What feels good and looks good may NOT be truly good.

Targeted Readership: Men
Theme: Virtue
Length: 2,000 words
Reading Time: 10 minutes

Intro

In the past, the topic of altruism has been the subject of intense discussion within the Based sphere, mainly Francis Berger and Bruce Charlton, but also including Σ Frame as of late.  This post collates some relevant excerpts on this topic with respect to virtue.

Universal Altruism is a False Concept of Christian Love

In earlier writings, Bruce Charlton noted that secular altruism is responsible for Political Correctness and is the antithesis of Christian love.

In one essay, Francis Berger cites Dostoevsky’s observation of the utilitarian allure of The Golden Rule and he describes how The Golden Rule has been deceptively coopted as a justification for secular altruism, extended to Political Correctness.  He believes this to be the most egregious failure of Christian teaching.

“Many modern people associate The Parable of the Good Samaritan from The Gospel of Mark with The Golden Rule. The same could be applied to “love one another” in The Gospel of John. In our contemporary world, the Biblical commands to love one another and to love thy neighbor as thyself have essentially been hijacked and appropriated by leftists as proof that, above all else, Jesus desired to establish a world of universal altruism perfectly analogous to The Golden Rule. What leftists — and many Christians — fail to include in these interpretations to love others as you love yourself is the prerequisite of loving God first. Re-establishing this omission helps clarify what Jesus [et al.] really mean by the injunction to love others as you love yourself.”

Francis Berger: Loving Others As You Love Yourself Hinges On The Self You Love (2020/7/16)

In another post, Berger says secular altruism is a symptom of people who have rejected reality.

Universal Altruism has Replaced the True Concept of Christian Love

Berger wrote another essay in which he uses Max Scheler’s work, Ressentiment, as a philosophical springboard to assert that universal altruism has completely replaced Christian love.

“We live in an era in which authentic Christian love has been fully eclipsed by altruism and the love of mankind. For all intents and purposes, the vast majority of modern people have become incapable of understanding –- to say nothing of internalizing or adhering to –- the fundamental truth and reality of Christian love. What we are experiencing today is the near-total abandonment of authentic Christian love in favor of a near-total devotion to humanitarian love.

Of course, many have claimed that this shift in “love consciousness” is a necessary revolutionary step; that this transformative movement of love is an ascending force representing the next stage in the evolution of “human global consciousness”.

Mainstream Christianity has certainly embraced this idea, and many mainstream churches have begun agitating for a new social contract to create a new human community, a tangible “civilization of love” based upon a heightened sense of humanitarianism and altruism fueled by “social and political love.” All of this is packaged and sold to Christians as the very same Christian love Jesus demonstrates and attests to in the Gospels.

And for all intents and purposes, most contemporary Christians have bought into this faux conception of Christian love, to the point that most now regard this indiscriminate and abstract “love of mankind” as the highest value to which all human beings, Christians foremost among them, can aspire.

As a result, the “love of mankind” has become not only become synonymous with Christian love in the minds of most Christians, but also forms the axioms attesting to Christian truth and reality, which, in the minds of most modern Christians begins and ends with the temporal expansion of general welfare; an expansion that must include every single member of the human race.

The argument that authentic Christian love and humanitarian love are not only synonymous and compatible, but actually one-in-the-same, is more than a mere misconception -– it is carefully crafted and purposive falsehood…”

Francis Berger: Christian Love and The Love of Mankind: Two Entirely Different Worlds (2020/9/19)

Word! Some readers may need to reassess their concept of Christian love.

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Universal Altruism is NOT Christian Love

In another essay, Berger compares and contrasts Altruism and Christian Love, noting that they are NOT equivocal.

“…modern people generally embrace altruism as a high virtue, moral obligation, and guiding principle. Many consider it a high expression of love; for some, it represents the highest form of love.

When the media broadcasts an individual or organization that is working to place the interests of others above its interests, modern people tend to regard such individuals or organizations as noble and virtuous.

Contemporary Christians are no exception here. Most Christians think altruism is an innately Christian principle and virtue –- a principle and virtue that the secular left hijacks, corrupts, and retools to serve its nefarious purposes.

Within this framework of contemporary Christian thinking, the disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others is an inherent Christian “good” toward which all Christians should aim.”

Francis Berger: Altruism Is Not Christian Love (2022/11/22)

In the last paragraph, “the disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others” deserves unpacking.  Berger uses these words to describe how universal altruism appears in contemporary Christianity.  This description is remarkably similar to Christian Detachment.  However, the altruism that has replaced Christian love does NOT include the hallmark traits of Christian Detachment, such as installing boundaries, placing demands on others, and offering constructive moral feedback to others, and NOT just any or all others, mind you, but only those within covenantal relationships and/or one’s sphere of authority / influence. Furthermore, these key aspects of Christian Detachment are NOT emphasized in most Christian teachings outside of the Christian Manosphere.  In fact, they are de-emphasized, and yet this abstract, weak sauce, Christian-lite altruism is still assumed to apply to everyone.

