If I can force people onto this thing I think we've got our first polemical discussion going here.
Was Chris McCandless selfish for his actions of leaving his family without telling them anything. He then leaves all those people he meets who liked him so much particularly that old man who wanted Chris to inherent his worldly goods. What was Chris pursuing? Happiness, and is he "allowed" to pursue happiness if it means causing his family such sorrow?
I would like to further this discussion by asking if selfishness is inherently a bad thing. My that selfishness can be beneficial even necessary comes from the literature of Ayn Rand who spent a lifetime convincing people that selfishness was a virtue. I'll explain more if people ever appear.
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Rand says that selfishness is a virtue because it contributes to self-advancement. I want everything for myself so that I can get farther in the world. Selfishness is beneficial only to the person who is using it. Rand's philosophy essentially states that the self is the only thing that matters, so selfishness is beneficial. Unfortunately, in a society that relies on selflessness to operate, selfishness is not beneficial. Rand's ideals fail to work in our world.
Yay it's daniel echt!
I agree that Rand is crazy but looking at the "effective" people of the world, do we have to admit that they are selfish? I think so, the people who contribute most to the world are the ones who offend the most people and who aren't paralyzed by societal implications of their actions. I think that's what she's telling us by extolling people who want to feel powerful in everything.
If you want to catch up on our frame of reference, we just read Into the Wild by John Krakauer (maybe that's the spelling).
I think that "taking a sabbatical from life" is totally reasonable because, just like taking a vacation, some people really need a break from the world for a while in order to have vitality in it. Sure Chris ought to have contacted his parents more but then they would have tried to stop him or would have sent authorities to check in on him and he really wanted an adventure. And adventures seem really hard to come by in our modern age. I know Chris was woefully unprepared to deal with the remote wilderness but consider that half of the fun is not having everything prepared and comforts arranged. The exhilaration of life can come in the form of daringly facing the unknown.
I gathered that you had been reading "Into the Wild." It's a good book, and a decent movie too. As it is, selfishness is not a universal attribute that leads to success. In fact, many successful people are successful because they are not selfish. Giving all of yourself to a cause, as Gandhi did, is in no way selfish. Offending people and ignoring societal taboos does not inherently imply selfishness.
I think that Chris was definately selfish in not contacting his parents because I cannot even begin to imagine what they went through hoping every day that their son/brother would come home and not knowing for so long whether he was even alive. However, I do not think that simply taking a sabatical is selfish because most of the time when someone contributes to the world they need a place to just relax and recharge before re-entering the world and working once again. If all we did was work, we would be unable to do it successfully after some time because a break is sometimes necessary.
I agree that Rand's ideas don't belong in this world which is run by selfishness. However, I think that Howard Roark and Chris are similar in the way that they can simply survive and live that way for so long. They have a whole different style of living than anyone else because they are so in control of their dreams that they allow them to simply remain dormant for long periods of time. However, I think Chris is a lot more sane than Roark (not saying that Roark is insane, only a little more removed from society) - sorry that I cannot provide any more connections from other works by Rand but thus far I have only read Fountainhead...
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