The Best Self-Help is Free: Gaining Value from Other People

Hitherto, we have focused on how you can best produce values for yourself and persuade other people to recognize the merits of your endeavors or at least to not interfere with them. But this is not all that can be done to improve your life when it comes to interacting with others. After all, other people are also individuals with their own skills, ideas, and accomplishments. Implicitly, we all recognize how much other people have to offer us. We all choose to live in a highly advanced, specialized society whose very economy and infrastructure could not have existed without division of labor and trade. We rely on other people for anything from our food to our entertainment - and there is no way around it, unless we wish to lead an autarkic existence in a one-room cabin in the middle of a forest, without sanitation or any of the modern conveniences.

But we can be much more effective value traders and value gainers if we take our implicit recognition and make it explicit, using it to guide our everyday actions and our treatment of other people. There exist tempting errors of judgment that many people who do not focus explicitly on value trading lapse into. Here, I hope to convince you that these ways of thinking ought to be avoided and replaced by ways more conducive to value exchange.

Avoid totalistic judgments of people. For most people, the temptation to classify other individuals as absolutely good in all respects or absolutely evil in all respects has been present since childhood. These judgments are almost always simplistic and, more often than not, they prevent what might have been fruitful interactions with those whom one judges negatively while cultivating an unwarranted intellectual dependence on those whom one judges positively.

In reality, virtually every person has attributes that any other individual would find meritorious and pleasant and other attributes which that same individual would at least mildly disapprove of. No two intellectually honest individuals have ever agreed philosophically or politically on every issue - and ideas on lifestyles, financial management, health, relationships, and numerous other everyday issues are even more diverse. Those who expect to only approve of individuals with whom they agree in every respect or even in most respects will be bitterly disappointed - because extremely few, if any, such individuals exist. Those who expect others to resemble themselves too closely will often end up bitter misanthropes, for they will not be able to meet their expectations and will likely think that the world, and not their expectations, is at fault.

On the other hand, if one finds some worthy or meritorious attribute in another individual, this is not a license to blindly follow that individual in all of his other decisions, ideas, and attributes. It is quite possible that a person has a lot to teach you in one area, but that you already act in a more prudent manner than he does in another area. Admiring another person is no justification for abandoning your own mind's direction of your decisions and actions.

Judge actions and attributes, not people. When confronted with another person, instead of asking yourself, "Is he/she a good or a bad person?", ask instead, "What does he/she have that I can gain from?" This can be an idea, a talent, a possession, a position, or anything else you consider valuable. Then ask, "What do I have that this person can gain from?" Think about the other person's values and desires and about how your attributes render you suited to fulfilling them. Then make a proposition to the other person, offering to exchange what you have for what he/she can offer you. Outside of the specific exchange, you need not concern yourself with the person's beliefs, actions, or interests - unless you are in a closer relationship, such as a friendship, where such concern is mutually expected and would not be seen as an intrusion.

Naturally, if a person engages in behaviors that are damaging to your prospects, it is in your interests to get that person to stop. But even there, your objective is to end the damaging behavior or lessen its impact on you - not to condemn the person as such. If you do manage to get the damaging behavior to stop, then there is no reason why you should not interact with the person again in the future - provided that you can be reasonably sure that similarly harmful actions will not be repeated.

There are, of course, behaviors, that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to correct through persuasion or any other normal means available to most people. Moreover, there exist risks which it is best to avoid altogether. If you spot in the middle of the night a character resembling a gangster, you are fully entitled to avoid him by a few blocks and not even try to ascertain his individual personality and intentions. Likewise, if you believe that a person has such a preponderance of negative attributes as to continually endanger your opportunities, possessions, and emotional comfort, you are fully justified in not associating with that person at all. However, to make that judgment legitimately, you need to consider how that person will act toward you, and not what that person believes in an abstract sense that might not at all be relevant to your own interactions with him or her. Moreover, you must avoid considering the totality of that person's life and ideas and only think about those attributes which will have any tangible effect on you.

When you go to the store to purchase a loaf of bread, you do not consider whether the store owners and employees have the right political or philosophical views, whether they lead moral private lives, or whether they enjoy the same pastimes as you. Your only concern - and rightfully so - is whether they have the kind of bread you want at a price and quality that suit you and whether they will be able to provide the kind of service that meets your needs and convenience. This should be your approach to the vast majority of other people. When you participate in a value exchange, focus just on that exchange, and if the other party delivers what you desire, then it ought not be reproached for anything else. If, however, the other party does not satisfy you within the constraints of the particular exchange, then few, if any, external redeeming features should be taken into account. If a car salesman knowingly sells you a defective vehicle, it should not matter to you that he agrees with your choice for President or that he takes good care of his family. He swindled you, and he must be willing to make amends, or else you will be justified in taking your business elsewhere.

For many people, the value-based outlook is easier to apply to providers of concrete goods and services than to individuals who provide ideas. But the same value-trading approach can be tremendously effective in the intellectual realm as well. Instead of considering whether an individual is close enough to your own views to be taken seriously on anything, consider every particular statement of that individual on its own merits. A communist with whose ideology and normative statements you might completely disagree might nevertheless have a good factual knowledge of what Marx and Engels actually thought - which you could then use in your own analyses and refutations of communism. Moreover, he could still be partially right in his evaluation of a given political and economic situation, and you will not know where and how he might be right unless you enable him to share his views with you without fear of censure and condemnation.

On the other hand, someone who shares many of your views might nonetheless be factually wrong on some points or make wrong decisions elsewhere in his life. It is probably unwise to remind him of these minor inaccuracies directly, as this might detract from what would otherwise have been a productive and amicable exchange of ideas. However, it is important to always keep a skeptical mind and to take no statements or ideas for granted. Even if the ideas come from a friendly or generally reliable source, each idea should still be examined on its own merits and not on the basis of your evaluation of its originator.

When you endeavor to gain values from others, your mind always ought to be active and alert in order to determine what you actually want and how other people might be able to furnish it for you. You need not share the results of this mental process with anyone else, but undertaking the process is vital nonetheless.

Moreover, it is quite acceptable for you to only share those aspects of your life with other people that are relevant to the specific value exchanges in which you plan to participate with them. The virtue of honesty does not require full disclosure of any and all information about yourself. It simply requires that you do not intentionally misrepresent yourself either in your own mind or in the eyes or others. However, to focus on a part of your personality and talents that you genuinely have is not misrepresentation; it is partial but entirely accurate representation. If it provides enough information for the other party to the value exchange to be able to correctly discern its own interests, then you have fulfilled your moral obligations as far as honesty is concerned.

Seeing people as sources of value for you rather than as embodiments of cosmic virtue or vice will render interaction with others far more harmonious and fruitful for you. It will enable you to gain from all the ways in which the work and ideas of others can enhance your life.

Read all chapters of The Best Self-Help is Free.