Has self-centeredness become a virtue?

SOME weeks ago a young man won €50,000 on a Lotto scratch-card. As soon as he discovered he had won the money he phoned his friend and told him he was giving him half the winnings. The two young men have been friends since childhood. The story received national media prominence. Ryan Tubridy mentioned it on his RTE Radio 1 programme, commenting on how it was such a lovely thing to do.

In my job as a hospital chaplain every day I see great acts of kindness in word and deed. I’m in the job now 15 months and to date I don’t think I have seen the slightest hint of selfishness from patients, visitors or staff. It seems to me they don’t do selfishness in hospital. There is an awareness of the common good and the importance of people working together as a team. And yet we live in a world where so much emphasis is placed on competition, being the best, no matter what the cost.

Many of our television programmes, while being good fun and entertainment, place significant emphasis in winning. Celebrity shows, endurance competitions, weight losing extravaganzas make winners into heroes and the losers are just that - losers. You might say it’s the way of the world. But if you think about it, is it the way the world should be?

But the programmes are greatly enhanced when people work in teams and cooperate with one another. Is there not a need right now for a greater sense of community, a better understanding of the common good? Last week on a Sky News talk show someone made reference to a BBC staff member earning €400,000 annually. Of course it’s magic to the few. But what about the poor and those who have difficulty making ends meet? It certainly breeds an atmosphere of greed and selfishness.

Dermot McCarthy, a former secretary general to the government, is a contributor to a recently published compilation of essays titled ‘A Dialogue of Hope’. In his piece called ‘The signs of our times’ he writes: ‘A fundamental feature of a successful democratic society is the requirement for empathy. One of the duties of a citizen in a democracy is to learn what it is to be someone not like oneself. And to be aware of the impact of choices that one makes on the lives of others.’

I think most of us would say that we favour an egalitarian system in which it is wise and healthy to avoid creating extremes of wealth and poverty. If we continue to place an exaggerated importance on being the best, the richest, the fastest, the most powerful, then surely it is impossible even to think of having empathy for the weak and the fragile. It’s easy for the ego to run riot. Indeed, we live in times when it is fashionable to place so much emphasis on ‘me’. Pride and self-centeredness have almost been raised to the status of virtues. The complementary side of that leads to jealousy.

Last week a wise man drew my attention to the word ‘ego’ and asked me to think of the first letters of the three words in the phrase ‘Edging God out’.

Human beings are at their best when they are giving and not taking. If we are honest, and open our eyes, it’s a self-evident truth.