Trendy vs Unique

How many of us approve of those people who latch onto anything and everything that is popular? They only listen to top 40 music. They only wear trendy clothes. They love only mass produced popular books and movies. They must drive the current fad car. They accept any idea, slogan, or campaign that is popular. And so on.

It is silly for people to behave in that manner. The fact that something is popular doesn't make it good, and the desire to 'fit in' is hardly a noble motivation. However most people I know don't have a problem with that. There is a different 'trend' though in the opposite direction. This new trend is to dislike anything and everything that is popular. According to this line of thought if a song makes the top 40 you cannot like it, you can only enjoy music if nobody else has heard of it first. If certain clothes are in fashion then you shouldn't wear them, you should only dress in eccentric non-conformist styles. If a book or movie is popular then it isn't worth your time, its probably just mindless and simple anyway and you should stick to obscure works that no one has heard of. And the only cars you can like are either weird 'smart car' type things, or old beaters. According to this mind set things are good because they are not popular, and ones motivation is non-conformity.

These two views, though seemingly opposite come from the same place. Both methods of evaluating value use a criteria based on what other people think. Instead of looking at something and deciding whether you like it for objective reasons, you decide whether other people like it (or at least enough people) and this makes up your mind for you. The essence of both trends is giving up the responsibility of independent thinking. This is the one goal of modern philosophy, to get people to give up the independent use of their mind. The simple solution to combat this is to think. It doesn't matter one way or another whether everyone in the world likes something, or whether no one does. Your judgement is all that matters to you. Never surrender it to popular, or un-popular opinion.

So go ahead and admit it, you like that one Justin Timberlake song. There's no need to be embarrassed, so long as you actually like it and aren't blindly following (or rebelling against) everyone else.

Why be mean to the food server?

Speaker: ...chhhhhhh... "can I take your order?" ...

Customer: ... "uhh, yeah I want a peach shake" ...

Speaker: ...chhhhhhh... "did you say peach or heath?"

Customer: ...(yelling) "WHAT ARE YOU F*$%!@& DEAF? I SAID PEACH! PEEEACCHHH! P-E-A-C-H!"

Speaker: ...chhhhhhh... "oh ... sorry ... please pull forward."
(Dramatization based on real experience)

Some of you may question whether there really are 'normal' people (excluding the anomalous mental cases) that behave in the manner dramatized above. Let me assure you that there is a significant portion of the population that regularly behave like jerks towards their food servers, be they fast food workers, waiters, delivery drivers, etc. Lest you doubt my qualification for giving said assurance let me mention my credentials: I have worked in fast food for 5 years, pizza delivery for 1 year, and have frequented many food consumption establishments over my 25 years of life, wherein many observations of a variety of people have been made. All my experience points toward supporting the conclusion that some otherwise 'normal' people are @$$holes toward food servers.

All kidding aside though, this observation has always puzzled me a bit. Don't these jerks know that the people they are ticking off are the very same people who are going to be preparing/delivering their food? Don't the offensive guests worry that if they are mean to the employee their food may be adulterated in some way, e.g. skimping on portions, inserting spit, or adding foreign objects? Even if the food is not tampered with (usually because the pesky manager happened to be close by) there certainly will be some other negative repercussions, such as over-charging the order, taking exceptionally long for the order, or simply 'forgetting' to include essential items in the order such as utensils, napkins, or sauces.

So why do these jerks behave in the manner they do? It cannot be that they are too stupid to make the mental connections that are required to come to the conclusion outlined above, for anyone able to speak or drive a car has shown that they have the mental capacity needed for that. (i.e. its not that hard to figure out) No it isn't that they cannot do the thinking, it is simply that they don't bother to.

Now that is an interesting observation. Why would people not bother to think about something so simple, and that directly affects them regularly? The answer is this: people have been taught that reason is impotent and that emotionalism, i.e. letting feelings dictate ones actions, is the way to go. (If you think I'm exaggerating consider the ubiquitous bromide 'follow your heart'. QED) Most people don't consciously accept such swill, and yet lacking any integrated philosophy to guide them they often subconsciously latch onto bits and pieces of the theory. As a result many people feel no qualms about following every whim they experience. If they are annoyed they are going to be a jerk and nothing is going to stop them, least of all their mind.

Another interesting observation related to the above: there is another group of people who would look at the example before illustrated and agree that in that case it is foolish to follow every whim one has, such as the whim to be mean to your server. They would readily agree that emotions cannot rule us ... at least not always. But then they turn around and try to claim that in some things feelings do, and should, trump the mind and reason, e.g. in finding a lover, or discovering spiritual truth. In other words they have consciously accepted the supremacy of emotionalism (the same principle driving the jerks), but then proceed to demand inconsistent application of the principle. In other words feelings and whims do reign, but only sometimes. But how does one decide when those sometimes are? By whim of course! One simply arbitrarily decides when one will be guided by whim and when one won't.

Moving now from epistemology to ethics, let us examine the same scenario in another light. What are you and I doing when we look at a situation, rationally evaluate it, decide what is in our best interest, and then act accordingly? We are following an ethics of rational self interest, or being rationally selfish. This of course is the ethics of objectivism, Ayn Rand's philosophy. I do not intend to explain or verify the ethics of rational self interest here, but just to debunk a common misconception. Altruists claim that selfishness is an evil and that if people followed objectivist ethics it would lead to meanness, callousness, and conflict. The little anecdote at the beginning of the post is only one of many examples that prove that rational selfishness leads to the opposite of meanness, callousness, and conflict. The rationally selfish person is the one who recognizes that it is in his best interest to be nice to the server. It is the emotionalist who behaves badly.

Now an Altruist may object that their ethics also leads to the outcome of being nice to the worker, so what makes rational self interest so special? They are wrong in both their claim and their evaluation. Altruism would not lead to the same outcome in this case. If Altruism were followed consistently then one could not even go into a restaurant to by food, because that would mean seeking a value for yourself when you should be giving up all values to other people. So rather than buying a sandwich you should be giving the worker your wallet. Of course there wouldn't be any restaurant though in an altruist society because a restaurant requires investment and ownership and, dare I say it, profit, all of which are selfish. However in reality no one follows altruism consistently. (the dirtiest little secret is that they aren't supposed to) People always act to some degree in their own interest. So for the sake of argument lets assume that altruism does result in the same outcome. This proves nothing. The point is not that rational self interest is good because it leads to niceness to food workers, or to anyone for that matter. Rational self interest is good on its own merits. My pointing out that rational self interest leads to treating servers better is meant to debunk an attack on objectivist ethics, but it is certainly not the validation of the ethics.

So be nice to the server, for your own sake. Listen to you mind. Use your emotions to add richness and color to your life, but not to guide it. And don't fall for the silly altruist attacks on selfishness.