"Lobaczewski called egotism the chief of human faults." Egotism is similar to, and possibly synonymous with, pride. In Dante's Purgatorio, pride (superbia) occupies the lowest terrace of Mount Purgatory, marking it as the foundational vice from which all other sin grows. Dante defined pride as the "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor," a phrase that captures both the sin's origin and its outward consequence.
This definition reflects Dante's broader theology of disordered love, in which every sin is ultimately love gone wrong. Pride is not the absence of love but its corruption: love turned so intensely inward that it curdles into disdain for others. Rather than absent affection, it is self-regard grown so excessive that it edges naturally into looking down on, or even wishing harm toward, everyone else. Because pride distorts the very capacity to love rightly, Dante treats it as the root from which every other vice ultimately branches.
I will anticipate the objection that not pride but money is the root of all evil. That misreads the biblical text. Specifically, 1 Timothy 6:10 says that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Money itself is not evil or the root of all evil; rather, the obsessive desire, craving, and worship of wealth drive people toward corrupt choices, ruin, and spiritual wandering.
To continue, the penance Dante assigns to prideful souls makes this vice visible in the body. On the first terrace, they walk bent double beneath massive stone slabs, a physical enactment of the burden their arrogance once placed on others and on their own souls—the crushing weight now made literal.
For Dante, the archetype of this sin is Lucifer himself, whose ambition to rival God led to his fall from Heaven. In placing Satan's pride at the origin of cosmic rebellion and human sinfulness alike, Dante frames pride not merely as one sin among many, but as sin's very wellspring—the first disordered love from which all others descend.
Excellent background and connection. Thank you. Yes, it sounds like a match to me. It also reminds me of something helpful I read from Gurdjieff, who personified "Mr. Self-Love" and "Madame Vanity" as the twin internal tyrants keeping man "asleep" and " two chief agents of the devil."
Madame Vanity: Operates as a constant, hungry demand for external validation and confirmation of an imaginary self-image.
Mr. Self-Love: Protects the ego from seeing its own actual nothingness and mechanical state, taking offense at every little slight.
Much of the time, when modern people use the words “ego”, “egotist”, “egotism”, “egoism”, etc, they might imagine what they’re Rekalling is downstream of Freud, Reich, Jung &c, but in actual fact they’re memetically regurgitating culturally mutated effluent from the Matmos generated by late 20th Century Leary/CIA/LSD “experiment in non-being” misadventures.
This was made most apparent during the Covid period, when, in the general public mind, self-effacement + parodic Uriah Heep “stay safe” umbleness became ascloseasthis to Godliness.
“Nice Covid mask, Mister. Did that one come with a free ball-gag?”
Validates Gurdjieff:
“It is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just.”
A common error among the sanctimonious and spokespeople for vulgar religion is to conflate morality with altruism. It is true that morality treats primarily of how we should relate to other people. It is true that egoism, i.e. regard for one’s own self-interest, is so widespread and stark that it detracts from the necessary cohesion of society. None the less, morality cannot be reduced to altruism alone. Those who do so run the risk of being exploited by people much less good than they are. It is also imperative to have due regard for oneself, including personal growth to greater maturity. People who are good at heart are often neglectful here and pay dearly, not only on their own account. Hence we return to the assertion above that, in any given circumstances, there is a limit to how good you can be.
What is also ignored by the advocates of altruism is that there are many varieties of egoism. Not everyone is greedy for cake. Some hanker after a hearing. Self-sacrifice may be a means discreetly to assert power in the form of influence. A well-constructed society (polity) is able to harness the varieties of egoism for the greater good, as with Adam Smith’s self-interested early rising baker.
Just for clarification about inerrancy of the Bible.
Catholic doctrine holds that Scripture is without error in the truth God intended to communicate through its inspired human authors, especially and comprehensively in relation to salvation; it does not require that Scripture conform to modern conventions of scientific writing, historiography, or literalism. The crucial distinction is therefore between “the Bible contains no errors” and “my literal interpretation of every biblical sentence contains no errors.” The first is Catholic doctrine; the second is not.
