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Individualism vs. Selfishness

I have often seen people confusing individualism and selfishness, and using both synonymously. They may usually not accept it directly, but it is often clear from their attitude and mannerisms.The moment you drop a hint that you are an individualist, eyebrows are raised as if looking at a selfish person!

Yeah, both emphasize upon living for yourself, putting yourself first and all such stuff. But I believe that there is a fundamental difference between the two.

While individualism is about living for yourself without causing harm to or belittling others, selfishness is essentially living for yourself often at the cost of others.
It is somewhat like an analogy of making one line bigger (given two lines of equal length, drawn using a chalk). You can either make one bigger by extending it using a chalk ... or you can rub the end of one line to make the other bigger!

What say?
Ayn Rand would probably agree!
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Comments

  1. Anonymous11:44 AM, October 30, 2007

    Hmmm... like u said, the line of difference is quite thin, but it is there - a little blurry though!

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  2. Anonymous2:46 PM, October 31, 2007

    "It is somewhat like an analogy of making one line bigger (given two lines of equal length, drawn using a chalk). You can either make one bigger by extending it using a chalk ... or you can rub the end of one line to make the other bigger!"

    Nikesh, awesome thought and equally awesome post :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nikesh Rathi3:14 PM, October 31, 2007

    @Nova - Yeah, the difference is somewhat blurry ... but only when viewed from outside ... but from other side of the table the difference is very fundamental I believe!

    @ Silencekilled - Thanks about this thought about the thought :)!

    ReplyDelete

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