Selfless – or Selfish? How we mix them up.

This is an expansion of my last blog post and is best read in tandem with it, so I’d encourage you to check that out before or after you read this!

In Plato’s Republic, one of the thought experiments asks whether it’s better to be a just man whom everyone sees as unjust or an unjust man whom everyone sees as just. We discussed this in my ROTC ethics course, and many of my classmates seemed conflicted, but for me there’s no contest; if anything, the idea of being unjustly rejected by society makes the first option more attractive (if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, watch the end of Dark Knight or refer to the Death of Socrates above; it’s a staple of the Romantic hero.)

I grew up with the idea of accepting martyrdom before denying one’s beliefs, the idea that truth and integrity are more important than acceptance and comfort, “here I stand; I can do no other” and etc. I don’t internalize other people’s values; I can tell for myself what values are, and if anyone tries to manipulate or push me into changing them, I get very bristly.

However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that self-sacrifice can become another name for self-centeredness. We have a tendency to turn martyrdom on its head and start making unnecessary heroic sacrifices. And when this happens, it means we’ve gotten things backwards. We aren’t acting for love of a cause. We’re acting for our own self-gratification, so that we can feel noble and self-sacrificial and heroic.

Self-sacrifice goes wrong when we start from the wrong place. We start with ‘I’ – ‘I must showcase my ideals;’ ‘I must stick to my guns;’ ‘I must exemplify truth or self-sacrifice or nobility.’ None of these things are wrong, but they are supposed to be ancillary to the fact. We need to start outside ourselves, with ‘they’ or ‘it’ – ‘they need my help;’ ‘it has to be done.’ Now, we should never compromise our values while fulfilling our duties; that is a given. But because it’s a given, we shouldn’t need to make a big deal of it. Otherwise, it becomes about us instead of about what we’re doing.

False sacrifice is concerned only with itself, and you can tell by the disregard it has for consequences; it is too fixated on making itself look good to focus on anything else. If our car breaks down and leaves us stranded by the side of the road, false sacrifice will make a great show of offering to stay behind and walk (and then resent us for allowing him to do so), ignoring the fact that this really isn’t helpful. Real sacrifice will just get out and help push.

American Evangelicals often have this tendency toward unnecessary sacrifice. Too often we are too fixated on “not being ashamed of the gospel” to think things through. After the school shooting in Oregon, I was at a conference and was asked whether, if someone held a gun to my head and asked if I was a Christian, I would say ‘yes’. As I said, I grew up comfortable with the idea of martyrdom, and if push comes to shove, I’ll say yes. But my first choice would be silence. Or grabbing the gun, if at all possible. Don’t fixate on the chance to be heroic; look for the third option, for everyone’s sake.

Harvard academics also have this tendency when it comes to “proclaiming truth” – we sometimes proclaim it so obnoxiously that we drive people away from it. I’m not asking you to hide your beliefs, but you’re not supposed to be sharing them for the sake of sharing them; you’re supposed to be sharing them because you care about the people around you and want them to know the truth. And if you insist on expressing yourself in a way that hurts that cause instead of helping it, you’ve missed the mark.

So what does true sacrifice look like? True sacrifice cares about the result, about the people, not about vague ideals and brooding soliloquies. True sacrifice doesn’t make a big deal of itself, and if it has to go against the system in order to accomplish its goals, it doesn’t let self-righteousness or bitterness set in when that choice leads to the loss of the system’s benefits. True sacrifice doesn’t jump at the chance to cause disruption and disorder; it is looking for everyone’s good, so it will do its best to compromise and promote goodwill. But it also knows what lines it will not cross, and it never apologizes for upholding them. And because it sought to compromise, it has maximum credibility when it does rebel.

There is certainly a time when we must hold our ground. But before we make a fated stand on our hill worth dying on, let’s make sure it’s a mountain and not a molehill.

“The Death of Socrates” by Jacques Louis David (French, Paris 1748–1825 Brussels) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0