A catholic would say that Scripture is God’s inspired Word, without error in what God intended to communicate, interpreted by the Church within Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
A classical Protestant would say that Scripture is God’s inspired Word and the uniquely infallible rule of faith, whose teachings are ultimately authoritative over every church tradition.
I would offer a mild dissent from the premise stated here. A given conception of moral limits on one's behavior is psychologically compelling (i.e. one's _ex ante_ voluntary choices are harmonized with innate desires in a manner that avoids _ex post_ cognitive dissonance) to the extent that such rules are necessary for the optimization of one's pursuit of happiness. Moreover, a given rule is universally compelling to the extent that it is derived from an innate desire that is common to all human beings.
One might overestimate the universality of a given moral rule because the rule only optimizes the pursuit of happiness for a subset of humanity that one happens to be a part of, while failing to recognize that other people might need to break the rule in order to optimize their happiness. Conversely, one who doesn't see any value in observing a particular rule might be upset by those who do find its observance necessary for their happiness.
Both the cultural evolution of traditional norms and attempts by intellectuals to use reason to construct rational ethical systems have their limitations. One doesn't necessarily have to be "egotistical" in the sense of being unduly insensitive or unconcerned with the interests of others to run afoul of these limits; even people who care deeply about others can still become insufferably sanctimonious and intolerant when they encounter behaviors they strongly disapprove of.
For various reasons, cultural evolution can select for norms besides those that are truly grounded in universal characteristics of human psychology, while philosophers who try to remain objective in formulating ethical systems are ultimately forced to admit that there are only a few rather broad virtues and general attitudes that are necessarily instrumental to every human's pursuit of happiness; there are significant aspects of morality (including one's acceptance or rejection of received cultural norms) that have to be tested by individual trial and error.
Another important point here is that among adult humans, moral and intellectual autonomy is itself a necessity for happiness optimization. Adults simply can't be tricked or coerced into adopting values that enable them to lead happier lives; to be effective moral influence has to remain in the realm of rational voluntary persuasion. Mutual respect for and defense of each other's autonomy is itself an important virtue; one that isn't served by being overly judgemental about another adult's behavior and then trying to discipline or "nudge" them as if they are misbehaving little children. Judgement of others has to be more focused on the management of personal relationships so that each relationship continues to serve its purpose, notwithstanding divergences in whatever other values each person might be pursuing.
Great article, somewhat unrelated but it reminded me of the work of Howard S Schwartz on political correctness which involves the superego. (A Google search for 'Howard S Schwartz superego' will turn up some results, he has produced some fascinating research and books.)
He may even be willing to come on your podcast if you wish, here's one from a while back:
In my language, egotism is a synonym of egoism and selfishness, but an order of magnitude more severe than egoism.
One of our modern philosophers (also a great humanist and actor, and a comedian and poet and writer, and also songwriter) debated that we might divide ego(t)ism into two major flavours:
One where you act in your own best interests as per your own rationality, but not in such a way you hurt or threaten or take from others, and one where you simply ignore what your actions do to others.
I find it important that there are such significant differences between languages that are quite close, and that have influenced each other a lot for about one thousand years. For you the writer, writing for a 99.9% English-speaking audience it doesn't matter that much, or at all. For me, being in the 0.1%, it is critical that I when reading remember to read it both in English and to translate it into idiomatic Swedish and note any differences.
And given the intricate topics there's a real risk of lost in translation.
Good points. Lobaczewski mentions the "three egos" a few times: egoism, egotism, and egocentrism. Egoism: self-interest. Egocentrism: self-centeredness. In that context, I think he probably would have considered egoism more along the lines of "acting in self-interest and ignoring what your actions do to others."
