Contents
Egotism is a concept from the arsenal of Gestalt therapy.
A special form of retroflection is manifested in the fact that the subject maintains a too impenetrable border with the environment. Egotism manifests itself through inhibition, through holding oneself at the moment when, in order to achieve final contact, the opposite is necessary. With egotism it is impossible to achieve spontaneity, since the intelligent, measured, «pedantic» nature of the work of orientation and manipulation, which was typical of the previous phases, cannot be discarded.
Egotism is a term coined by Stendhal (and adopted by modern philosophy) to refer to the analysis that one performs on oneself in order to refine one’s feelings and get more pleasure from them. In this sense, egotism has already had a long tradition from Socrates’ Know Thyself to Montaigne’s Essays, if we see in it that aesthetic pleasure that surrounds all psychological self-knowledge. In the sphere of morality, this term also denotes the search for individual self-improvement as the main rule of conduct.
Who is an Egotist and what is Egotism?
Author of the article Elena Nazarenko, source © www.live-and-learn.ru
Let’s begin with egoist you don’t need anything else. According to Stendhal «he does not penetrate into other people’s possessions, but he does not let anyone beyond his threshold».
An egotist weeds out everything alien like a weed — from his life, from his time, from his space, from his head, where alien beliefs-viruses usually nest.
What does the egotist want?
“Create in your individual soul a completely isolated greenhouse room, where a rare tropical flower of individuality can bloom without hindrance”
Therefore, it is completely indifferent and unimportant to him what this or that book, actress, philosopher, piece of history MEAN FOR CONTEMPORARY…
He does not share fashionable beliefs, does not “check his watch against them”, does not allow intellectual (and other) fashion to influence him.
It can also be said that the egotist «arrogantly ignores modernity.»
(Our poet Pasternak described this state absolutely brilliantly: “In the muffler, shielding with my palm, I shout to the children through the window: “What a lovely millennium we have in the yard?”)
Here is what Stendhal writes: «He calls good only what he likes, right — what he considers appropriate at the moment, despicable — what he despises, and he is not at all worried about the possibility of being left alone with his opinion.»
Agree that the described portrait is very unpleasant. It’s bad to be a redneck, but egotists are much more annoying… Do you agree? … But no! This is not yet a «debunking of egotism» — can’t wait! Move on.
The fact is that, in order not to be torn apart and ridiculed by the crowd, an egotist should not commit several fatal stupidities.
If you choose to be selfish, make sure you:
Indeed, NOTHING IS NEEDED FROM ANYONE, nothing is wanted from anyone.
- Make sure you have no desire to stray into a group or group and from it try to «rule the world.»
Then perhaps you are a future egotist. You really don’t need anything from anyone.
A very important digression
And one more condition … You see, Stendhal does not write about this (for him it is a self-evident fact), but all this talk about egotism is addressed to people … literate, that is, members of a privileged club who know that London is the capital of Great Britain , and in order to «find X» you need to solve the equation, and not point the pen at the letter «x».
This phrase is very common on the internet. «I don’t give a fuck about your opinion».
It can be recklessly confused with «a living manifestation of egotism.» However, we will not do this. In order to distinguish a real egotist from his crazy fellow with one convolution in his head (a lover of the phrase “I don’t give a fuck about your opinion”), it’s enough to arrange a small exam.
Let us suppose that I (as a supposed egotist) find Pasternak’s translations insipid and bad. I prefer to read Shakespeare in anyone’s translation, but not in Pasternak’s.
And now I will list degree of required competence so that I can talk about it out loud.
In order to talk about it in a circle of friends, it is enough for me to memorize a few of the most characteristic «unsuccessful» lines from Pasternak and, in parallel, memorize examples of successful translations of these same lines from other translators. Then learn the same lines in the original from Shakespeare, translate them accurately and explain to friends how Pasternak loses meaning and beauty.
In order to talk about my dislike for Pasternak’s translations among students, I should increase the number of such quoted fragments, plus talk at length about the theory of translation.
In order to talk about it with translators, I must, in addition to everything, speak English very well, or rather, the language of Shakespeare.
To talk about it with Shakespeare’s translators, I must know the history of all significant translations of Shakespeare into the major European languages.
In order to talk about this with the Pasternakists, I have to have all of the above plus… have love and deep respect for the personality of Pasternak…
(Therefore, it is better not to go to Pasternak scholars).
Yes, yes, do not laugh, this is required by unwritten ethics — respect for the personality of the criticized Titan, sympathy for him, sympathy. Don’t you respect? Don’t you love? Don’t want to waste time understanding? So occupy your thoughts with someone else, why are you spoiling your nerves in vain!
People who love the phrase “I don’t give a fuck about your opinion” are unlikely to get the right to even the lowest category — the right to talk about it out loud with friends, in an absolutely informal setting …
These people are most often guided by another notorious motto in our country: “I have not read Pasternak, but I condemn” …
Experiencing epochal rebellious historical events, Goethe finds it necessary to enter notes about the … Chinese writers he reads in his personal diary.
Stendhal, during the hours of historical upheavals, also enters into his diary the particulars of his personal life that are important only to himself.
He says about it:
“Participate OUTSIDE in events that do not affect your soul. No one can oblige you to spiritual participation in them.
And further: «The history of my time and my own history use, as it were, a different vocabulary and even a different alphabet.».
What is the highest meaning of egotism?
Many wise and unfussy people have long noticed that the INFLUENCE OF THE EPOCH has a devastating, depersonalizing effect on a person.
This is well understood by a glance thrown from the side, in some sort of “after … twenty” years …
We look at old photographs and see the clown hairstyles and clothes of «those nasty seventies», «those nasty eighties», «those nightmarish nineties» …
Fashionable and confident in their irresistibility, people looking at us from these photographs (horror — if it’s us) did not think at all that someone would someday consider them comical and pitiful in their attempts at beauty.
Let’s take a break from clothes and hair. The saddest thing is when an era leaves its mark on thinking and taste.
That is why, «only in a person who is not painted in the fashionable colors of his time, we can observe a person as he is.»
And for this, the individual must be psychologically isolated from his environment.
Egotism and historical immortality or «Who is more valuable than mother history?»
Isolation preserves the egotist like an insect in amber, like the imprint of a prehistoric fern in coal…
There is a paradoxical denouement…
A person who has rejected time is favored by the same time after many years. Because, it turns out, his thoughts and creations were created “out of time”, which means “classic”, which means “imperishable”, which means no extraneous aftertaste …
A person who rejected parties in the obsessive society of the people around him, then has the strongest influence on these same people, is very interesting to them …
Here is what Stendhal writes about this: “A man who lived only his inner life, who preserved himself to the end, served humanity the same service as the one who gave himself to the end”
“Protecting our “I”, we protect a unique piece of earthly truth”
And «The more a person lives — in modernity, the more he dies with it.»
In conclusion, I would like to say that such thoughts visited not only Stendhal.
Discussing the personality of Losev, our great contemporary, philosopher Sergei Averintsev said a phrase with which I want to summarize my reasoning about egotism: