"[...]what makes people worth risking your life for? Why should I risk my life for someone I do not know, for a human being who has hurt me or is generally abusive? And the conclusion, for me, seems to be that not everyone is worth saving, that some human beings are more worthy of life than others.[...]"
I feel that some people have more of an altruistic behavior than others. Almost as if that characteristic, that virtue, was embedded in their way of being, their personality, and that drives them to think selflessly, and to act towards others, to feel a sense of accomplishment of character. There are also people who have no need to serve others, and find no pleasure in dedicating themselves to improving the lives of others, whilst the altruistic ones would serve others even if that implicates a mild or severe suffering to their part. They act in personal sacrifice. And i see it obvious that this variety of people play their part in the world, and by no means do I want to favor one or the other. But for some reason, i feel they are dependent upon each other. What I mean here is that each extreme, 1. person that gives itself to others and has no other life apart from this, and 2. person that lives in order to make people suffer having no altruistic behavior. , exists mutually, and the work one has to obey only needs to be done when the other has work of its own. There is only altruism when there is suffering and inequality. The reason why some people deliver themselves to peace corps is because they can't stand the advantages they have in their lives, they see themselves as not worthy of what they have earned without sacrifice, and feel a need to go out there, into the world that isn't obvious to most people, and expose themselves to such vulnerability. Some of them feel a need to explore what they are capable of doing and i can also see most of them doing it out of the pleasure and satisfaction it brings to save someone's life, improving someone's life. I believe it gives them a sense of purpose, life begins to feel more worthy, as if it was being put to a good cause. And to be honest here, I appreciate the hard-work, dedication, courage and human exposure these people are going through.
However, a part of me feels people are of a selfish nature, no matter what. (people who join peace corps are ideally doing it for a greater cause, but down to the bottom they are doing it for themselves, for the sense of accomplishment, i don't see that they evaluate each human being they are potentially saving as worthy or not of being saved). If we focus on everyday life, circumstances that shape us routinely, most of us won't go out of our way to intrude a path of someone else and help them. Most of us won't even kindly offer simple gestures, we are stuck to what makes our day, and aren't comfortable with changing it for/because of someone else. There is a very egocentric nature here, specially in multi-cultural cities, where people seem to need to learn how to be independent and survive with what they have and with what they can get. There is more of a fierce competitive battle amongst people, to socially prove to be better than others. I realize a contrast with more closed environments, where there are more intimate relationships between people, where people give more of themselves and where peer's are important to control behavior (tend to do things in groups, decide things together, ponder more, see various perspectives, etc). In Norway, a highly civilized country, people build tight and close relationships, have an altruistic behavior that is balanced and tend to be more morally correct. This for me challenges my ideas about personality amongst cities, how they shape us. I know I'm driving away from the main point of this, but my focus here is to understand why it is important to be altruistic? rather than are people worth risking your life for? And it seems somewhat logical that there needs to be a balance in the way we help others. The people who are going to help others are ultimately people from civilized countries, people who have had an opportunity to have a family, education, money, fun, friends, normal life. These people are part of a society that flashes key values at every point of the day, and we blindly follow these values, learn them, and make them pass from generation to generation. So, if people in Norway are striving for respect, morals, sharing, sacrifice, hard-work, and turn out to be highly successful people, happy and stable in life, educated and of A* behavior, it seems obvious that the country will reflect what people they have, and it is certain that Norway had less % of unemployed people, less % of crime, etc. The key point here is that "building" the people, builds the nation. And currently, the only reason we have such a difference between societies is people don't all fall under the same moral code. This gives rise to wars, to political/economic/religious issues, to inequality, etc.
I'm not too sure if i'm addressing the statement, but I guess my opinion falls along the side of individual behavior. And it is not wrong to follow such ideals at to save someone's life, even if that person isn't worthy of it, but there needs to be a deeper look into why there are these ideals. We don't live in a perfect world, neither do we have perfect people, so it seems that this is never going to end. But maybe changing the values that are being set to us as we grow up, maybe that will help us commit less crime, be more of a hard-working nature, be more active and healthy, and also less extremist, less committed blindly to our causes. This will reflect into less wars, hence less reasons for us to be saving people (wars can be the word i'll use to cover all the negative sides of the problems humanity suffers, the light and heavy ones) .
Sofia Luz