A non-dual perspective, offered in the spirit of the article:
Harrison, your exploration of egotism as the chief of human faults lands with real force. What you describe, the habitual overvaluing of our own beliefs, the refusal to be corrected, the measuring of others by our private yardstick, is exactly what A Course in Miracles calls the ego’s senseless shrieks.
Beneath those shrieks, the Course says, is something far quieter and more real:
“And yet, beneath the ego’s senseless shrieks, such is the call that God has given him, that you might hear in him His Call to you, and answer by returning unto God what is His Own.” (T-25.V.3:5)
Egotism is the voice that tries to drown that Call out. It is the voice of specialness insisting that my interpretation, my certainty, my worldview must remain intact at all costs. We do not want to hear the call of Christ to Christ that would return us to our shared Self. We choose instead the raucous certainty of the ego.
This is why egotism is so stubborn. At its root is a buried, shared guilt, the unconscious belief that we separated from Love and that this separation is real and punishable. The ego’s entire job is to keep that guilt hidden by projecting it outward: “I am right; they are wrong / stupid / dangerous.” As long as the guilt remains unexamined, we will defend our private shadows with everything we have.
Plato saw the same dynamic in the Allegory of the Cave. Prisoners chained so they can see only shadows on the wall come to believe those shadows are the whole of reality. When one is freed and returns to help the others, they would rather kill him than have their familiar darkness disturbed. We are so accustomed to guilt’s shadow of hate and specialness that the bright light of forgiveness feels threatening. We would rather protect the light-less world we know than risk the discomfort of being wrong.
Yet the guilt that drives all of this is not personal and private. It is the same ancient belief in separation that every mind that walks this world has accepted. Because it is shared, it can be undone for everyone the moment any one of us is willing to let it go. That is what forgiveness does. It does not make the shadows real and then try to improve them. It simply looks past them to the Call that was never silenced.
Your article names the surface fault with great clarity. The deeper engine beneath it is this hidden guilt, and the only lasting release is the willingness to hear, even for an instant, the quieter Call that egotism works so hard to cover.
I don't agree with this assessment, mostly because of the choice of terms.
"Egotism" is based on the root word "ego."
Ego is an old Greek word, but popularized first in the 1700s and later by Freud in the late 1800s.
I assume the spinoff word today is taken mostly in the Freudian context. And Freud's model, in the end, didn't work.
But in Greek, it was simply the word for "I." Or "me." In my training, this is simply the "first dynamic;" the body and its various possessions. There are 7 other dynamics.
"Egotism," then, in my understanding, just means an over-emphasis on the survival of self. Often to the point where other dynamics (friends, spouses, children, co-workers, the human race, plants and animals, the physical universe, spirits, God) are ignored or invalidated. Thus one could call it an unbalanced condition. Yet you cannot tell someone that it is wrong to be interested in themselves. It is one of their dynamics; it deserves a reasonable amount of attention.
Over-emphasis on self is a problem for us, and is probably a long-time problem in societies. It is exacerbated here by lack of telepathy (and even empathy) which would otherwise help connect us with the rest of the living world (at least).
So yes, people do put out this self-defense mechanism that makes them seriously intractable. And there is a need to remediate this condition to make others more mentally flexible. But the biggest problem here (or anywhere as far as I can tell) is the psychopathic personality and its terror of all other dynamics, even to the point where it is really self-destructive. Such a person is willing to take all the other dynamics down with him. And that is extremely dangerous.
"Lobaczewski called egotism the chief of human faults." Egotism is similar to, and possibly synonymous with, pride. In Dante's Purgatorio, pride (superbia) occupies the lowest terrace of Mount Purgatory, marking it as the foundational vice from which all other sin grows. Dante defined pride as the "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor," a phrase that captures both the sin's origin and its outward consequence.
