Beyond Selfish and Unselfish?

One thing I have trouble with is thinking of relationships as a zero-sum game. (Maybe it's being too much a fan of Adam Smith and leaning too far towards capitalism in general, I dunno...) I.E. a zero-sum game being: "Somebody has to be the loser. Either it's good for me or good for you. Never both."

Of course I read enough C.S. Lewis in high school to know that this sounds a bit like the philosophy of hell from the Screwtape Letters.

I think a lot of people get around the zero-sum game by turning it on its head, and trying to be less selfish instead of more. While selfish people would say, "Our interests are in conflict so I have to do what's best for me first," an unselfish person would say, "I will always put you first." So the best person is the one enduring the most unpleasantness to make others happy.

Now, "unselfishness" is obviously a loaded word, especially after bringing up C.S. Lewis. It's easy to remember some critiques he made in Mere Christianity and The Four Loves. Essentially, that it can turn into a game of one-up-manship that leaves everybody miserable.

So even though it's common to say "die to yourself" and so on, sometimes I don't really agree with that. One of the strangest stories in the Bible to me is the one about "Unless a seed falleth into the ground and die.." Because it seems that the only result of the seed's death is to produce....more seeds. Who will go on to produce more seeds and so on into infinity. It's definitely a sustainable pattern, but singularly pointless. Why do we want more seeds? Do the seeds ever do anything with their lives besides reproduce mindlessly?

Essentially, it's the story that tells us the group is worth everything and the individual nothing. Did you think you had personal value? Think again! You're just a tool to produce more exactly like you!

Sometimes I want to be a little Nietzsche-ish. Why not go beyond selfishness and unselfishness? Not just lions over lambs or lambs over lions.

Why do we assume that the joy of self and the joy of others are mutually exclusive? Is it possible that showing kindness can produce sincere, lasting, happiness? Without us having to double-think ourselves into it?

Maybe personal suffering is only a side-effect of virtue and not it's true measure. I think a truly kind person can be measured by joy.