- Egocentrism and egoism – a distinction instead of an introduction
C. S. Lewis (1988), in his book, Surprised by Joy, makes a distinction between what he calls egocentrism and egoism. A distinction that is relevant here:
This is my ideal, and this has been the reality back then (almost), of the “settled, calm, Epicurean life”. It is without doubt for the better that I have been generally prevented from leading it because it is almost entirely a selfish life. Selfish, not egocentric; for in such a life my mind would be directed to a thousand things, not one of which is myself. The distinction is not irrelevant. One of the happiest people and most pleasant companions I ever knew was extremely selfish. On the other hand, I have known people capable of real sacrifice whose lives were still a misery to themselves and others because self-care and self-pity filled their every thought. Either of these conditions will eventually destroy the soul. But to the end, give me the man who takes the best of everything (even at my expense) and then talks about other things, rather than the man who serves me and talks about himself, and whose goodness is a continual reproach, a continual plea for pity, gratitude, and admiration. [1]
So what we will discuss in this text will be egocentrism rather than egoism.
- Narcissus, the obsession with one’s own image:
The story of the myth of Narcissus is told by Robert Graves in his book, Greek Myths(1960): Narcissus was a Thespian, the son of the blue nymph Leiriope, whom the river god Cephisus once surrounded with the serpents of his streams, and seduced. The seer Teiresias told Leiriope: “Narcissus will live to a ripe old age, provided he does not know himself. [2]
Many despise myths in a society as technologically developed as the one we live in. But the value of myths does not lie in the fact that they are historically valid, their value lies in their power to illustrate very clearly certain psychological or sociological patterns that we find in our own lives and the lives of others throughout history. They are a kind of distillation of history, a way of concentrating a lot of particular narratives into one.
In the case of Narcissus it is worth remembering two important things. First, Narcissus was the result of a mere passing erotic impulse, not the product of mature love. I say this because his father, a river god, like many other gods in Greek mythology, sexually desired his mother, a nymph, and then had her, but not willingly, but by using his superior strength to dominate her. Although it may seem very romantic and exotic, the sexual union between a water god and a nymph, an act that also led to the conception of Narcissus, is necessary to emphasize that what happened in the process was a trauma for his mother, who later carried Narcissus in her womb. A mature love, on the other hand, involves constant investment and free commitment between two equal partners. Only through the voluntary union between two who sincerely love each other does the couple find the resources within the relationship to be able to move toward a third. Narcissus was a mere accident, an indirect result of the fact that his father wanted his mother’s body, and wanted to possess her like an object. This object, though first of all a physical, carnal object, was greedily captured by the gaze of the father god, and then fixed in his imagination, where it became a psychological object, one that he could possess at his pleasure. In this space of interiority, it became part of an erotic fantasy and was inevitably invested with the promise of ultimate pleasure. But he was only an object, a thing that you can own and then dispose of, get rid of once you are bored with it, and in no way a free subject who has the power and the right to give you what you ask or deny you. So Narcissus is born not into a relationship based on equality and love, but into a relationship of power, his father the strong one and his mother the weak one, who can only obey. By his very genesis, Narcissus is the product of the humiliation of his mother’s body, of its use as a useful shell and the rejection of her personal dignity, which primarily refers to the value of her interiority and subjectivity. Nothing is surprising in the fact that he becomes obsessed with the reflection of his face, all others turning into mirrors in which he looks at himself, into objects that reflect the power of his beauty, a power before which others bow. This behavior that he keeps repeating is but a natural consequence of what he represents, the result of his father’s reification of his mother’s attractive body and his use of it by constraint and force. We can only move and break cups as we please, we cannot do the same with souls and expect that there will be no severe consequences. We can say that Narcissus defended himself from the shame of his origins by not making himself in any way vulnerable to others. He used them, depersonalizing them and reducing their human value to mere objects of his psyche. His beauty, the greatest power he possessed, became how he created his illusion of omnipotence. Narcissus saw himself above his suitors, those who made repeated advances to him and never ceased to admire his body. By refusing him and driving them away, this troubled young man felt superior, felt in control. By the simple fact that they needed him to indulge themselves and he didn’t need them, Narcissus believed that he was the one who held the power, believed that he was beyond the weaknesses of their desires to be in his company. He was unable to recognize that he needed to be loved, to have such a need was to be dependent on another, and that was too humiliating. He treated those who tried to love him, as he treated himself, as objects, not subjects. He being the admired object in this case, the object of the power of attraction, and they being the mirrors of that power. But still only things among other things and not living and valuable human beings…
The second aspect that is very important in this story is the prophecy made to Narcissus at his birth by the seer Teiresias. The condition for the longevity of Narcissus was made possible as long as he did not know who he was, as long as he did not meet himself. Young Narcissus was absorbed by his image. Every time someone saw his face they were amazed by his beauty, but no one was worthy to become his lover. Anyone who dared to make advances was refused. The only one Narcissus sincerely admired, spending hours in contemplation, was none other than himself reflected in the flowing water. But what made Narcissus so opaque to his neighbor, what allowed him to be so unresponsive to the face of another? The simple fact that he knew himself only through the reflection of the other, through the way others looked at him with admiration. Bewitched by the huge crowd of admirers, this young man, enchanting to behold, remained unaware of who he was in the wholeness of his authentic self. By dwelling on those outward aspects that made him brilliant and irresistible, Narcissus came to reject, and inevitably to hate, those aspects of his self that made him banal or perhaps even repulsive. Thus he missed the chance to be authentically known, to be loved in his fullness, to become free from the shame of being rejected. But Narcissus chose to remain childlike in his emotions, and at the cost of great cruelty towards all those who desired his love. The shame of not always being special and unique, the possibility of rejection by others because not everything about him was perfect and irresistible, and he knew it, was the soil on which the illusion of his supremacy grew. Cloaked in falsehood, Narcissus, eventually came to taste anguish and despair, for the denial of reality leads us to non-being, to nothingness, to death. In the end, looking at the reflection of his face for a long time, he came to realize that what haunted him, what possessed his imagination, was only an image, something he would never be able to hold to his bosom or unite with him, just as the bodies of two lovers become one body. The end of this realization was the death of Narcissus, he chose suicide over reality. And so the prophecy of his birth came true. When the young man came to see the emptiness that haunted his inner self, he chose to embrace it, and with that emptiness, he embraced death. He chose the illusion of control and power even in his suicide, rather than choosing life and filling its outline with the presence of another.
Narcissus, is not just that guy lacking any empathy, that extreme case who steps on corpses to get what he wants. Narcissus is each of us when we stop being vulnerable and treat the other as our free and equal neighbor. Whether we choose to manipulate the other by posing as helpless victims, and the one next to us is forced to conform to our apparent vulnerability. Either we choose to tyrannically dominate the relationships we are in by manipulating and emotionally controlling others so they will submit to our self-centered desires, in either case, we inevitably fall into the trap of narcissism.
We are inauthentic, we hide our shame of being rejected and we force the other to give us what gives us a sense of control and the illusion of satisfaction that we are superior. This is the lie of narcissism, the lie of hiding from our shame, the lie in which we use the other to defend our emptiness, reducing them from the state of a person to that of an object.
But we know, that only the truth will set us free[3], because only in love there is no fear[4], no fear of rejection. In love, not in control…
Bibliography:
[1] Lewis, C. S. (1988) Surprins de joie. Glasgow: Collins Fount Paperbacks. pp.116-117
[2] Symington. Neville Narcissism: A New Theory (1993), published by Karnac Books
[3] John 8:32 NIV
