INTRODUCTION
Between the extreme egoism and extreme altruism, the real man finds himself his own way, depending on his personality, environment, education and many others. From those two, the egoism is natural. The Bergson’s "Free Will", the "Inner Will" as source of life at Schopenhauer and many other similar ideas reflect what nature makes in every moment, starting with the smallest cell and finishing with the biggest and complex biologic systems: want to develop himself to the detriment of environment. The altruism, instead, even if it exists naturally, it does not reach high values. Life teaches man to keep account of the others, becoming in this way altruist in a bigger or smaller measure. "The enemy helps you, because he limits you, gives you form and founds you" (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Citadel).
The struggle for existence is the main condition for any being, human or animal equally. From the smallest cell to the most complex organism, life is an endless endeavour for an individual's betterment based on his environment. It stops only when he exhausts his resources, or meets with a similar individual with whom he has to share the same resources ("My freedom stops where others' freedom begins"). An individual's ideal is a selfish one. It is so obvious that the previous phrase seems a truism. Nature is interested in our existence, not in our happiness. Even Jesus said "Love your neighbour as yourself!" He confesses here that egocentrism is foremost. Accepting the other is subsequently; it comes from the contact with the environment and man learns it, while egocentrism is genetic. There is no use for us to pretend that it does not exist. We can put it under the control of the reason, which is something much different.
Realizing the limits of his aspirations, limits that bring his unhappiness, man has built an ideal opposed to the egoism, one that is altruistic until the abandonment of oneself. In this way, religion appears. It wants to make us better, impeccable people, but just here the fault lies, because such a thing is impossible. Why does it still do it? Because it wants to counterbalance our malefic tendencies. However, being an ideal, this is not really followed by anyone, and, remaining a theoretical idea, the religion that preaches it becomes obsolete in time. The real man adopts an intermediate attitude, between the unscrupulous selfishness and the absolute altruism (if it really exists), in accordance with his personality. Contrary to expectations, the wit of choice does not belong to the theory - in this case to religion - but to the common person. The question we ask almost naturally is "why does not the theory achieve it by itself, suggesting a clever way, between the two absolute ideals?"
"Beings without reason live in harmony… What about the good understanding existing just between the wildest animals? The cruelty of lions does not manifest among lions… The snake does not swoop upon other snake, and good understanding between wolves has become even proverbial. Only on men the education does not join." I quoted a whole paragraph from Erasmus, in order to show that this dilemma existed in all epochs.
The same attitude is to be found in politics as well, especially when we talk about democracy. An audacious propaganda makes us to believe that the political system in which we live is the closest to perfection, or at least approaches it. Democracy is an ideal, and the pretension of achieving it is similar to ignorance. Why cannot we find a political system in which the leading principle is a rational way, and not an ideal one? I said a rational way, but mean reasonable, not the Rationalism, because it last appeared as a philosophical current in opposition to theology, destined to take Europe out of the darkness of the Middle Age, dominated by religion, but the consequences of which led to exaggerations too, among which is communism. (I will develop this idea later.)
Logically, through education, we should learn the correct, reasonable way, avoiding the errors due to the exaggerations of one or the other extremes. Unfortunately, in most cases, we are misdirected toward that extreme opposite of the natural one, hoping that we will find the correct way. Christianity speaks about the good man, the one who offers the other cheek when someone slaps him. In politics, even if ownership is the source of progress, we pretend to have a democratic society, where people are equal to each other. A greater hypocrisy does not exist, I think. Naturally, any young man will conclude that this sort of education is of no use for his life, especially because this conclusion comes after he has just learned that it is not the stork that brings the children in the world, Santa Claus does not come with reindeers from far away and so on. Consequently, he shall find his way by himself, which he will do, but no-one says with what results, because, meanwhile, he has lost his trust in educators.
I retook here some ideas dispersed in other books, articles, Internet, etc., for upholding the main idea of this essay.