in an ideal world

Ayn Rand said that, "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

I am not Ayn Rand and have no desire to be anything like her other than achieving her best-selling author status. But even the most idealistic, most compassionate and most empathetic person should strive to see the logic in this belief along with its grave weaknesses.

Altruism taps into basic human emotions and the condition that we are above our primal instincts and have the ability to care in a manner that is beyond our need for survival. Part of that is our ability to empathize and when that feeling rules our actions, we take steps to consider the welfare of others. We are uncomfortable with the thought that someone else like us is suffering at the hands of a world that is much more cruel than many of us have experienced first hand.

But is there such a thing as taking such empathy too far? I believe there is. The line for me is drawn when such empathy is demanded or made law, either by official decree or because it is expected of a civilization due to a majority mindset. I may not want to live in a world where altruism is stifled. I would also not want to live in a world where altruism is expected.

We often come across people who are so good in their own nature and want so badly for others to understand, believe and foster that goodness within themselves. We understand their idealism and often agree. We also often agree that it would be the best if only we knew for certain a way to gently and naturally mold the human race to feel similarly.

There are so many reasons the human race is not going to come together as a whole to agree to provide care for all of this world's citizens. We could debate about how accurate the triune brain model is regarding the workings of the brain and the relationship among its many parts. We can talk about the R-Complex and how evolution changes or adds, it does not take away and as such, we, as humans, we will never evolve to a point that the reptilian complex is completely gone or even over-ridden. We could weigh in on whether or not it would even be beneficial to society if we lost our ability to feel rage, understand fight or flight, or have a desire for power and territory. We can trek back in history and discuss thousands upon thousands of years worth of influence on the many different cultures that exist in this world and the high improbability of being able to change such influence in less time than it took to create it. We can discuss the strange phenomenon of cultural canon being silenced and changed by occupation, and still finding its influence on a generation that did not even know such an idea existed. We could discuss, at length, all the psychological things we have yet to really theorize about and so many in existence that we still do not understand.

There are so many reasons that equality is merely an idea that cannot truly exist for anyone. There is the simple fact that aptitude and skill differ from person to person. The knowledge that if given a choice, we'd want to deal with the best of any given field because there will always be people who are better than others. There is the understanding that with different people come different interests. The understanding that our motivation often goes way beyond mere passion. There is the belief that without incentive, people are not always smart, motivated or, again, altruistic enough to want to follow certain paths that are commonly associated with wealth and security in a cash world. Those who would question the chances of someone choosing to be a surgeon over a ditch digger knowing the payback would be equally nothing, at least nothing material that could be measured against one's neighbor's, when the drawbacks stack strongly against the other profession.

All of those, of course, are simply theories. But those theories are based on observation and experience. And with all of that mentioned, there are still so many other reasons a utopia of self-sufficiency is an idea that most will say is never going to manifest itself, no matter how hard we try or how many of us would love to live in such an idyll. The vast majority of this world try to perform actions that they believe will lead them to such a place. That place is their salvation. This place is their trial. The reality of this trial is that things are not going to reach a point of harmony and sustaining in a world even remotely similar to ours. This is the strangest point of agreement to me. Both science and faith seem to agree on this one thing very often: There is no such thing as perfection.

For me, this argument can only be solved in one way. It's not in deciding whether we can change the zeitgeist of the whole world or not. When nature is something that cannot be changed, it's the outer environment that is. We, as a society, are the nature. The rules, both written and unwritten, are the environment. Changing our environment will involve changing our canon, our actions, our history, our language, our morality and our laws. Altruism can only be globally achieved if it was agreed by a governing group that it is in our best interest as a whole to mandate good deeds.

The whole is part of the problem as much as it is part of the solution. In any situation when the whole is considered, the individual is not. In accepting our differences, we accept that someone will be disappointed. There may be basics that most of society agree on that have to consider the whole before the individual. A person may feel it's in his best interest to kill the person standing next to him. But as that would hurt society as a whole, laws are in place to deal with such things. Yet even then, there are factors that make such a law malleable to consider the individual. A man who kills an innocent person in cold blood is different from a mother's calculated plan to murder the man who killed her child is different from the guy who hears voices that command him to kill is different from the government that decides to execute a man deemed unfit to ever live in society again.

There is still a line I'd prefer the government not cross. Just as I would not support a government that persecutes thought crime, I also cannot support a government that would dictate how a person should live and thrive and one that mandates a person's possessions and expression of the individual's beliefs and gifts to such a degree no matter the intention.

When the floodgates are open, we don't always know what's going to rush through. We don't know how much a ruling population is going to dictate the way society grows and prospers. We don't always know what the next step will be or how long it will be till a line is crossed. We all want a big change and some drastic step to be taken when the quality of life starts to slip faster than we can keep up with. We reach a point when it feels like we cannot take another step or live another day in our present living conditions. But ore rules to achieve a utopia may not change our world. It may only allow for more control and more influence when we have all learned by now that some of our best intentions become sullied by a deeper need for control. The less involved the leaders of our society are in my life, the better.

I don't know what kind of world our future generations will live in. I don't know how many future generations will even exist. But I do know that despite how bad life is for so many, smaller steps to get to a better tomorrow are more preferable than drastic solutions that have not been examined or tested enough. I do know that supreme control in any group's hands, again, whether it be by law or majority belief, is not an answer to the problems we have most likely contributed to more than we have helped alleviate.