Egoism is a concept often not characterized in a helpful way. Many popular depictions fail to pick out true egocentrists while falsely accusing others of egoism.
In this article, my attempt is to understand egoism properly.
Let’s start with a quote by C.S. Lewis:
Our imaginary egoist has tried to turn everything he meets into a province or appendage of the self. The taste for the other, that is, the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in him except in so far as his body still draws him into some rudimentary contact with an outer world.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 125
Lewis depicts the egoist as unable to recognize, taste, connect to anything other than himself. Of course, he is considering an “imaginary” egoist. But even if no such person existed in the actual world, the thought experiment, being in fact an extrapolation of character traits observable in real people, would still be instructive.
Let’s dwell a bit on the contrast between the egoist’s self and the “other”. How are we to understand that the egoist turns “everything he meets into a province or appendage of the self”? Does this mean that he does not even perceive the existence of persons and things distinct from himself? Obviously not, or else he wouldn’t be able to “meet” them. Does it mean that he deliberately abuses other persons for his own purposes? Perhaps. But it would certainly go too far to charge every person who satisfies the egoist description with cold-blooded calculated manipulation.
Rather, the pivotal point is this: the egoist lives all by his feelings. Whatever makes him - his self - feel good is acceptable. What does not, will either be turned into something that makes him feel good or flushed out of his life. It’s all about self-gratification: in most cases in an infantile, in some cases in a malicious way.
This entails that our egoist is unable to sustain relationships. I mean real, substantial relationships, where one self connects to another. Other persons may appear in her talk and even in her thinking, but only as two-dimensional, flattened representations. What seems like a relationship on the egoist’s part is not about other persons, but about the feelings related to those persons. Egoists may consequently also do things that seem altruistic and express deep indignation about other (purported or real) egoists; however, much of what they brand ‘egoistic’ really isn’t, but is only about their wounded ego.
The egoist lives all by his feelings. Whatever makes him - his self - feel good is acceptable. What does not, will either be turned into something that makes him feel good or flushed out of his life.
The crux is that the egoist’s inability to make real connections is anything but obvious. Which leads us to our next question: how to detect egoists. But I need at once to qualify this project. Egoism comes in degrees; perhaps no one is an egoist in the fullest sense, and most likely all of us are egoists to some degree. So please understand the following points with this caveat in mind.
Some marks of egoists
The problem is that nothing prevents egoists from engaging in social activities. Maybe some egoists reveal themselves by locking themselves into their closet; but many others won’t, and many non-egoistic loners may have a longing for communion that is thwarted by their fear. True egoists, by contrast, often interact with people; laugh with them, even cry with them; but only to the extent to which those activities are in concord with their feelings or at least do not disturb them. What will never happen is that an egoist laughs, cries or talks with someone else in virtue of this other person being an other. Unfortunately, this secret stance of the heart is not written on people’s fronts.
For this reason, it takes more ‘operationalizable’ criteria to discern egoists. Here are some:
An egoist cannot stand even constructive, obviously well-meant criticism.
An egoist cannot stand that another person makes her feel uncomfortable, for example by living an example that creates pangs of conscience in the egoist.
An egoist is unable to ‘put himself in someone else’s shoes’. He refuses to even try to understand someone else’s position if that entails thinking thoughts uncomfortable to him.
An egoist usually has warped memories: whenever some memory makes her feel uncomfortable, it will be tinged; in other cases, memories will be warped because the twisted version allows her to justify her own misdeeds.
An egoist will not consider revising her memories if told differing details or perspectives.
An egoist will not ‘update’ his image of another person over time (for this demands the examination of something that requires the effort of conforming one’s thoughts to reality instead of the other way around!). Especially if the other is conveniently pigeonholed as a persona non grata, this classification will not be altered no matter how much evidence the other person shows to the contrary.
An egoist thinks and speaks in stereotypes, instead of heeding the individual in front of her. Thus, for him, there are, for example, only ‘men’ (or ‘women’), ‘whites’ (or ‘blacks’) or ‘right-wing people’ (or ‘leftists’), not individuals who may have these attributes plus many more.
Spiritually, egoists usually cannot bear a God who makes moral demands on them and who interferes with people’s lives. God, if he is seen as personal at all, is kept at a distance. New Age pantheist wishful thinking is thus a perfect fit for egoists. But caution, egoists often disarmingly insist that they believe in a ‘loving’ God, meaning a God who lets them do what they want.
The egoist does not take responsibility for her feelings and shortcomings. He finds creative (and often plausible-sounding!) ways for blaming others instead.
You will rarely find an egoist admitting his own misdeeds.
Consequently, whenever a conversation could lead to the egoist having to admit that he’s messed up something, then her counterpart will be reviled, accused and generally given things to gnaw at so that she can defect.
As far as experiences related to non-personal things (e.g. nature, art etc.) are concerned, the egoist will – if he can enjoy them at all – tend to speak about his feelings rather than about the intrinsic properties of the experienced thing.
A philosophical analysis of egoism
Identifying egoism (in others – and in oneself!) is important, but can we understand the phenomenon more deeply? I wish to offer two reflections. The egoist is doubly blind: toward the outside, but also toward the inside.
Paradoxically, the egoist refusese to know himself.
The first thought is that the egoist blind toward the outside because he is disconnected from the three transcendentals Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Her is why: other people as well as the outside world is interesting to us in virtue of partaking in the three transcendentals. We love a sunset mainly because it partakes in Beauty, an essay because it partakes in Truth, or a person because she partakes in Goodness. Of course we love them also for the individual traits that distinguish them from other specimen of their kind; but our interest is spurred by a love for the universal, the transcendental. The egoist’s world, by contrast, is a world of particulars only, and since particulars as particulars are inherently uninteresting, and the only particular she is by necessity connected to is herself, she ends up caring about herself only.
Second, the egoist refuses to know himself. This sounds paradoxical. Isn’t he totally preoccupied with himself? Yes, but, as pointed out above, the egoist focuses on his feelings, and providing good feelings for oneself isn’t the same thing as knowing oneself. Knowing oneself of course, like all knowledge, incorporates truth: and the truth can be unpleasant, something the egoist cannot allow.
Note what the egoist misses by being ignorant of himself. First, he loses the chance to improve himself. Second, he misses to see who he really is, what value he has as an individual and as a member of the human species, and in virtue of what he has the good sides he has. Third, he misses another possibility of connecting with others: for knowing her own weaknesses, strengths, desires, and longings would enable her to see that by implication others might be “in the same boat”. Self-knowledge is also tantamount to seeing that one can be loved despite one’s flaws (which enables one to love other flawed people). (No wonder self-knowledge is considered the summit of wisdom in several of Plato’s dialogues.)
Image by Kyle Glenn / unsplash.com