This definition reflects Dante's broader theology of disordered love, in which every sin is ultimately love gone wrong. Pride is not the absence of love but its corruption: love turned so intensely inward that it curdles into disdain for others. Rather than absent affection, it is self-regard grown so excessive that it edges naturally into looking down on, or even wishing harm toward, everyone else. Because pride distorts the very capacity to love rightly, Dante treats it as the root from which every other vice ultimately branches.
I will anticipate the objection that not pride but money is the root of all evil. That misreads the biblical text. Specifically, 1 Timothy 6:10 says that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Money itself is not evil or the root of all evil; rather, the obsessive desire, craving, and worship of wealth drive people toward corrupt choices, ruin, and spiritual wandering.
To continue, the penance Dante assigns to prideful souls makes this vice visible in the body. On the first terrace, they walk bent double beneath massive stone slabs, a physical enactment of the burden their arrogance once placed on others and on their own souls—the crushing weight now made literal.
For Dante, the archetype of this sin is Lucifer himself, whose ambition to rival God led to his fall from Heaven. In placing Satan's pride at the origin of cosmic rebellion and human sinfulness alike, Dante frames pride not merely as one sin among many, but as sin's very wellspring—the first disordered love from which all others descend.
Excellent background and connection. Thank you. Yes, it sounds like a match to me. It also reminds me of something helpful I read from Gurdjieff, who personified "Mr. Self-Love" and "Madame Vanity" as the twin internal tyrants keeping man "asleep" and " two chief agents of the devil."
Madame Vanity: Operates as a constant, hungry demand for external validation and confirmation of an imaginary self-image.
Mr. Self-Love: Protects the ego from seeing its own actual nothingness and mechanical state, taking offense at every little slight.
William Burroughs’ “word virus” made flesh.
Much of the time, when modern people use the words “ego”, “egotist”, “egotism”, “egoism”, etc, they might imagine what they’re Rekalling is downstream of Freud, Reich, Jung &c, but in actual fact they’re memetically regurgitating culturally mutated effluent from the Matmos generated by late 20th Century Leary/CIA/LSD “experiment in non-being” misadventures.
This was made most apparent during the Covid period, when, in the general public mind, self-effacement + parodic Uriah Heep “stay safe” umbleness became ascloseasthis to Godliness.
“Nice Covid mask, Mister. Did that one come with a free ball-gag?”
Validates Gurdjieff:
“It is better to be temporarily an egoist than never to be just.”
A common error among the sanctimonious and spokespeople for vulgar religion is to conflate morality with altruism. It is true that morality treats primarily of how we should relate to other people. It is true that egoism, i.e. regard for one’s own self-interest, is so widespread and stark that it detracts from the necessary cohesion of society. None the less, morality cannot be reduced to altruism alone. Those who do so run the risk of being exploited by people much less good than they are. It is also imperative to have due regard for oneself, including personal growth to greater maturity. People who are good at heart are often neglectful here and pay dearly, not only on their own account. Hence we return to the assertion above that, in any given circumstances, there is a limit to how good you can be.
What is also ignored by the advocates of altruism is that there are many varieties of egoism. Not everyone is greedy for cake. Some hanker after a hearing. Self-sacrifice may be a means discreetly to assert power in the form of influence. A well-constructed society (polity) is able to harness the varieties of egoism for the greater good, as with Adam Smith’s self-interested early rising baker.
more at https://www.thinking-for-clarity.com/Compass.html
Agreed!
Just for clarification about inerrancy of the Bible.
Catholic doctrine holds that Scripture is without error in the truth God intended to communicate through its inspired human authors, especially and comprehensively in relation to salvation; it does not require that Scripture conform to modern conventions of scientific writing, historiography, or literalism. The crucial distinction is therefore between “the Bible contains no errors” and “my literal interpretation of every biblical sentence contains no errors.” The first is Catholic doctrine; the second is not.
A catholic would say that Scripture is God’s inspired Word, without error in what God intended to communicate, interpreted by the Church within Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium.
