Excessive Self-Consciousness

 

In the fall of 2024, I watched a video recording a conversation between two celebrity psychologists: Jordan Peterson and W. Keith Campbell. Their basic thesis was that excessive or morbid self-consciousness made the self-absorbed person narcissistic, unhealthy, and unhappy.

 

I do not disagree that such morbid self-consciousness exists and that it makes one narcissistic or sick, but I do not conflate narcissism with individuals or egoist morality, because an individuators is self-interested but is usually goal-driven, objective performing in reality to prove and improve the constantly in the world out there through self-correcting, self-disciplining and ambitious action to get better and be better at whatever is one’s goal.

 

To do that actually requires tremendous discipline and self-sacrificing--self-sacrificing for the self’s betterment to be sure, but that has little to do with morbid, subjective self-consciousness exhibited by the narcissist whose mendacious self-esteem is rarely based on self-realization.

 

I have often noted that selfishness, arrogance, and narcissism are more often traits of joiners and altruists, in their bragging, manic phase, and that most individualists are relatively modest and unselfish, or at least not without some self-restraint.

 

Excessive, ingrown self-consciousness, this concentration of the self can make one sick mentally, very unhappy, even evil, or pathological.

 

But such misbehavior is no hit on individualism. It is rather an outgrowth of altruism and collectivism.

 

Groupism is evil and fanatical, so when the joiner nonindividuator is being an individual and he is a hedonist, he can obsess about himself. Yet, if the group gets into trouble or joins a mass movement, he will selflessly sacrifice himself for his cause or group.

 

The groupist is passionately and overly emotional. When he considers himself, he is excessively self-regarding; when he is other-regarding, he overdoes that too.

 

When obsessing about himself, the joiner, ordinarily a subjectivist, his individualism is more likely to be narcissistic and self-indulgent with no goals for the self to work hard to meet. He conforms but competes ruthlessly like animals in the jungle when competing with others.

 

An objective individualist is much more likely to be a hard worker, a creative person of talent, a goal-driven producer. He has not time to think about himself all the time, for he is getting after meeting his deadlines.

 

If he goes farther, and is a serious, dedicated individuator, his self-interest is likely proportionate, limited and health.

 

If the narcissist is seeking gain from or power over others or acts selfishly and ruthlessly to be seen with or gain high social status, this is an egotist, who is not an egoist or individualist, but is a selfish, twisted, unhealthy joiner. His moral standard is communal, and all his manipulative ploys are social considerations, seeking to enhance his rank and power in the group. This is the dark side of altruist-collectivist morality at work.