Commentary 4

Thanksgiving: A Most Selfish Holiday

By Debi Ghate

Ah, Thanksgiving. To most of us, the word conjures up images of turkey dinner, pumpkin pie and watching football with family and friends. It kicks off the holiday season and is the biggest shopping weekend of the year. We're taught that Thanksgiving came about when pilgrims gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest. We vaguely mumble thanks for the food on our table, the roof over our head and the loved ones around us. We casually think about how lucky we are and how much better our lives are than, say, those in Bangladesh. But surely there is something more to celebrate, something more sacred about this holiday.

What should we really be celebrating on Thanksgiving?

Ayn Rand described Thanksgiving as "a typically American holiday . . . its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers' holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." She was right. This country was mostly uninhabited and wild when our forefathers began to develop the land and build spectacular cities, shaping what is now the wealthiest nation in the world. It's the American spirit to overcome challenges, create great achievements, and enjoy prosperity. We uniquely recognize that production leads to wealth and that we must dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. It's no accident that Americans have a holiday called Thanksgiving--a yearly tradition when we pause to appreciate the "bountiful harvest" we've reaped.

What is today's version of the "bountiful harvest"? It's the affluence and success we've gained. It's the cars, houses and vacations we enjoy. It's the life-saving medicines we rely on, the stock portfolios we build, the beautiful clothes we buy and the safe, clean streets we live on. It's the good life.

How did we get this "bountiful harvest"? Ask any hard-working American; it sure wasn't by the "grace of God." It didn't grow on a fabled "money tree." We created it by working hard, by desiring the best money can buy and by wanting excellence for ourselves and our loved ones. What we don't create ourselves, we trade value for value with those who have the goods and services we need, such as our stockbrokers, hairdressers and doctors. We alone are responsible for our wealth. We are the producers and Thanksgiving is our holiday.

So, on Thanksgiving, why don't we thank ourselves and those producers who make the good life possible?

From a young age, we are bombarded with messages designed to undermine our confident pursuit of values: "Be humble," "You can't know what's good for yourself," "It's better to give than receive," and above all "Don't be selfish!" We are scolded not to take more than "our share"--whether it is of corporate profits, electricity or pie. We are taught that altruism--selfless concern for others--is the moral ideal. We are taught to sacrifice for strangers, who have no claim to our hard-earned wealth. We are taught to kneel rather than reach for the sky.

But, morally, one should reach for the sky. One should recognize that the corporate profits, electricity or pie was earned through one's production--and savor its consumption. Every decision one makes, from what career to pursue to whom to call a friend, should be guided by what will best advance one's rational goals, interests and, ultimately, one's life. One should take pride in being rationally selfish--one's life and happiness depend on it.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to recognize what we are truly grateful for, to appreciate and celebrate the fruits of our labor: our wealth, health, relationships and material things--all the values we most selfishly cherish. We should thank researchers who have made certain cancers beatable, gourmet chefs at our favorite restaurants, authors whose books made us rethink our lives, financiers who developed revolutionary investment strategies and entrepreneurs who created fabulous online stores. We should thank ourselves and those individuals who make our lives more comfortable and enjoyable--those who help us live the much-coveted American dream.

As you sit down to your sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner served on your best china, think of all the talented individuals whose innovation and inventiveness made possible the products you are enjoying. As you look around at who you've chosen to spend your day with--those you've chosen to love--thank yourself for everything you have done to make this moment possible. It's a time to selfishly and proudly say: "I earned this."

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Mrs. Ghate is Vice President of Academic Programs at the Ayn Rand Institute where she also serves as a corporate officer. Mrs. Ghate has a BSc in Psychology and Biology from the University of Toronto, and a LLB in Law from the University of Calgary. She is also general manager and corporate secretary for ARI Canada, a Canadian charitable organization. Prior to joining ARI, she practiced law with a focus on insurance defense litigation at a major Canadian insurance company and in private practice. Her Op-Eds and letters to the editor were published in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Providence Journal, Education Update and The U.K. Daily Express.


Response from Christine:
I take issue with this article.

What about the people who, through no fault of their own, were born into horrible circumstances? Not everyone was given a "plate" full of love, education, and knowledge of the ability to create a better life for themselves. Do we just say, "To hell with them!"? It's much easier to say that strangers who have no "claim to our hard-earned wealth" should fend for themselves, but without the work ethic and love that you received from your family of origin, you could very well be in their position with no hope to rise above it. I'm sure the American Dream, seemingly so attainable to those enjoying our way of life, seems completely out of reach to many. This article makes me cringe inside for its celebration of selfishness and pure disregard for the plights of those around us. Have you ever thought why it is you were born into this country, into this family? Why do we have the life we do and others struggle in darkness from the moment they are born? Sure we have worked somewhat to get where we are, but we had an easy start- in families that, while not without flaws, valued hard work, determination and perseverance and had the love for each other as the foundation. Those values were passed down, and while some may be able to find or create those things for themselves without receiving as positive a legacy as we have, others are caught in cycles of hopelessness and feel they can't escape.