A classical Protestant would say that Scripture is God’s inspired Word and the uniquely infallible rule of faith, whose teachings are ultimately authoritative over every church tradition.
I've learned the hard lesson that when I feel most right, I'm most likely to be wrong 😬
For me, possibly at around the same age, it was learning to my great embarrassment that it wasn't the "Battle of the Bugle."
I would offer a mild dissent from the premise stated here. A given conception of moral limits on one's behavior is psychologically compelling (i.e. one's _ex ante_ voluntary choices are harmonized with innate desires in a manner that avoids _ex post_ cognitive dissonance) to the extent that such rules are necessary for the optimization of one's pursuit of happiness. Moreover, a given rule is universally compelling to the extent that it is derived from an innate desire that is common to all human beings.
One might overestimate the universality of a given moral rule because the rule only optimizes the pursuit of happiness for a subset of humanity that one happens to be a part of, while failing to recognize that other people might need to break the rule in order to optimize their happiness. Conversely, one who doesn't see any value in observing a particular rule might be upset by those who do find its observance necessary for their happiness.
Both the cultural evolution of traditional norms and attempts by intellectuals to use reason to construct rational ethical systems have their limitations. One doesn't necessarily have to be "egotistical" in the sense of being unduly insensitive or unconcerned with the interests of others to run afoul of these limits; even people who care deeply about others can still become insufferably sanctimonious and intolerant when they encounter behaviors they strongly disapprove of.
For various reasons, cultural evolution can select for norms besides those that are truly grounded in universal characteristics of human psychology, while philosophers who try to remain objective in formulating ethical systems are ultimately forced to admit that there are only a few rather broad virtues and general attitudes that are necessarily instrumental to every human's pursuit of happiness; there are significant aspects of morality (including one's acceptance or rejection of received cultural norms) that have to be tested by individual trial and error.
Another important point here is that among adult humans, moral and intellectual autonomy is itself a necessity for happiness optimization. Adults simply can't be tricked or coerced into adopting values that enable them to lead happier lives; to be effective moral influence has to remain in the realm of rational voluntary persuasion. Mutual respect for and defense of each other's autonomy is itself an important virtue; one that isn't served by being overly judgemental about another adult's behavior and then trying to discipline or "nudge" them as if they are misbehaving little children. Judgement of others has to be more focused on the management of personal relationships so that each relationship continues to serve its purpose, notwithstanding divergences in whatever other values each person might be pursuing.
Great article, somewhat unrelated but it reminded me of the work of Howard S Schwartz on political correctness which involves the superego. (A Google search for 'Howard S Schwartz superego' will turn up some results, he has produced some fascinating research and books.)
He may even be willing to come on your podcast if you wish, here's one from a while back:
https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2023/11/06/a-discussion-about-political-correctness-with-dr-howard-schwartz-former-student-of-marcuse/
https://www.facebook.com/SocietyAgainstItself/
Interesting language-difference:
In my language, egotism is a synonym of egoism and selfishness, but an order of magnitude more severe than egoism.
One of our modern philosophers (also a great humanist and actor, and a comedian and poet and writer, and also songwriter) debated that we might divide ego(t)ism into two major flavours:
One where you act in your own best interests as per your own rationality, but not in such a way you hurt or threaten or take from others, and one where you simply ignore what your actions do to others.
I find it important that there are such significant differences between languages that are quite close, and that have influenced each other a lot for about one thousand years. For you the writer, writing for a 99.9% English-speaking audience it doesn't matter that much, or at all. For me, being in the 0.1%, it is critical that I when reading remember to read it both in English and to translate it into idiomatic Swedish and note any differences.
And given the intricate topics there's a real risk of lost in translation.
Good points. Lobaczewski mentions the "three egos" a few times: egoism, egotism, and egocentrism. Egoism: self-interest. Egocentrism: self-centeredness. In that context, I think he probably would have considered egoism more along the lines of "acting in self-interest and ignoring what your actions do to others."
