In this pamphlet, Mark Twain claims that all selfless acts are internally reciprocal. For example, the reason you might donate to charity is to feel good about yourself. The reason that a wife may look after her husband who is paralyzed from the neck down is not for the husband because it would hurt her to see him suffer. The soldier cannot sacrifice himself for those around him and dies on the battlefield because a big titted lady called him weak or for social recognition among his peers. In this way, Mark Twain deconstructs various self-less acts in a pedantic-Socratic dialogue between an unnamed 'Old Man' who believes that man(1) is nothing more than a machine and an unnamed 'Young Man' who mainly acts as a foil for the reader, as well as the sort of character introduced to not make it seem like the protagonist/author is speaking out alound with himself on paper.
I find Mark Twain's argument very compelling, what I do not find compelling however is the final part in which he claims that dispelling the illusion of the existence of and possibility for selflessness will have no effect on society. He is probably right in the sense that the necessity for selflessness is post-hoc reasoning used by moralists and social commentators searching for something to morally froth at the mouth about and bang their hands loudly on the table for all to hear on that day to make a living and philosophers with too much time on their hands because they do not have enough power to change society and so do not have to face the consequences of enacting their beliefs. Or in other words, people in real life outside of philosophical and ideological circles do not normally think about acting selflessly unless they are thinking about what other people might think, so no matter how the surface of society might change ideology, the form of government, the religion, whatever, human beings will fundamentally remain the same machines psychologically speaking. Despite this I have a suspicion that a descriptive explanation of human behaviour will inevitably be used prescriptively, what I mean by this is that even though Twain himself is claiming that a human cannot be demanded to behave in a way that it is incapable of any more that a certain type of engine cannot be asked produce more than a certain amount of power, still there will be those who will try to use the understanding of human behaviour they have gained from Mark Twain's argument to do the very thing that he denies that is possible under the self-proclaimed selfless pretext of improving the whole lot of humanity somehow failing to notice that they are not any less self-serving than those they denounce. Actually, I do not want to give the impression that Mark Twain believes on a fixed on a human mentality, on the contrary, he believes that a human being is incapable of independent thought just like an engine needs oil and fuel so too does the human mind act upon outside influences despite this not everyone can be improved at the same rate because as Mark Twain would put it different men are of different builds(e.g. you can't install Windows 10 on a cheap commercial PC you bought thirty years ago very easily). For example, the abolishment of Grammar schools in Britain has been brought about I think, by the sort of people I am warning you too late.
I will not speculate too much on how Mark Twain's own conduct was affected by the beliefs set out in this pamphlet mainly because I do not enough about him but I do remember George Orwell criticizing him as a sort paid jester, a comedian, who refrained from making the full breadth and length of his beliefs known, unlike Orwell(who I guess was not any less self-serving than Twain), for the fear of the social and financial repercussions that would befall upon him. I wonder whether he would have still held back if he did not hold the belief that self-lessness was impossible or if I am being perfectly cynical whether his 'Gospel of Self—Approval' was how he justified his own conduct as a writer to himself but I will stop the wondering there. The best shield to deflect criticism is self-deprecation so let me admit out that I doubt that I would have acted any better in Mark Twain's place. The young man was excellent point throughout but somehow I was unconvinced to think of him as an actual character when he so easily relented on the point that perhaps that it might be useful to keep the notion that selflessness is real around even if it is a lie. Maybe there was something that I missed in the old man's argument, I don't know, this blog probably sounds confused too but that's because I am just thinking this aloud out as I write.
The point at which I lost what the old man was saying is this: "Very well. You begin to suspect—and I claim to know —that when a man is a shade more strongly moved to do one of two things or of two dozen things than he is to do any one of the others, he will infallibly do that one thing, be it good or be it evil; and if it be good, not all the beguilements of all the casuistries can increase the strength of the impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the comfort and contentment he will get out of the act." Actually, this statement itself is plausible as you may still help a friend in need with the conscious intent of satisfying your psychological needs or as Mark Twain would put it to gain your 'self-approval' but if this is how you think, then, wouldn't it also be natural to start to suspect that your friend knows that you're helping him to help you for your own gain, wouldn't that in-turn degrade the value of the act in his mind? And if the act is less valuable in the mind of the one you did it to(but who you did not do it for)... What I am trying to say is that your self-approval (or at any rate my self-approval) is partly (who am I kidding, largely) based on what other people(well, mostly women) think about me (I am a writer duh) but why should anyone else approve of me if they know that I am effectively serving myself (because if Mark Twain is right then there would not be any way I could not be self-serving, well not just me personally, everyone, but as usual I am chiefly concerned of myself-- is this irony? Because I see the word irony thrown around so much I don't know what it means anymore)? I guess the only way out of this if there is any, is to try to find another way to gain people's approval other trying to get them in your debt? Perhaps excellence might be it. But then Mark Twain would say that there is no reason that I should be admired for my excellence because my excellence would be due to my build(nature/genetics) and outside influences(nurture). I have always found Mark Twain unfunny (many of his jokes are outdated), annoying (saying obvious truisms all the fucking time, Kipling was at least a half-decent poet) and altogether too American(too industrious and forward-looking). I am sorry right now I am kind of annoyed at him. I know, I know, 'Don't shoot the messenger.'
Well, my failures do not feel any less humiliating just because according to Twain I cannot be responsible for them. And in a way couldn't it be argued that generally speaking excellence is admired because it is good for society/others? I am just trying to find a way to be self-serving more transparently without stepping on everyone's toenails. I guess that's what's he arguing for too. I don't know perhaps he is right and we better try to create to concentrate on incentives and stop pretending that's not what we are doing but would such a society be able to draw on deeper wells in times of necessity (aka war). Well, we already do have a somewhat functional voluntary military (not in Britain, in America) but if Mark Twain's logic were to become commonplace wouldn't the military force effectively be viewed as a mercenary force and if so wouldn't it act as such? Perhaps not. I mean it would still be interest of the people to admire the armed forces even though the people are obviously doing it out of self-interest too. In the end this essay ended up as repetive as Mark Twain's own. I guess he is right.
Notes:
(1) When Mark Twain says man, he means mankind, which includes women. How disappointing is it that I have to point this out to today's gender and gender-pronoun obsessed political culture?
Read 'What is man?' online here---> http://www.gutenberg.org/files/70/70-h/70-h.htm