The Threepenny Review has fallen in love with the Spanish writer Javier Marias. Every issue for the last year has included an essay of his; this summer's issue begins with his startling piece on egoists.
Here's his conclusion. Note that he seems to consider all writers to be egoists:
…the great virtue and advantage of the egoist [is] his capacity to observe without experiencing any obligation to feel pity. It is said of generous, altruistic people that they are capable of putting themselves in other people's shoes and of understanding their needs, but this can inevitably give rise to a high degree of confusion: the altruist — who is, deep down, a stickler for the rules — ends up believing that everyone's desires and needs are the same, and thus performs a kind of leveling process, the effect of which is to make these individuals replace their possible previous desires with others that the altruist considers universal. Now, that is precisely what no one wants, since our most authentic desires are unique and untransferable and, often, unconfessable. The egoist, on the other hand, tends to know himself through and through and is never likely to confuse himself with someone else, still less usurp antoher's personality. And because he is not equipped to place himself in that other person's shoes, he will never cease to see other people as individuals with their own interests and desires, which he deems to be as worthy or respect as his own. The egoist will be able to discriminate because he doesn't compare or involve himself with others. The egoist weighs his words, his actions, and his power, and when he does so, even though his objective is always his own best interest, and although one might say that, as a whole, he lacks scruples, the advantage is that he will behave with urbanity, civility, and tact, and can at least calim to be free of the two gravest and most widespread sins of our age: proselyetism and messianism. This egoist is one of the few people who is not trying to convert or save someone, and is, therefore, one of the few capable of seeing the truth.
Javier Marias
(Don't know if I agree: Don't some egoists — say, Bill Clinton — want to convert or save people? But it's certainly thought provoking. Wonder who Marias is really thinking of…himself?)
Kit Stolz 