This is beautiful and so very true.
For rewiring the brain, it and can be painful.
In my experience, charactor comes from living with the pain, which persists until clarity of the truth brings some stability of freedom.
I mean its always there, just often times twisted by egotism not as as an interconnected harmony but as something bad.
A non-dual perspective, offered in the spirit of the article:
Harrison, your exploration of egotism as the chief of human faults lands with real force. What you describe, the habitual overvaluing of our own beliefs, the refusal to be corrected, the measuring of others by our private yardstick, is exactly what A Course in Miracles calls the ego’s senseless shrieks.
Beneath those shrieks, the Course says, is something far quieter and more real:
“And yet, beneath the ego’s senseless shrieks, such is the call that God has given him, that you might hear in him His Call to you, and answer by returning unto God what is His Own.” (T-25.V.3:5)
Egotism is the voice that tries to drown that Call out. It is the voice of specialness insisting that my interpretation, my certainty, my worldview must remain intact at all costs. We do not want to hear the call of Christ to Christ that would return us to our shared Self. We choose instead the raucous certainty of the ego.
This is why egotism is so stubborn. At its root is a buried, shared guilt, the unconscious belief that we separated from Love and that this separation is real and punishable. The ego’s entire job is to keep that guilt hidden by projecting it outward: “I am right; they are wrong / stupid / dangerous.” As long as the guilt remains unexamined, we will defend our private shadows with everything we have.
Plato saw the same dynamic in the Allegory of the Cave. Prisoners chained so they can see only shadows on the wall come to believe those shadows are the whole of reality. When one is freed and returns to help the others, they would rather kill him than have their familiar darkness disturbed. We are so accustomed to guilt’s shadow of hate and specialness that the bright light of forgiveness feels threatening. We would rather protect the light-less world we know than risk the discomfort of being wrong.
Yet the guilt that drives all of this is not personal and private. It is the same ancient belief in separation that every mind that walks this world has accepted. Because it is shared, it can be undone for everyone the moment any one of us is willing to let it go. That is what forgiveness does. It does not make the shadows real and then try to improve them. It simply looks past them to the Call that was never silenced.
Your article names the surface fault with great clarity. The deeper engine beneath it is this hidden guilt, and the only lasting release is the willingness to hear, even for an instant, the quieter Call that egotism works so hard to cover.
Quote by Papji on 'X' https://x.com/Zenm001/status/2090130180111270229
This certainly resonates much to reality. Well said.
I don't agree with this assessment, mostly because of the choice of terms.
"Egotism" is based on the root word "ego."
Ego is an old Greek word, but popularized first in the 1700s and later by Freud in the late 1800s.
I assume the spinoff word today is taken mostly in the Freudian context. And Freud's model, in the end, didn't work.
But in Greek, it was simply the word for "I." Or "me." In my training, this is simply the "first dynamic;" the body and its various possessions. There are 7 other dynamics.
"Egotism," then, in my understanding, just means an over-emphasis on the survival of self. Often to the point where other dynamics (friends, spouses, children, co-workers, the human race, plants and animals, the physical universe, spirits, God) are ignored or invalidated. Thus one could call it an unbalanced condition. Yet you cannot tell someone that it is wrong to be interested in themselves. It is one of their dynamics; it deserves a reasonable amount of attention.
Over-emphasis on self is a problem for us, and is probably a long-time problem in societies. It is exacerbated here by lack of telepathy (and even empathy) which would otherwise help connect us with the rest of the living world (at least).
So yes, people do put out this self-defense mechanism that makes them seriously intractable. And there is a need to remediate this condition to make others more mentally flexible. But the biggest problem here (or anywhere as far as I can tell) is the psychopathic personality and its terror of all other dynamics, even to the point where it is really self-destructive. Such a person is willing to take all the other dynamics down with him. And that is extremely dangerous.