The belief that self improvement happens in a vacuum or begins and ends with oneself. As the opposite of collective care, selfish care symbolizes the hyper fixation of today's western society on individual efforts in regards to self improving and self care. Those individual efforts are often tied to capitalism and the self care industry, as well as colonialism.
iLiana Fokianaki explains in 'The Bureau of Care: Introductory Notes on the Care-less and Care-full':
"While depriving citizens of care, NAS narcissistic authoritarian statism nonetheless capitalizes on the individualist notion of care, widely promoted as âself-careâ through an industry with billions in revenues. By ... taking care of oneself, contemporary subjectivities ... are tasked with the care of their overworked bodies, but are less and less interested in the well-being of bodies that are outside of the immediate realm of their family, class, workplace, city, country, and continent. They are further burdened with individual responsibility for their own care, since care has lost its character as a human right and has become a paid service. ".
Selfish care is the accumulation of influences from NAS on individual's belief systems about the notions of care. It represents the indoctrination of the capitalistic evolution of the care system, expressed through the associations with self care that tie it to a profit-driven industry.
"I can't come tonight, I need to do some face-masks and watch Netflix."
" Oh, so you're doing selfish-care tonight henny"
"I'm gonna treat myself. F*ck it, selfish-care"
"You do you, boo"