I don't think that assumption holds. People routinely vote for candidates that will worsen their lives, gamble, smoke, don't exercise, some people even don't brush their teeth.
On the other hand, there's as many examples of people being selfless as of people being selfish.
Human behavior is much more complex.
Reminds me of debating Bentham in high school. If the feeling of self-interest of a murderer acts upon is greater than the self-interest of someone not to be murdered, etc...
Maybe the point is not to reduce judgment to one qualitative idea.
The broader point is that self-interest is not purely logical because humans are not purely logical beings.
What act exactly do people believe to be in their self-interest? Why are you claiming it's the anti-social ones and not the pro-social if the believe is not rooted on reality?
Humans are intrinsically irrational. That is a plain and simple fact. Humans operate exclusively on what they think is true instead of what is objective fact. Subjectively an individual human acts in ways that are roughly rational and coherent within their belief system and world view. The problem is that this frame of reference is entirely subjective and is only tangentially related to consensus objective reality. Assuming that you can apply your own reasoning and logic to all other humans is fallacy.
You must accept the fact that other people do not share your world view and will not act with what you, personally deem to be rationality.
a) Internet privacy is in one's self-interest
b) Many erroneously believe privacy on the internet to be goal of terrorists, hackers, etc.
c) A subset of these people then act against their own self-interest by vocally supporting mass surveillance, or voting in candidates who do so, in the name of the apparent self-interest of safety
I also didn't say anything about pro/antisocial people... different person.
This is a line I see often by people (not you, just to be clear) puzzled because somebody didn't "vote for their own self interest" or at least that is the perception of the person making the statement. I've seen variations of it for at least 30 years. You'd often see it around pressure campaigns to unionize especially.
The shock about the perception is always funny to me, because it reads as shock that someone refused a bribe or was not easily manipulated.
So when someone "votes against their self-interest", this person tends to think of those others as malfunctioning. Perhaps they're too stupid to correctly deduce the path to achieving the results they want. Though he might be willing to consider they're mentally ill.
If he were forced (somehow) to consider that other people want things different from what he wants, it could be some sort of existential crisis as far as he's concerned. How could two competing interests even exist in a sane or fair universe, and which should prevail if they are mutually exclusive? What if, somehow, his own interests were destined to lose out?
There are examples where "what he wants them to do" can actually be for them to vote to help themselves.
For example, people voting to give themselves, their family, and their friends better access to health care; instead many people prevent themselves from getting better health care because if they did that would mean other people (and specifically the 'wrong kind' of other people) would also get it:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
So people are screwing themselves/family to screw other folks over. They are actively harming themselves out of spite.
Sorry, but sometimes people really do just vote against there own interests because they've been convinced of things that are wrong, or they misunderstand something. I expect you could even think of some examples if you tried.
And your whole post is just wildly making assumptions about someone you don't know: - "thinks of others as robots..." - "Everyone in the world must, as some precondition of the universe, be interested in all the same things" - "He cannot imagine that people external to himself have any real interests at all" - "this person tends to think of those others as malfunctioning" - "...it could be some sort of existential crisis as far as he's concerned" - "How could two competing interests even exist in a sane or fair universe" -
Perhaps you could have some faith? I doubt you've never voted for something you came to regret.
The point is, that the 'Right' are living in a bubble of cognitive dissonance, fantasy, simulacrum. Barely able to put one foot in front of the other as far as logic goes...
Literally the same group that were convinced by rich land owners that the having a Civil War for the land owners benefit, was a good idea. Going against their own self interest.
Calling voters selfish because they didn't vote for your candidate is just pure idiocy. Politics is a game of convincing and some strategies are more successful than others, one of the worse things you can do in politics is simply advocate (talking to others); which is why the majority of online discussions around politics revolves around advocacy, it's the cheapest and lowest impact thing an individual can do.
The GP did not call voters "selfish". It said
> People routinely vote for candidates that will worsen their lives [...]
Now, I would personally reword that as "People routinely vote for candidates despite evidence that these candidates policies will worsen one or more aspects of their lives ...".
But nowhere is there the suggestion that "you didn't vote for my preferred candidate and therefore you are selfish".
The suggestion wasn't overt, it was kind of implicity - telling people that they don't know their own self interest, even when they manifestly don't, is not very ahh "politic" :)
It’s inherently an argument that democracy does not work.
"Stupid people are the most dangerous people" -- Carlos Cipolla, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
https://gandalf.fee.urv.cat/professors/AntonioQuesada/Curs19...
"All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die" Says the man next to me out of nowhere It's apropos of nothing, he says his name is William I'm sure he's Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy And he's plain ugly to me And I wonder if he's ever had a day of fun in his whole life We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday In a bar that faces a giant car wash The good people of the world Are washing their cars on their lunch break Hosing and scrubbing as best they can in skirts in suits
These are regularly rich and at upper echelons of politics.
Having actual ethical limitations is what limits enrichment and gain of power. And while most gamblers loose, some win big and then gain power.
At any given decision point, people are more likely to pick the option that provides some benefit to them. That looks very different from consistently picking the choice that is eventually best for them.
I largely agree with you, but I would tweak it to say "Humans are decent at doing what's best for them given their own values and knowledge".
^as in any situation, there is always the <1% of outliers
To the extent this is true, that is only because they believe those candidates will make their lives better. People often declare how their outgroup "votes against their own interests", and use it as some kind of indictment of those people's intelligence. But that is nothing more than a failure to understand people. Essentially nobody is out there voting for someone whom they believe will make their lives worse m
There certainly people who are selfless but in the distribution of personalities selfless feels more rare. And their is always a question to what extent. I think what Hannah Arendt really is getting at is that is possible to build a system that reinforces small compromises for reasonable benefit that leads the system to meltdown when everyone starts making small compromises
