172 struggling with the worldTh ird, although altruism may subject the altruist to exacting de-
mands, and even at the limit require that he sacrifi ce his life, it need
impose no inner torment on him. His altruism cannot be devalued by
going unrecognized. It runs no risk of being rebuff ed because it expects
nothing in return. Th e beliefs and emotions supporting it associate it
with self- possession and serenity. For the overcoming of the world,
such serenity expresses a disengagement from the troubles of illu-
sory distinction and time. For the humanization of the world, it re-
sults from the dialectic between self- mastery and mindfulness of oth-
ers, on which both improvement of the individual and the reform of
society depend.
Th e ideals and experiences described by such an ideal of altruism
have exercised authority across a wide range of societies and cultures,
at least since the time of the emergence of the religions representative of
three approaches to existence considered here. Th ey form the starting
point of much of what phi los o phers have had to say about ethics: the
philosophy of altruism. So great has been their infl uence that they have
penetrated even communities of belief that claim allegiance to one or
another version of the struggle with the world. In so doing, they have
threatened to rob this approach to existence of one of the most distinc-
tive parts of its message.
Th e truth about the self and others proclaimed by the struggle with the
world is that love rather than altruism is the or ga niz ing principle of our
moral experience and the ideal by which we should orient our eff ort to
increase our share in the divine. But what is love if it is not altruism? It
is the experience of connection with another person such that the con-
nection enhances our freedom or self- possession rather than detract-
ing from it. Th e premise of this idea of love is that we cannot form or
rescue ourselves. We need other people in every aspect of our experi-
ence: practical, cognitive, and emotional. However, the ties by which
we satisfy this need subject us to the dangers of loss of freedom and
self- possession. So it seems that we cannot be complete alone and can-
not be complete together.
Love is the imagination of the overcoming of this confl ict between
the conditions of selfh ood: that the self be separate and that it be con-
nected to another person. At the idealized limit of this experience, all