For me the most important first response to this post is that if its extremely common for people to view things in a certain way that you disagree with; and those people hold that view strongly your first assumption should be that you are almost certainly making a grave error. That is especially true if you are young and those people have more experience with the major elements of life. It is a mistake to think that if you can rationalise your view in a convincing or elegant way that has any bearing on whether it is a reasonable way to think. The task should be to focus on what you have experienced in your life that may be leading to you thinking differently in this way. And it is absolutely essential to rely on and actually take seriously the opinions of people you trust who are more experienced than you. It is a mistake to disregard what they say if they express it in an ‘uneducated’ way or if they seem less knowledgeable than you.
You pointed out one important reason why most people have this character-based intuition about goodness: the only way to have flourishing personal relationships is to have a good character. That is because personal relationships involve genuine sacrifice and a narcissistically motivated person is not capable of this. So although they may achieve ‘good’ for a bunch of other people they are not associated with they will likely sever the fabric of their families and those they associate with. In this case the goodness of the act being about character is completely about the receiver because the only way for relationships to flourish in a way that benefits others is to act out a virtuous character. In fact in this context the notion of a ‘good act’ becomes totally meaningless; everything is about intent. If I give my boyfriend a gift because I expect something in return without me actually caring about their joy; this knowledge renders the act totally worthless from his perspective and likely actually harmful. Kind words can become petty manipulations, acts of service empty transactions..and so on. In this context everything is about character and intent.
What would society look like if most people functioned as communal narcissists? There would be rife emotional neglect and abuse in private and a strange Orwellian competition for ‘goodness points’ in public. Then there is the problem of who ends up defining the terms of those goodness points. Unfortunately this will be the most psychopathic people around who will seize the opportunity to have such overwhelming control over people’s lives. These kind of social dynamics have occurred before in maoist china and the soviet union. The level of suffering that occurred in those regimes is beyond imagination.
The essential problem with what you are saying is that communal narcissists will not instinctively act towards the ‘good’- they will be completely driven by the social rewards they might obtain. And that leaves them open to manipulation; once social dynamics are driven by manipulation disastrous results are obtained because it encourages the most psychopathic elements to determine what happens. In Nazi Germany the same communal narcissists who in today’s California may reduce suffering for others would almost certainly act out the execution of innocent people. If good deeds are driven by a person’s genuine desire to sacrifice for others then they are not open to such manipulation. A person of good character will resist with all their might the temptation to carry out morally suspect acts no matter how much social credit they may receive for it.
Thus, the risk of communal narcissism is not minor as you say. I think you have underestimated this by discounting the propensity for communal narcissists to be open to manipulation by social conditions; and also perhaps not appreciating the uniqueness of a social environment that will drive communal narcissists to actually do good. The EA and related communities may be an exception to this; but that is a very isolated and unusual environment, especially in historical terms. For the most part the members of such communities are enormously privileged, highly educated and endowed with very secure lives.
The examples of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union brings another important point into focus: I think the building of individual character is much more powerful than you seem to think. If everyone in those societies truly focussed on that millions of lives likely would have been saved; in fact the only real bulwark against the development of such regimes is individuals deciding not to take part. This is a really very serious duty that all of us should be undertaking in small ways throughout our lives. Personally I would argue that this is actually a deeper form of ‘good’ than temporarily removing the suffering of people that we don’t know through charity. This is because if it were universalised the positive impact of that for everyone would be far greater than any charity could ever hope to achieve. To act in the spirit of that is to play your role in achieving such a vision.
You also claim that there is a big risk that people of good character will not carry out as much good as they might because they will question their own motives. Again I think this point falls down due to a misestimation of what communal narcissists will actually do in broader contexts. The loss of extra ‘social status driven’ charity in isolated social contexts where that is encouraged is going to be far outweighed by the fact that questioning ones motives will prevent one being led into darker actions.
For me the most important first response to this post is that if its extremely common for people to view things in a certain way that you disagree with; and those people hold that view strongly your first assumption should be that you are almost certainly making a grave error. That is especially true if you are young and those people have more experience with the major elements of life. It is a mistake to think that if you can rationalise your view in a convincing or elegant way that has any bearing on whether it is a reasonable way to think. The task should be to focus on what you have experienced in your life that may be leading to you thinking differently in this way. And it is absolutely essential to rely on and actually take seriously the opinions of people you trust who are more experienced than you. It is a mistake to disregard what they say if they express it in an ‘uneducated’ way or if they seem less knowledgeable than you.
You pointed out one important reason why most people have this character-based intuition about goodness: the only way to have flourishing personal relationships is to have a good character. That is because personal relationships involve genuine sacrifice and a narcissistically motivated person is not capable of this. So although they may achieve ‘good’ for a bunch of other people they are not associated with they will likely sever the fabric of their families and those they associate with. In this case the goodness of the act being about character is completely about the receiver because the only way for relationships to flourish in a way that benefits others is to act out a virtuous character. In fact in this context the notion of a ‘good act’ becomes totally meaningless; everything is about intent. If I give my boyfriend a gift because I expect something in return without me actually caring about their joy; this knowledge renders the act totally worthless from his perspective and likely actually harmful. Kind words can become petty manipulations, acts of service empty transactions..and so on. In this context everything is about character and intent.
What would society look like if most people functioned as communal narcissists? There would be rife emotional neglect and abuse in private and a strange Orwellian competition for ‘goodness points’ in public. Then there is the problem of who ends up defining the terms of those goodness points. Unfortunately this will be the most psychopathic people around who will seize the opportunity to have such overwhelming control over people’s lives. These kind of social dynamics have occurred before in maoist china and the soviet union. The level of suffering that occurred in those regimes is beyond imagination.
The essential problem with what you are saying is that communal narcissists will not instinctively act towards the ‘good’- they will be completely driven by the social rewards they might obtain. And that leaves them open to manipulation; once social dynamics are driven by manipulation disastrous results are obtained because it encourages the most psychopathic elements to determine what happens. In Nazi Germany the same communal narcissists who in today’s California may reduce suffering for others would almost certainly act out the execution of innocent people. If good deeds are driven by a person’s genuine desire to sacrifice for others then they are not open to such manipulation. A person of good character will resist with all their might the temptation to carry out morally suspect acts no matter how much social credit they may receive for it.
Thus, the risk of communal narcissism is not minor as you say. I think you have underestimated this by discounting the propensity for communal narcissists to be open to manipulation by social conditions; and also perhaps not appreciating the uniqueness of a social environment that will drive communal narcissists to actually do good. The EA and related communities may be an exception to this; but that is a very isolated and unusual environment, especially in historical terms. For the most part the members of such communities are enormously privileged, highly educated and endowed with very secure lives.
The examples of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union brings another important point into focus: I think the building of individual character is much more powerful than you seem to think. If everyone in those societies truly focussed on that millions of lives likely would have been saved; in fact the only real bulwark against the development of such regimes is individuals deciding not to take part. This is a really very serious duty that all of us should be undertaking in small ways throughout our lives. Personally I would argue that this is actually a deeper form of ‘good’ than temporarily removing the suffering of people that we don’t know through charity. This is because if it were universalised the positive impact of that for everyone would be far greater than any charity could ever hope to achieve. To act in the spirit of that is to play your role in achieving such a vision.
You also claim that there is a big risk that people of good character will not carry out as much good as they might because they will question their own motives. Again I think this point falls down due to a misestimation of what communal narcissists will actually do in broader contexts. The loss of extra ‘social status driven’ charity in isolated social contexts where that is encouraged is going to be far outweighed by the fact that questioning ones motives will prevent one being led into darker actions.