What is the highest point of selfishness?

What has transformed each one of us living in today's generation to be so much more selfish than our previous generations yesterday?

A couple of factors and phenomenon typical to the global system that we live in and the worldview that we all behold today have inherently contributed to our ever growing sense of selfishness.

The global commercial and capitalist culture undeniably has only taught us to treat ourselves as commodities. It has made us to look at ourselves as objects instead of subjects and have created within us the craving for other commodities that can aggrandize us .

Global economic culture works with the assumption that we all have unlimited needs and insatiable demand and the global economic system is built to ensure we maximize our utility and satisfy ourself by trying to satisfy our insatiable demand.

Secularsim has taught us to desacralize nature, hence reducing the relationship of God-Mankind-Nature to purely Mankind-Nature. Therefore in our decision making processes it is no longer He-I-it but instead I-it. Naturally we start acting according to our whims and fancies selfishly since I is greater. Hence we have grown to exploit nature recklessly and irresponsibly according to our will to satisfy our wishes.

The following is adapted from Mercy Oceans: The teachings of Maulana Abdullah Al-Faizi ad-Daghestani by Shaykh Nazim Qibrisi which clearly explains what happens when this sense of selfishness reaches its highest points.

"What is the highest point of selfishness?" asks our Grandsheikh.

"It is egotism, and it is the worst character in a man. It means that such a man cannot carry anything contrary to his will. He must always do as he likes or he will be angry. There is no speaking against his opinion. He has no respect for the ideas of anyone else and he wont admit that his wrong"

Ego is the attribute of Pharoah. It demands always to be chief, to dominate. It is the character of Satan, the worse character of the nafs (baser self), and the last to leave a man.

The love of being chief! If there were only two people on earth, you would see it!

It is so difficult to rid a person of egotism. To conquer it is like trying to kill a snake, when the head is cut off the tail still wiggles!