Key Points
Our highest priority is comfort in our own skin, which makes self-awareness risky.
Unlike psychopaths, narcissists maintain their peace of mind by delegating self-monitoring to an authority.
Remaining loyal to a permissive standard (a god, a hero, an ideal, or an ideal self) can evade self-awareness.
Egoism is actually an obsession with identity, an identity liberated by the permissive reassurance of an idealized superego.
Feeling comfortable in our own skin is our highest and most urgent priority. Our discomfort is an early warning system screaming that something is wrong. But it is not like an external alarm system that we can turn off by choice. Our internal alarm is an inescapable discomfort coursing through our bodies.
So how do people really feel about self-awareness? In principle, we agree. Saying that everyone should be self-aware gives us comfort in our own skin, and since we should be self-aware, we are.
In practice, self-awareness is no walk in the park. It’s not as stressful as waiting for the results of a cancer biopsy, but there are parallels: What if you discover that you have a fatal character flaw? What if you stumble upon evidence that you don’t really walk the talk, that you’re not as good as you think you are? If you’re a smoker, you might feel ashamed about your cancer diagnosis, but you can also chalk it up to coincidence. Discovering a fatal character flaw is your responsibility, so you’re more likely to feel ashamed.
People tend to get confused and defensive when others criticize them. So how do we expect people to feel about self-criticism? Confronting your flaws is pretty straightforward. It’s not like you can just walk away angry. Wherever you go, there you are.
In short, a life under scrutiny is risky. We praise self-awareness without realizing the high risks and costs that make us want to avoid it. No one finds self-disappointment a pleasant experience, no matter how much he applauds self-awareness in principle.
In practice, what do we do about the life in which we examine ourselves? We tend to examine ourselves carefully and selectively, carefully choosing what we perceive as self-awareness, harvesting self-affirmations, and avoiding self-affirmations. We try to avoid the risk of self-review. We prefer to answer yes: “Am I great? Yes! I’ve asked myself three times and every time my answer has been an emphatic yes! This proves it!”
Narcissists are those who agree with what we perceive. They are named after a legendary man who couldn’t stop looking at himself with admiration. Narcissists avoid all forms of self-awareness. The same goes for emotional manipulators, arrogant people, Dark Triad figures, and people who talk smugly when they can get away with it.
Psychopaths may lack a conscience, but I doubt that’s what happens with narcissists and their ilk. Rather, I think their consciences are pampered, reassured, and constantly affirmed. They have put their consciences in a permanent coma of painkillers. There is no risk of self-doubt, second-guessing, or self-awareness.
How does one do this? There are many ways, but the easiest is to enlist an external authority to monitor oneself. After all, that is how we dealt with our consciences as children—adult approval as a source of childlike comfort.
Once we become adults, we are able to choose our external authority. There are many to choose from—religious, spiritual, and political leaders, to name a few.
The most convenient are like strict parents who demand loyalty, but ignore your approval. They preach a hard line but don’t track whether we walk it. They assume we do and forgive us all our sins except disloyalty to them.
Loyalty to them serves us. We don’t need to monitor ourselves. No need for self-awareness. The leader is all the monitoring we need. As long as we stay on their good side, we are fine. It’s like saying, “My conscience is fine. My dog loves me!”
It’s almost perfect, but one can do better. Find an abstract higher power. They’re easy to find, too. The gods are great at this. As long as you stay loyal to them, you don’t need a conscience. They pass a lot of judgment but they approve of anything you do except disloyalty to them. It’s like saying “My conscience is satisfied. My imaginary dog loves me.”
One can do better than that, too. Treat positive twisted words as a source of higher authority approval. Label yourself with patriotism, vigilantism, some religious belief or political faith like MAGA and your conscience will never bother you again. Its primary role is to ensure that your conscience doesn’t need to be stirred. After all, you are branded with a virtue label. You are a patriot. You can even label yourself with self-awareness, another positive twisted word, perfect for keeping self-awareness in check.
One can do better than that, simply by dividing yourself into two parts: your imaginary ideal self, your inner god, who approves of his loyal defender, your inner soldier. Anyone who threatens to awaken your conscience attacks your great guts and has earned the wrath of your inner loyal soldier.
Whether you choose an external authority of approval, a god, a demagogue, loaded words, or whatever, you don’t need to get rid of your conscience because it is constantly quieting down; you feel no discomfort in Your skin.
We are talking about man’s search for meaning. I think this is not as true as we assume. Rather, it is about our search for easy, ritualistic commands to calm our conscience.
People talk about how they shed their ego by submitting to a higher authority. Why then do they so often behave like narcissists? Because the ego they are numbing is the Freudian ego, the self-conscious ego that navigates the tension between their impulsive id and their superego. By appealing to strict but tolerant external authorities, they give their identities complete freedom.
Such “selfless devotion” to a higher power is not an obsession. An obsession in the Freudian sense would be an overactive conscience. Rather, it is an “id obsession,” an overactive ident, liberated by the approving gaze of an unwary, sycophantic authority that loves and approves of us unconditionally.
An alert conscience is a heavy burden on us. By appealing to external authorities, we can claim to have made great sacrifices in order to become disciplined soldiers for this higher authority. I suggest that although there are sacrifices in service to a higher power, it is more than worth it because of the relief it gives us from self-consciousness and the risk of discomfort in our own skin.
