a case study of honesty and fairness II

Ok, Amazon wrote back to accept my offer of $19 (1/3 purchase price) for keeping the headphone. So we have a consensus that I should be compensated for my inconvenience. The experiment ends here, and commercial common sense reigns. One would think.

In all honesty, if they said no, I would just post it back to them because that's what I intended to do in the first place. But I don't feel easy with the good title that I acquired through this negotiated, commercially sensible and fair process. I feel that in my ideal world I'd rather have not argued and posted back with perfect willingness. So perhaps, I've incurred bigger losses than the wasted time in the form of some invisible and intangible satisfaction that comes only with utter purity of mind.

Would a utopia founded by people of the purest minds be sustainable? Or is rational self-interest what has been sustaining us all this time? It seems that my social experiment proved nothing and ended in scattered thoughts.

For now, good night.