Those people who look to God with gratitude this time of year- those that are spoken of so disdainfully in this article- are the ones who primarily help those that remain hungry out of their own bounty and blessings. It is a shame that compassion isn't valued in this article.


In answer to Christine:


I guess that ode to thanksgiving really got your intellectual juices flowing. Your response though has a number of fallacies and misunderstandings that I would like to attempt to correct. Ethics is a complex subject that requires enormous thought and analysis which it would obviously be impossible to cover in an e-mail. But I will try to clarify as briefly as possible some points.

Selfishness, the rational kind, does NOT equate to a disregard for others. It merely means that one’s own life and well-being is properly the central focus of one’s concerns. This does not mean it is wrong to help others. What it does mean is that charity is not one’s primary concern or obligation, but is instead relegated to the status of a minor virtue to be engaged in out of good will and generosity, not duty , guilt, or compulsion, and only when one believes in the worthiness of the recipient and can afford it (broadly speaking). This is not an arbitrary assertion, but is backed up by the facts of reality. Charity is made possible by the production that comes first. Production comes before charity or any kind of need. The requirements of man’s life and survival (products and services such as food, shelter, transportation, music and entertainment, computers, nails, etc., etc., etc.) are not found ready-made in nature, but must be produced by him in a process of thought and productive work. Productive work requires the selfish virtues of hard work, inventiveness, the pursuit of education and knowledge, the setting of long-term goals, acting on one’s own independent thought and judgement, the development of ones abilities (whether natural [God-given, if you prefer] or acquired), integrity, honesty, and self-esteem. Why are these selfish attributes? Because they are generated by the self; your self. You can be encouraged by loving parents. But you must be self-motivated…by choice. You must be dedicated to excellence…by choice. You must acquire the knowledge you need by a process of mental effort…by choice. Etc. If charity is a virtue, then the selfishness that makes it possible is the greater and higher virtue. To reverse the two is to reverse cause and effect. To place charity and need above productiveness is the road to universal destitution. Then what would "the needy" do. The ethics of rational, enlightened self-interest (or egoism) corrects the moral inversion which is altruism (the ethics of self-sacrifice).

It is no accident that America, the richest and most prosperous country in the history of the world, is also the most generous. Americans give more per-capita than any other nation, by far. This is borne out by numerous surveys (although I don’t have them at my fingertips). But again, don’t reverse cause and effect. The moral premise implicit in the words "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and in the concept of the inalienable rights of the individual (every individual) is that each person owns his own life and can set his own course according to his own self-interest. This is the source of this country’s greatness. The morality of altruism and its correllary collectivism is undercutting our founding principles and is slowly leading us to statism and socialism.

Some people are indeed "born into horrible circumstances". But so long as an individual is of sound mind and body, he can not be given a pass. In America, being free and possessing free will, he can choose to take the necessary steps to overcome his disadvantage. And people in these circumstances do this all of the time, sometimes with a helping hand, sometimes not, but always by their own effort. A person’s life is not determined by the circumstances of his birth. If it were, then we do not possess volition, there is no need for morality, and perpetual poverty is man’s fate, as it was for most of history prior to the industrial revolution. But a person’s need does not give him a license to steal or to mooch. He can depend on the voluntary generosity of others if he is worthy in their judgement, but his need does not give him a moral claim on the lives of others. (In the case of those who are incapable of fending for themselves [a small minority], they can and should be able to depend on ample private charity. A society based on the value of each individual life would not allow the indigent or orphaned children to die in the streets.)

We are indeed fortunate to have been born in the USA. But America was no accident. The Enlightenment and it’s shining offspring, America, liberated people from the primitive ideas of the past and enabled the tremendous advances in quality of life after centuries of stagnation and poverty, all based on the Enlightenment idea of every individual’s ability to run his own life. In nations where dark age conditions still exist today, it is because of the primitive beliefs that permeate their cultures, such as mysticism and tribalism. To the extent that they throw off their irrational ideas and embrace "Western" values (which are really universal values) they can prosper. Many countries have done that, as witness the newly emerging middle classes of former third world countries in Asia and of Eastern Europe. Americans should neither apologize nor feel guilty for their prosperity because of the misery in other nations. The same path to a better life is open to all of them if they so choose. (Americans can help by vigorously promoting it’s founding ideals and through expansion of free global trade,)

Finally, I think compassion is prevalent throughout this Thanksgiving message, in the form of being thankful for all of the people who enrich our lives by producing the things that we want and need but do not and could not produce for ourselves. What they give us is the chance to trade our single work product for that of countless others, enriching their lives as they enrich ours and our loved ones. Isn’t the food (or anything else) that one may donate to someone in need of assistance made possible by the food producers who work mainly for their own profit? Don’t they, without whom we would all go hungry, deserve the most thanks? The true benefactors of mankind are every person who engages in productive work. The "celebration of selfishness" that makes you cringe is the source of the good life we all enjoy in America, if you understand the meaning of "selfishness" as I do.

Zemack