In 1977 the punk rock band the Sex Pistols produced a song called ‘No Feelings’. It begins:
I've seen you in the mirror
When the story began
And I fell in love with you
The song then continues to paint a portrait of a totally selfish individual. Someone who truly has: … no emotions for anybody else
Who tells us:
You better understand
I'm in love with myself, myself
My beautiful self
And then it gets worse. He kneels down to his ‘god’ - himself - whilst ‘praying’ these words:
I've no feeling, no feeling, I got no feeling
For anybody else
I've no feeling, no feeling, no feeling
For anybody else
Except for myself
My beautiful self
This song offers a terrible, chilling insight into selfishness and I am sure we would like to leave it behind in those turbulent angry 1970s. Sadly we can’t. Human beings are a strange mixture of selflessness and selfishness. Each of us have selfishness and selflessness in different measures. And, today, as in 1977, there are people who are very, very selfish. The part of this punk-classic (is this an oxymoron?) which interests me most is the idea of bowing down to pray to a ‘god’ who is fact yourself … my beautiful self. In our society the influence of the faith, particularly Christian faith, appears to be increasingly marginalised. Faith is now often placed in other places rather than in the divine. And this is where worship of the self comes into play … there is nothing greater than me! - ergo, whatever I desire takes precedence.
Now do not misunderstand. I am not criticising the faith of humanists. They celebrate human potential whilst rejecting the divine. They do not suggest for a moment that we worship ourselves, our 'beautiful' selves.
Aristotle, I believe, first stated ‘nature abhors a vacuum’. There is now, for many in the CE21st a vacuum of faith. This empty place, according to Aristotle, will be filled … filled by whatever we find available. For many, that which is available is self-worship, with all the selfishness that implies. This is not surprising. We live in a society where me and my wants are paramount. We should have it all … and have it now. At least that is what the advertisers tell us. Is it any wonder so many ‘get down on their knees and worship themselves’?
For those of us with a faith in the divine, and for those of us without, we need to grasp, live and promote the ‘Golden Rule’ - in other words that ‘we should treat others as we would wish to be treated’. Simple really.
Live the ‘golden rule’ and challenge the mores of our society that promote selfishness, self-interest and greed. Together let us challenge those forces that culminate in the terrible spectacle of ‘worshiping oneself as god’.
David Pattie
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