Egotism

Egotism is defined as the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself, and generally features an inflated opinion of one's personal features and importance distinguished by a persons amplified vision of ones self and self importance. It often includes intellectual, physical, social and other overestimations.[1] The egotist has an overwhelming sense of the centrality of the "Me" regarding their personal qualities.[2]

Not to be confused with Egoism.
For the 1843 short story, see Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent.
For other uses, see Egoist (disambiguation).

Characteristics

Egotism is closely related to an egocentric love for one's imagined self or narcissism – indeed some would say "by egotism we may envisage a kind of socialized narcissism".[3] Egotists have a strong tendency to talk about themselves in a self-promoting fashion, and they may well be arrogant and boastful with a grandiose sense of their own importance.[4] Their inability to recognise the accomplishments of others[5] leaves them profoundly self-promoting; while sensitivity to criticism may lead on the egotist's part to narcissistic rage at a sense of insult.[6]

Egotism differs from both altruism – or behaviour motivated by the concern for others rather than for oneself – and from egoism, the constant pursuit of one's self-interest. Various forms of "empirical egoism" have been considered consistent with egotism, but do not – which is also the case with egoism in general – necessitate having an inflated sense of self.[7]

Development

In developmental terms, two rather different trajectories can be distinguished with respect to egotism – the one individual, the other cultural.

With respect to the developing individual, a movement takes place from egocentricity to sociality during the process of growing up.[8] It is normal for an infant to have an inflated – almost a majestic – sense of egotism.[9] The over-evaluation of one's own ego[10] regularly appears in childish forms of love – in large part because the baby is to himself everything, omnipotent to the best of their own knowledge.[11]

Optimal development allows a gradual reconciliation to a more realistic view of one's own place in the world – a lessening of the egotistical swollen head.[12] Less adequate adjustment may later lead to what has been called defensive egotism, serving to overcompensate for the fragility of the underlying concept of self.[13] Robin Skynner however considered that in the main growing up leads to a state where "your ego is still there, but it's taking its proper limited place among all the other egos".[14]

However, alongside such a positive trajectory of diminishing individual egotism, a rather different arc of development can be noted in cultural terms, linked to what has been seen as the increasing infantilism of post-modern society.[15] Whereas in the nineteenth century egotism was still widely regarded as a traditional vice – for Nathaniel Hawthorne egotism was a sort of diseased self-contemplation[16] – Romanticism had already set in motion a countervailing current, what Richard Eldridge described as a kind of "cultural egotism, substituting the individual imagination for vanishing social tradition".[17] The romantic idea of the self-creating individual – of a self-authorizing, artistic egotism[18] – then took on broader social dimensions in the following century. Keats might still attack Wordsworth for the regressive nature of his retreat into the egotistical sublime;[19] but by the close of the twentieth century egotism had been naturalized much more widely by the Me generation into the Culture of Narcissism.

In the 21st century, romantic egotism has been seen as feeding into techno-capitalism in two complementary ways:[20] on the one hand, through the self-centred consumer, focused on their own self-fashioning through brand 'identity'; on the other through the equally egotistical voices of 'authentic' protest, as they rage against the machine, only to produce new commodity forms that serve to fuel the system for further consumption.

Sex

There is a question mark over the relationship between sex and egotism. Sigmund Freud popularly made the claim that love can transform the egotist,[21] giving him or her a new sense of humility in relation to others.[22]

At the same time, it is very apparent that egotism can readily show itself in sexual ways[23] and indeed arguably one's whole sexuality may function in the service of egotistical needs.[24]

Etymology

The term egotism is derived from the Greek ("εγώ") and subsequently its Latinised ego (ego), meaning "self" or "I," and -ism, used to denote a system of belief. As such, the term shares early etymology with egoism.

Cultural examples
  • A. A. Milne has been praised for his clear-eyed vision of the ruthless, open, unashamed egotism of the young child.[25]
  • Ryan Holiday described our cultural values as dependent on validation, entitled, and ruled by our emotions, a form of egotism.[26]

See also

References
  1. Robin M. Kowalski ed., Aversive Interpersonal Behaviors (1997) p. 112
  2. William Walker Atkinson, The New Psychology (2010 [1909]) p. 30
  3. Samuel D. Schmalhausen, Why We Misbehave (2004 [1928]) p. 55
  4. Kowalski ed., p. 1114
  5. Mark R. Leary, The Curse of the Self (OUP 2007) p. 91
  6. Kowalski ed., p. 121-2
  7. Kowalski ed., p. 113
  8. J. C. Flügel, Man, Morals and Society (1973) p. 242–3
  9. Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11) p. 85
  10. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 38 and p. 57
  11. Robin Skynner and John Cleese, Families and how to survive them (London 1994) p. 91
  12. Skynner & Cleese, Families p. 63
  13. Kowalski ed., p. 224
  14. Robin Skynner and John Cleese, Life and how to survive it (London 1994) p. 241
  15. R. Bly and M. Woodman, The Maiden King (1999) p. 85–8
  16. Malcolm Cowley, ed., The Portable Hawthorne (Penguin 1977) p. 177
  17. Richard Eldridge, The Persistence of Romanticism (2001) p. 118
  18. Scott Wilson, in Patricia Waugh, ed., Literary Theory and Criticism (2006) p. 563–4
  19. Henry Hart, Robert Lowell and the Sublime (1995) p. 30
  20. Wilson, p. 565-6
  21. Schmalhausen, p. 153
  22. Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11) p. 93
  23. Schmalhausen, p. 34
  24. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 516-7
  25. Ann Thwaite, A. A. Milne: His Life (2006) p. 123 and p. 194
  26. Holiday, Ryan (2016). Ego Is The Enemy. New York: Penguin Random House. p. 20. ISBN 9780698192157.

Further reading
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