Selfish world?: June 23, 1997 issue of New Thinking

June 23, 1997 New Thinking:
Selfish world?

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June 23, 1997

Selfish world?

By Gerry McGovern

On Irish TV there are a number of interesting ads at the moment. They promote greed. Funnily, most of them have to do with chocolate. There’s a long-running one for ‘Rolo’ It’s all about not giving anybody your last Rolo. Then there’s a campaign about a chocolate ice cream called ‘My Magnum.’

Another ad has a young, beautiful woman living in a top-floor flat, just opening up her chocolate bar when she hears her ‘friends’ arriving. She runs out to the hallway. There’s this old-style lift with shutter doors, and she pulls them ajar, ensuring that the lift won’t work. She smugly eats her chocolate as her ‘friends’ trudge up the stairs with bags.

Is the message of these ads just a coincidence? Or does the market research tell the advertisers that people are becoming more selfish, and that this trend should be exploited? If such a trend exists, will the Internet magnify or reduce it, or have no effect on it?

Is community under threat as we advance forward into the digital age? I hear about new communities forming. I hearing about that famous online community, the Well. But is the Well, and its likes, a community or a club?

Communities include babies, children, adults and old people. Some communities are relatively exclusive from an income point of view, but many have a reasonable mix of rich and not so rich. Clubs are selective groups of people. Until recently, the Internet could have been described as a club of mainly rich, well educated, white, mainly male, techno-sussed Americans.

Greed and selfishness are natural emotions. Children have to learn to share, and adults have to learn to build and maintain communities. Why? Because people figured that working together made more sense in the long-run, that greed tended to be short-sighted, and that co-operation within a community paid off in the fruits of time.

If everyone wanted to be an individual then society would simply not function. Why should an individual stop at a traffic lights when they are red? Why should a strong, able, high-earning individual pay taxes? Why should an adult individual not be able to do things which might hurt or damage a child?

Today, I saw a community at play. Adults gave freely of their time to organize a football competition for young children. Prizes, tired, happy faces, crisps and lemonade were the end result.

I believe that the vast majority of us have an essential decency that for the most part rises above our sense of selfishness. Most of us are lucky to live in relatively caring societies.

The caring element of these societies took idealism and long, hard work to create. The Internet has hardly been born. It is ready to mould. Each of us, in our own way, can contribute to making the Internet a world of communities, with room for all.

The Internet is now a huge business opportunity. While its initial members were part of a lucky club, it is important to note that what made the Internet what it is was true co-operation and open standards. So, the signs are definitely positive that the Internet can move from a sharing club to a broad community.

Gerry McGovern

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It is important to note that what made the Internet what it is was true co-operation and open standards.