it’s always been there. Unfortunately. Maybe without such deadly consequences, but still there.
One only has to consider what we see every day: trash littering our highways, parking in fire lanes when perfectly good parking spaces are only yards away, playing music too loudly in public, taking a basketful of groceries through the express line, not using turn signals, cutting in line during merges, and billionaires going off to space but not paying their employees a living wage. I could go on.
Those of us who care about others and actively work to improve their lot look on in disgust at the depths others are willing to sink to satisfy their own needs. Under the guise of patriotically battling government tyranny, a certain segment of our population has proven they don’t give a blip about the rest of us. I’m not buying their crocodile grievances and faux patriotism. Actions speak louder than words. Recurring tantrums at school board meetings, on airplanes, and in convenience stores roar with selfishness. Don’t think so? When’s the last time you heard an anti-vaxxer or anti-masker talk about the legitimate concerns of others?
Where does all this selfishness come from?
It is tempting to write off all these selfish people as simply toddlers in adult clothing. Not so, say most scientists. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they don’t believe we are born inherently selfish. Selfishness appears to be mostly learned behavior, not instinctive. The implication is that our rational mind makes selfish decisions consciously. We see it working for some people, at least in the short term, and decide we want some of that.
Happily, the same learning process holds for altruism. Scientists have learned that kids display altruistic behaviors from a very young age. At first, children learn to care only for their needs with little empathy or consideration for others. We see this all the time. But gradually, children begin to learn that other people have emotions too and develop empathy. What’s more, other research suggests altruistic behavior may be the default option in our brains.
So, if selflessness is rooted in the brain, why do some people have such a hard time with it? The answer lies in emotional intelligence or lack thereof. Most psychologists agree that emotional intelligence exists on a spectrum, and some individuals are simply higher on it than others. One symptom of low emotional intelligence is the tendency to be self-absorbed, or exclusively concerned about what you’re thinking, feeling, needing and wanting, instead of the thoughts, feelings and needs of others.
After stumbling in the beginning, science quickly reached consensus that masks help. Even if the science wasn’t clear, wouldn’t common sense tell you that covering your face will provide some modicum of protection to both you and others from this airborne and highly contagious disease? If I were wavering, that would be enough to convince me. Even harrowing accounts of packed ICUs and exhausted doctors and nurses pleading with us to do the right thing fail to move some people. This infuriating ignorance is another form of selfishness.
Businesses are beginning to once again post signs that highly recommend masks. Some even require them. Even though this should be common sense in any small, enclosed space, I applaud their courage to make such a call anyway. But this doesn’t stop a sizable segment from thumbing their noses. “Don’t tread on my rights” and “government can’t tell me what to do” are the usual tired refrains ignoring the social compact that we each have a responsibility to look after one another.
The most jarring excuse, though, is the one that insists we must not hide our faces because we are made in God’s image. This would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. The Jesus I know would be the first to put on a mask to help protect others and urge others to do the same.
When it comes to the vaccine, I let out a sad, knowing sigh when I read in the Frederick News-Post about many local schools recently receiving STEM grants. I believe one of the great dichotomies of today is why so many of us want our children to pursue careers in STEM but then ignore—or worse, disparage—them when they grow up and provide their expert opinion. Anyway, where did all these lay people get their medical and scientific knowledge to know better than scientists who’ve been studying infectious diseases for years? That smugness and unreasonableness is another form of selfishness.
The typical responses used to discredit the vaccine is that it was rushed, there is not enough data available yet for me to commit to it, or (inexplicably) it doesn’t work.
The vaccine was not rushed. To its credit, the former administration put the vaccine on a very fast track because we needed it to be. What people don’t understand is that the infrastructure to get the vaccine out quickly was already in place. The world is bedeviled by infectious diseases every single year and science has become good at responding. AIDS, SARS, smallpox, polio and countless other communicable diseases have been highly eradicated or wiped off the face of the earth because of vaccines.
The efficacy of the Covid vaccine cannot be disputed by any reasonable person. There are millions of us who have been vaccinated with few or no side effects and have avoided severe disease. What more proof do you need? It’s sad but I’ll admit it’s becoming increasingly difficult to feel bad for wantonly unvaccinated people who are now dying of Covid and are begging for the vaccine.
We should have conquered Covid by now but the selfish, inconsiderate, and yes, under-educated portion of our citizenry—the very ones who complain the loudest about masks and vaccines—have prolonged this crisis with their recalcitrance. At this point, as the virus mutates, it’s hard to see how we’ll ever put it in our rear-view mirror until, as in 1918, the virus simply runs out of viable hosts to infect. That could take years and mountains of sorrow because of our fellow selfish citizens.
