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#25 | |
Power Femme
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Miss Tick:
I didn't read the article as giving altruism a black eye. I don't think it is saying that *altruism* itself is pathological. It reads, at least to me, to be saying that beyond a certain point altruistic behavior can become pathological. I thought the examples from medicine were actually spot on. A nurse who will go to the wall to insure that her patients get the very best care is behaving altruistically. A nurse who does so and does not develop the ability to detach, thus causing her to leave nursing, thus reducing by one the number of nurses who will go all the way for their patients, is showing pathological altruism. Part of caring enough about one's patients should, I would think, making sure that oneself stays capable of continuing the practice of nursing. An even more spot-on illustration is the doctor insisting on the spinal tap with the elderly patient. What the article seems to me to be describing is what happens to altruism and how people can manage to take actions that have consequences *entirely* opposite of their intended goals. That doctor did not want to kill the patient. But he was so certain that he had the patient's best interest at heart that he would not stop and reevaluate the situation. He didn't stop and consider the process costs of this decision. That is not saying that altruism is pathological. It is saying that if one becomes so blinded by one's altruistic impulse that one can no longer stop and consider possible implications of actions, then the altruistic impulse has been taken too far and the results are pathological--in other words they cause harm instead of good. Cheers Aj Quote:
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Proud member of the reality-based community. "People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett) |
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