Furthermore, the lack of these aspects of Christian Detachment within Christianity, due to their displacement by ideals of secular altruism, is precisely why the average Christian man is NOT effectively virtuous in his self-sacrifices, and also why he is NOT intuitively FOLLOW-able. Worse, this corrupted image of masculinity is commonly believed and presented as an archetype of Godly masculinity, which partly explains why Christianity is failing, flailing, and falling out of favor.

Under Berger’s essay quoted above, William Wildblood asked a pertinent question.

“What is the purpose of altruistic action even assuming the altruism is genuine? To make the world a better place? To relieve suffering and spread happiness? That has nothing to do with Christian love which is directed solely to bringing a soul closer to God. In other words, Christian love is focused on spiritual ends. It is not well-meaning, it does not have good intentions and it is not benevolent. Christian love derives from God and seeks to bring everything back to God.”

Σ Jack answered Wildblood’s initial question.

“The bottom line for secularized altruism is NOT about the willful act of helping other people, it’s NOT about the mercy or grace demonstrated, it’s not about the efficacy nor wisdom nor outcome thereof, nor even about motive as Kant argued; the bottom line of altruism is the suffering of the moralized individual.  True morality, according to the Post-Enlightened ethic, is shown in a blood sacrifice.  You have to let others see you bleed.  You have to be nailed to a cross.  Kant makes this very explicit in his book, Critique of Practical Reason (1788).”

Σ Frame: The Philosophical Basis of Secularized Altruism (2023/7/31)

Today, this self-sacrifice is coopted and rebranded as ‘victimization’ and is thus taken as the ‘proof’ of the purported ‘virtue’ demonstrated in virtue signaling.

If the reader is confused about the proper place, purpose, or value of suffering, then you need to sort out your Suffering.

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Universal Abstract Altruism is NOT Christian

In a follow-up essay, Francis Berger goes on to write,

“Christians who involve themselves with altruism are involved with a principle that is utterly incompatible with being a Christian. People can be altruists, or they can be Christians, but they cannot be both. The very notion of an altruistic Christian is a self-contradiction –- an oxymoron par excellence.

To begin with, altruism -– in its purest definition -– is an anti-Christian principle because it denies the reality of God. It thereby negates the first Christian commandment to love God. It also negates the second Christian commandment to love the neighbor because it rejects the spiritual reality of man.

Those who engage in altruism do not practice Christian love, which is an act directed at the concrete, real, spiritual person –- at the innermost reality of what makes a person a person. Instead, they practice what Auguste Comte defined as the moral obligation to renounce the self to live for the other. Comte believed this total submission of the self to others was vital to the benefit and progress of society, which in Comte’s positivism supplants the role of God.”

Francis Berger: It is Spiritually Impossible For a Christian to Be Altruistic (2022/11/23)

Altruism as a Virtuous Cover for Evil

Bruce Charlton chased this topic into utter darkness [emphasis his].

“…the implication of modern experience and explanations at the individual level is that ideally each person should be a hypocritical psychopath — hypocritically expounding altruism and groupishness for other-people, while (covertly) selfishly exploiting this situation for oneself.”

“… A superficial ideology of altruism and public-good covering a core ruthless and exploitative careerism and hedonism.”

Bruce Charlton: Alone with-God and against The World. What is the basis of human cooperation? (2023/3/9)

So we see the “Rules for thee but not for me” being expressed at the core of Secular Altruism.

Berger points out that this dankness even applies to Christians.

“Cynically, I will even go as far as to suggest that most Christians have reached the point where they have inverted Comte’s dictum of living for others to “living for myself under the guise of living for others.”

Francis Berger: Why Do So Many Self-Professed Christians Bother To Call Themselves Christians? (2023/9/7)

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Conclusions

In conclusion, authentic Christian love has taken a backburner to altruism, and the former has been neglected and even forgotten.

Renouncing the ‘Old Self’ and ‘putting on Christ’ is NOT the same as prostrating / renouncing / sacrificing / submitting one’s self for the auspices of mankind, which sacrilegiously places one in the stead of Christ.  Therefore, infinite universal abstract Altruism, even as practiced by Christians within the church, is a false religion and is therefore evil.  Altruism as it relates to the modern understanding of virtue and virtue signaling is in fact an anti-virtue.  Likewise, what is regarded as victimhood and victimhood status is in fact evil (i.e. ressentimentalism).  Also, the Nice Guy™ persona, as it relates to altruism and virtue, is also a false front, as most readers here are already well aware of.

There are a few Bible verses that warn us of this deception.

To do righteouness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

Proverbs 21:3 (ESV)

Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Matthew 9:13 (ESV)

And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Mark 12:33 (ESV)

It is imperative for Christian Men to be aware of this — that universal abstract altruism is NOT a framework of Christian morality, nor is it truly virtuous.  Take a moment to think on this until you ‘get it’.  Read this essay again if it helps.

For those interested in further reading on this topic, Francis Berger, Bruce Charlton, et al. have written extensively on the deceptions of false Virtue and the pitfalls of universal abstract altruism.  See links below.

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