It's not just that I think the word 'selfishness' is ugly and clumsy - although it undoubtedly is.
Being selfish implies a conscious choice to further one's interests (however trivial) regardless of the impact on others (however severe).
Whereas casual selfism contains extreme self-centredness (another ugly word) - not only not caring about the impact on others, not only not thinking about the impact on others but not even being aware of not thinking about it.
It's not psychopathy because a psychopath genuinely wouldn't be able to consider the feelings and needs of others, whereas a casual selfism-ist could if it occurred to him.
But it usually doesn't.
Too abstract - give an example
Casual selfism is a state of mind whereby it would be totally honest to throw hands up in horror and say, "I never thought of that," when, for example, a fit and able-bodied man is told why he shouldn't have parked in a disabled bay because it's slightly nearer to the coffee shop. (More on that later.)
More trivially
Last night I watched the first two episodes of the BBC's dramatisation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall.
(Yes, it started six weeks ago - but I've been saving them all for a more convenient time, which turned out to be last night.)
If it hadn't been for the need to be up at a sensible time in the morning, I could easily have watched all six hours of it in one sitting. It was my sort of television - intelligent, warm, compellingly acted, gracefully written, aesthetically fascinating. Oh, and I could hear everything the characters said.
(If I really had to think of a criticism, I would wonder why there was quite so much of what sounded to me like Spanish guitar on the soundtrack. But it was probably Tudor-style lute playing and I'm probably just showing my ignorance of the period. And I liked it anyway.)
And then...
I saw that next week's Radio Times had printed a letter from a concerned viewer who was despairing about the very two episodes that I had just watched. Oh, the pain in his writing.
"emperor's new clothes", "agonisingly slow", "particularly tedious", "characterisation thin", "all stare and stance", "a 'thinks' bubble above his head a lot of the time", "disappointing"
I don't agree. But I don't just disagree with what he wrote. I disagree with his feeling that he should write to the Radio Times and tell them that he watched a programme which wasn't for him and then didn't like it.
It's casual selfism.
He's presumably disappointed that a programme has been made which wasn't right for him. And him being a licence-fee payer and all.
(Yes, I'm ascribing thoughts to this person which may or may not be his. That's part of the reason why I'm not putting his name here.)
But what's a viewer to do?
Using today as an example, BBC1 runs from 6am - 12.30am, BBC2 from 6am - 12.50am, BBC3 from 7pm - 4am, BBC4 7pm-4am, CBeebies 6am - 7pm, CBBC 6am-7pm.
(I should also include S4C, BBC Alba, seven national radio stations, many local radio stations, BBC News, BBC Parliament and the website. And there's probably other stuff that I've forgotten.)
Add all that lot up. I reckon it's around 100 hours of television per day. How many hours of television do you want to watch from the BBC every day? One or two hours?
Okay, then you need 2% of their output to be for you. It'll be there. The other 98% won't be for you - it'll be for someone else.
How about you stop criticising the 98% that's not for you and, in return, I won't criticise the 2% that is?
Can't fathom
Returning to our disabled parking bay hog - he has points in common with the man so disappointed with Wolf Hall.
(Yes, it's a stretch, but go with it for a moment.)
This is a man who has just taken his child to school.
He has been doing this journey for several years - so he knows where the coffee shop is, and he knows where the disabled parking bay is, and he knows that the school is only about two hundred yards away.
Yet he chose to drive those two hundred yards and to use the disabled parking bay because it was right outside the coffee shop.
I can't fathom this. Personally, I wouldn't be able to take that space. If the bay could hold two hundred cars and no one else was parked there and there was no chance of getting a parking ticket - I couldn't do it.
And neither could most other people - which is lucky for this guy because it means he can park right outside his coffee shop and go in to buy a cup of coffee and, frankly, his day would be a nightmare of near-biblical proportions if he couldn't get his coffee where he wants, when he wants and without having to walk for a minute.
But I don't think any of that passes through his head. I don't think he even considers that maybe he shouldn't do it. I think (here I go, ascribing thoughts to others willy-nilly again) that he sees his shop, sees the space, thinks, "that's what I need" and goes for it.
Casual selfism - textbook example. And I bet he thinks every television programme should be to his taste too.
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