Selfishness and Good Citizenship - Reconciling the two

Yesterday in class we talked about "having ownership" in an activity as a way for the person to be engaged in what the group was doing.  A different expression you sometimes hear that conveys a similar meaning is "taking pride in one's work" where that can apply to either individual effort or a group activity.   In the Master-Apprentice model, where the apprentice learns from the master, part of the training is, of course, on the right technique to apply to the work.  But another part of the training, not always noted, is that the master conveys this attitude about having ownership in the work.

I want to introduce another expression that applies during the time when the work is done.  The artisan, who has a good eye as to something that is well done, "pleases himself" or "pleases herself" while doing the work.  This is the selfish part.  As a producer you do the very best you can and if you meet your own high standards, or possibly even exceed them, there is reward in that you've done an excellent job.  The product of that work might then be sold to a customer or given to a co-worker as part of gift exchange on the job.  That is the good citizenship part.

Selfishness that we think of as not being good citizenship is claiming disproportional reward after the work has been completed, leaving others to have to pay for your ill gotten gain.

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I want to briefly apply these ideas to the blogging you will do in the class.  Part of what you need to get a sense of, beyond the subject matter of an individual post, is how a good essay of this sort reads. In other words, you develop a sense of taste for the writing.  Normally, this comes from your reading other writing and trying to identify those pieces you like very much.  Then you develop your sense of taste by imitating writers whom you like.  Imitation in this way is like the Master-Apprentice model, except that the Master is not physically present.

In other words, I encourage you to please yourself in the blogging and not try to please me.  This may seem odd because students are enculturated to get approval from the professor.  But you can't possibly know what will please me as a reader of your blog posts.  So you need to learn to trust your own judgment about what you find pleasing in the writing and produce to the standard that you set for yourself.  This is one reason why getting comfortable with the blogging will take a while.  You are not used to doing it yet.