# Altruism

*Not to be [confused](often_confused.md) with [autism](autism.md).*

Altruism means striving for the wellbeing of others, actively performing [selfless](selflessness.md) actions. It is a purely good attitude which we, the [LRS](lrs.md), fully embrace. It's no surprise that under [capitalism](capitalism.md), the rule of [evil](evil.md), altruism is commonly met with hostility or, in the better case, with ridicule.

Rightists often make an extremely funny reasoning error (probably on purpose) to justify their own [fascist](fascism.md) behavior; they claim that "altruism doesn't exist" because "altruism still seeks to satisfy one's ego and is therefore self interest". Well, firstly this is either wrong, as [selflessness](selflessness.md) isn't defined by obtaining no reward but rather by acting in the interest of others without exploiting them, and secondly even if you define self interest conveniently in a way that makes your claim technically correct, it still completely misses the point! You can behave in a good or evil way, your definitions don't matter. No matter what words you use, you are just trying to excuse fascist behavior in a situation when you can choose to not behave like a fascist -- imagine someone shooting a child and justifying it like "well, I had to do it because I wanted that child's lollipop and I can't behave without self interest because I can't define selflessness".

## See Also

- [selflessness](selflessness.md)
- [charity](charity.md)