ArticleNietzsche, Rand and Machiavelli must be cackling from their graves. From politics to playgrounds, self-interest is the new black.
“In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul,” writes David Mitchell in his novel Cloud Atlas, “for the human species, selfishness is extinction.” With an election around the corner and global volatility making us retreat into silos of defensive self-centredness, the spirit of Easter – sacrifice – is a timely reminder of what we need.
In the 1990s, the US Army War College coined the term VUCA to describe the uncertainty of a post-Cold War world. Describing a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, the term has been dusted off in recent years, with Black Swans like the Global Financial Crisis, Covid19, and now an escalating trade war – fuelling the term’s revival. Post-covid economic fragility, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing conflict in Gaza and now, an escalating trade war, have fuelled our instincts to hunker down and look after ourselves first.
As turbulence spreads, individuals and nations are returning to their basest self-protective instincts – switching back and forth between both fight and flight responses. We are more anxious, defensive and focused on ourselves. And self-awareness is not part of the problem:
Around 70% of Australians acknowledge that we’re self-centred.
We favour larger homes with smaller yards. Average land sizes have decreased by around 10% in the last decade but average house sizes haven’t declined. We’re pouring unprecedented amounts of money into video surveillance and home security – more than $1billion over the past few months alone.
Even our cars are giving us away. In his award-winning book Surrounded by Narcissists psychologist Thomas Erikson observes that the design of the front of cars – easily anthropomorphised, with headlights as eyes – are getting meaner and grumpier. A quick web search of the changing faces of everything from Honda Civics to Toyota Corollas confirms Erikson’s theory. Jeep even offers an ‘angry grill’ upgrade, presumably to emphasise the toughness of the car – or perhaps its driver.
We are caught in a storm of self-absorption, self-promotion and self-protection.
Bigger cars, armoured homes and self-serving voting patterns are all secondary markers of an instinct to use our resources to put some distance between ourselves and the rest of the pack. And the more uncertainty there is, the more we seem to tighten our grip on ourselves. Society – the sum total of citizens interacting civilly with each other – has been described by political scientists as a contract. But it’s looking more and more like a scramble for the best seats.
When fourth century theologian St. Augustine tried to make sense of the complicated Christian doctrine of ‘sin,’ he boiled it down to the idea of people being curved in on themselves. If offered a glance at the world in 2025, I doubt Augustine would revise his diagnosis.
Writing for The Atlantic author David Brooks suggests that a lack of moral formation is to blame for our inward turn. We feel like we have a “license to give our selfishness free reign,” says Brooks. If that’s the case – and I think it is – then the message of Easter offers a powerful and necessary rebuttal.
The Bible’s accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection invert man-made notions of self-interest and explode the ego-centric moral backdrop that underpins much of modern life. The good life – according to Jesus’ words and actions – is actually about sacrifice, not self-protection. Goodness begins with serving others, not self-service. Joy comes from relationship, not self-satisfaction.
Easter upends our proclivity for self-glorification, pointing to a divine response that’s anchored in self-emptying.
Through sacrifice, the audacity of Easter is at once ridiculous and seemingly incredible. And yet, this Easter around 2.6 billion Christians around the world will observe it as the most famous rebuttal of self-centredness in human history: A God who stepped into the world as a person and then sacrificially allowed himself to be tortured and killed. As the old Christmas carol puts it: “Mild he lays his glory by.”
With tariffs spiking, markets spinning and more instability than we’ve faced in living memory, fuel for self-centredness remains in plentiful supply. Reversing our inward turn will take resolve, imagination and grit. Thinking of how our vote will affect others, not just us. Donating even as our own bank accounts come under cost-of-living pressure. Volunteering our time in a time-poor schedule. Rising above stereotypes and the urge to demonise those with whom we disagree. For those of us who celebrate Easter and those who don’t, its message offers a uniquely compelling demonstration of self-giving in a cultural moment infused with selfishness. The antidote to our self-absorption seems clear. An ancient story of sacrifice – audacious though it is – may well hold the answer.
Max Jeganathan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. He served as a political and social policy adviser in the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, and is undertaking a PhD in law on human dignity. This article was originally published in The Canberra Times.