Quincy Archer Hates You

In my forays into the realm of educational philosophy, I have discovered one thing that irks me beyond almost everything else (well, potentially except the lack of real logical rigor that provides a soft mushy backbone for just about anything). All of the people in education seem to be in there because they get a sense of happiness from actually helping someone out. The way they talk and giggle about the cute traits they discover in their current and/or soon-to-be little darlings simply offends my sensibilities and makes me wish desperately I could just listen to my iPod and drown them out (I would, would it not be rude, impolite, and completely insulting).

Please don't misunderstand; this doesn't mean I believe teachers and educators should not feel anything when helping out students. I simply don't believe that this feeling should be the forefront reason for someone to pursue teaching as an occupation. It is akin to me believing that if playing music makes you happy, then that's a personal issue; but to become a professional musician simply for that reason is somewhat selfish and short-sighted. It is idealistic to the point of recklessness and for teachers, being reckless means messing up a child's life and removing one otherwise productive member of society from play.

Altruism and humanitarianism are central concepts to this discussion of 'how one should feel.' The fact remains that many people do deeds out of good-will perhaps not entirely out of wanting to help someone else (and in some cases, not at all) but for the personal joy of having done something to help someone else. Functionally, in a utilitarian way, this has little to no effect but as a purist, I believe there is almost something fundamentally wrong with this approach to any sort of compassion. When helping others, the forefront should not be necessarily 'it makes me feel good,' but 'how can I best help them;' with personal bias (I feel good!) tied into this, it isn't so much doing something for others as it is doing something for yourself. I cannot subscribe to this because it is illogical and frankly speaking, can lead to tunnel vision.

The best examples come from family. Some aunt or a mother might feel great at doing something nice for someone even if it is completely unwarranted and has no justification; something like bringing an apple pie to a dinner party hosted by someone else that is sure to include dessert comes up fairly readily. If we discount the possibility that bringing a second dessert is a slight (not very subtle but certainly hurtful), we are then left with 'I didn't know dessert was being served' (ignorant but hardly hateful or detrimental) and 'I knew but I wanted to do something nice for them even at the cost of offending them' (both 'pure' altruism and 'false' altruism). If one was embodying 'true' altruism, one wouldn't bother bringing the dessert if one knew it would have an adverse reaction on the host; if one was embodying 'false' altruism, however, it is easy to justify bringing the pie even if one knew. 'I'm just doing something nice, they'll understand' is an often-heard phrase that really means 'I am doing something nice to make myself feel better for some reason or another.'

Things like these can surpass the familial sphere and affect all the manner of situations from the corporate world to the street and all can be explained in part by 'blindness' brought about by the feel-good of altruistic acts. Sure, I'm willing to bet that around half of these social faux-pas occur because of actual ignorance, but the rest can probably be chalked up to people intentionally blinding themselves because they like the feel-good high of 'helping' someone. In nowhere is this more prominent than in something like missionary work; who can judge whether one is really doing this for the potential converts or is actually doing it for a personal emotional gain? This fact has actually always been a crucial component of why I am both highly wary and critical of extremely 'giving' people and in tandem, most charities and such organizations.

In a sad application of these thoughts, it also makes martyrdom much less attractive. Was the guy who camped out in front of a forest trying to do something great for the environment because he believes it, or because he enjoyed the high of stopping a bunch of construction workers in their tracks? Who can tell these things aside from subtle clues in body language and facial expression (Lie to Me FTW), but even then, elation is elation. The reason behind the elation is what matters the most and thus, one cannot garner perhaps a definite answer unless one has the patience to interact and speak with the subjects in question. Even at that point, it is still guesswork to a degree.

Our perceptions determine our reality, to quote Obi-wan Kenobi, and this makes trusting of someone else's empirical motive difficult to do to any logical and rational skeptic. But it is only through introspection and objective analysis (as best we can) that we can avoid tunnel-vision in our charitable effects and not cause a misguided disaster, however well-intentioned it may have been.

Today is crappy weather outside and I'm on campus typing this post in lieu of finishing my second required 'synthesis paper' (read: feel-good paper on education) due in four days. Therefore, I am lazy. At least I can trust myself that I am generally always lazy, even if I doubt many of my classmates are going into teaching for reasons in addition to and other than 'self-fulfillment.'

Cheers.