What's wrong with the diet? What is the role of self-love?

Chapter 5. The Essence of Egoism

What we are exploring: What does the concept of egoism mean and how does science treat it?

What is new: What distinguishes a man-hating attitude from a love of self-interest, and what do they have in common?

What we will learn: Why cannot a man-hating attitude and love of self-interest attitude form self-love?

1. The doctrine that egoism is the greatest evil... is in no way limited to theology [the science of God, ed., author] and philosophy; it has become one of the standard ideas taught in the family, at school, in films, in books, and indeed in all media of mass suggestion. "Don't be selfish" is a phrase that is drummed into millions of children, generation after generation (Fromm E. 2012) [1].

2. "Don't be selfish." To decide whether or not to be an egoist, it is important to understand what kind of concept egoism is. However, due to the stereotypical attitude towards this concept as the greatest evil, it is worth turning to the essence of this term. The word egoism consists of the root "Ego" (from the Latin ego) and the suffix "ism". "Ego" refers to self-awareness and the perception of oneself as a holistic and indivisible private property of a person, isolated from all other people, which is the essence of the "I". In other words, "Ego" is the awareness of one's individual essence as a human and the corresponding attitude towards oneself. The corresponding attitude towards oneself means satisfying one's individual needs.

• "Only recently has the concept of "egoism" gone beyond its original meaning and begun to be used outside of psychology. Although the term is sometimes considered a synonym for caring only about one's interests, egoism implies the intention to serve one's needs, that is, knowledge of what we are going to get as a result of specific behavior" (italics author) (Atkinson R.L. et al. 2003) [2].

Thus, the modern scientific understanding of the essence of the term "egoismˮ recognizes the right to satisfy one's needs - "the intention to serve one's needs." What does science understand by "one's needs"? Those needs about which we have "knowledge" that they are directly related to the individual, therefore they are "one's own", i.e. individual, which will be expressed in "specific behavior" (I fr. 26. 3, 6).

3. Ego-ism. The suffix "ism" generally refers to the designation of some doctrine [3, 4]. For example: Calvinism, Marxism, fascism, etc. Thus, egoism is an attitude * to act following the doctrine of one's own "I". The attitude towards one's own "I" is formed based on the conscious and unconscious perceptions of knowledge about oneself, which is transformed into a certain feeling, emotionally influencing to one degree or another the psyche and behavior of a person. Since each person knows himself to one degree or another, then each person has a corresponding doctrine, based on which he satisfies his needs. Consequently, in the scientific understanding, all people are egoists. The degree of influence of the doctrine of one's "I" depends on many circumstances, in particular on knowledge, experience, awareness of the attitude, etc. [2]. Starting from Chapter 6 of this book and until its end, the author allows the reader to form his doctrine, based on modern scientific data on the human psyche and body. Now we will consider how the man-hating attitude and self-interested attitude is formed, which leads to antipathy to one's "I".

* Attitudes are sympathies and antipathies, that is, favorable or unfavorable reactions and assessments related to objects, people, situations, and other aspects of the environment, including abstract and socio-political ideas. Despite differences in the definitions of attitudes, all share an interest in the relationships between beliefs, feelings, and behavior [2].

4. The man-hating attitude of the "I". The state takes the main part in the formation of the individual's personality. But where it crosses the boundaries of formation is when it affects the formation of the "I" of a human, i.e. his individual essence. Using the institutions of politics, the mass media, education, science, legislation, the police, the courts, as well as various methods of reward and punishment, it influences the consciousness of a human to educate a devoted citizen. Even though Western civilization has developed over more than 25 centuries, its essence of human freedom has not changed (III fr. 25. 2, 7). Control of private freedom using consciousness and conscience, causing respectively feelings of shame and guilt, which, like an executioner, force a human to punish himself for the slightest offenses or even seditious thoughts, have become part of the archetype (collective unconscious) of modern Western culture (V fr. 3. 9; 4, 9). A human, having decided to know his "I", is forced to draw the so-called "knowledge" about himself from the fragmented and contradictory reasoning of the collective unconscious [2, 5]. As a result, a human develops a feeling opposite to self-love - antipathy. Thus, having known his "I" at the unconscious level from a biased source, a human builds his attitude towards himself on it. Therefore, he does everything to be good for religion (if he professes one), the state, the authorities, various societies, and business, but not for himself. Otherwise, he will be known as an "egoist" in its stereotypical understanding *. But some people do not succumb to this influence and form a different attitude towards their "I". What contributes to the choice of a different attitude?