Domonick Young
Ms. Lehmann
English 1-3
3 December 2019
Only The Selfish Survive
Do you think survival is selfish? I think it is selfish. Survival does require people to be selfish because people can’t count on other people to save them, and people shouldn’t assume they are capable of saving others; it could cost them their lives. Many survival stories prove that people must save themselves.
People who wait to be saved often die. People who waited to be saved during 9-11 died because rescue personnel couldn’t get to them. “Many people who were used to following the rules died because they did what they were told by authority figures” (Gonzales 327). If they were selfish, they may have made it out of the building alive. Since they listened to authority figures, they did not make it out. Another example of people surviving because they helped themselves can be found earlier in the same article. Juliane survived the plane crash because she left the others and saved herself; she had to look after herself instead of waiting for help. The others who waited for help died. Gonzales writes that “waiting for someone else to take responsibility for your well-being can be fatal...tough and clear-headed, this teenage girl who had lost her shoes, not to mention her mother, saved herself. The other survivors took the same eleven days to sit down and die” (Gonzales 327). If Juliane was to try and save other people or sit there and wait for help, she would have died with the other people. It was only because she was selfish that she survived. Not only can people not rely on others to save them, but people also shouldn’t overestimate their ability to help others.
People who try to save others could easily lose their own life. Instead of trying to help others, people should try to get help for themselves. The woman who survived the plane crash in “Is Survival Selfish” would have died had she tried to save the other people on the plane. Wallace writes, “Could she have really saved the others? Probably not, and certainly not from the back of the plane. If she had tried, she probably would have perished with them” (Wallace 318). She only survived because she was selfish and didn't help the others because she would have died with them. Another example is Yates. Gonzales explains that Yates had to make the decision to cut his friend loose or they would have both died on the mountain they were climbing. Gonzales writes, “In Yates’ case, he had time to think hard about the odds and the possibilities he was facing and to realize that he couldn’t save anyone but himself” (Wallace 319). Yates was selfish because he had time to think and make a choice, and he chose to be selfish and live instead of trying to save his friend and dying along with him.
Although it’s clear that survival is selfish, there are those who disagree. Some people argue that the key to survival is having purpose in a crisis; caring for others gives people purpose. The truth is that it doesn't give you a purpose. It gives you distraction from survival. Juliane only survived because she left the other people; she didn’t get distracted by their well-being, and so she lived. Ultimately, the evidence is over whelming that survival is selfish.
People do have to be selfish because people can’t count on other people to save them and people shouldn’t assume they are capable of saving others; it could cost them their lives. I think people can’t count on others to save them. People who waited to be saved during the terrorist attack on September 11th died waiting. Yates had to cut his friend loose to keep himself alive because he knew he couldn’t save him. So, is survival selfish? Absolutely.
Page Break
Works Cited
Laurence Gonzales. “Deep Survival. “Collections, Edited by Kyl\ene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride, Erik Palmer, & Lydia Stack 2017, pp 325-334.
Lane Wallace. “Is Survival Selfish. "Collections, Edited by Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carlo Jago, William L. McBride, Erik Palmer & Lydia Stack 2017, pp 317-320.
Argumentative Essay Reflection
Please answer all questions in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
1 .Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
I read About the stories in the collections book and wrote down some quotes and other things in the stories
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them?
It argues why survival is selfish.
3. Explain how you found at least one of the quotations from the essay and tell me why you chose that particular quote. What did it do for your paper?
I chose a quotation from Gonzales because it maid the most since to me.