An Argument for Egoism

Personality is the focal point through which the world is perceived. Personality determines our worldview, opinions, and actions. Personality is partly determined by the way somebody interacts with their environment, but the way somebody interacts with their environment is also dependent upon their personality. Personality is the result of a combination of biological factors, environmental factors, and social factors, but it also determines how one reacts to those factors. 

 Personality has a symbiotic relationship with the world.

The idea that people are ultimately self-centered has been around since the dawn of time. Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a moral philosopher during the Scottish Enlightenment who developed modern economic science. Through his Wealth of Nations (1776), he argued for a free market that would thrive on the basis of rational self interest and competition. The foundation of capitalism is that everybody strives to acquire the most resource for the least amount of effort. In other words, entire economies drive on the basis of self interest.

According to Smith, rational egoism constitutes normalcy. In fact, egocentric models of philosophy have been developed with a fair amount rigor since Smith wrote his magnum opus.[ Although I focus on Ayn Rand, many other philosophers have also systematized frameworks for operating under the assumption that self interest is a principle aspect of life. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Max Stirner (1806-1856).] For example, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) developed a philosophical system called objectivism through her two main works, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). She not only accepted egoism, but applauded it as a rational way to interact with the world. While she rejected altruism, however, she also held the fundamental belief that the initiation of force is inherently immoral. This has become known as the non-aggression principle, and it is the foundation of libertarianism in the United States.[ This is a dense topic outside the scope of the paper, but several important philosophers and popular YouTube personalities have discussed this topic at length. ]

Before Rand developed her theory of objectivism, the concept of egoism had already been materialized in the works of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). In order to explain the world through psychology, he developed an apparatus to show that people simultaneously react to the outside world and to their own inside world. In order to explain human nature, he proposed that everybody has an id, ego, and super-ego. The id, in the words of Freud:

It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learned from our study of the dreamwork and of course the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.[ Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis [1933] (Penguin Freud Library 2) pp. 105–6]

On the other hand, the super-ego is the part of the mind that understands cultural norms, expectations, and morals. When a person mediates between their own desires and the consequences of their actions, their true identity is revealed. This part of the apparatus is traditionally known as the ego, and with it comes defense mechanisms and self identity. The ego constantly administers restraint and self reflection in order to mitigate man’s deepest and most primal desires.

Self centered thinking has been a corner stone of philosophical discourse over the past three centuries, and success in the West largely depends upon narcissism. In a capitalist or free market system, income is distributed unequally and always on the basis of supply and demand. Even taking into account market failures and deeply entrenched special interest groups, lobbyists, and other forms of institutionalized power, this principle holds largely true. There are always exceptions, but the focus is on the big picture here. Inheritance, lottery, theft, and other unnatural forms of acquiring or losing wealth can be ignored for the sake of argument. 

By definition, only a select few people can reach the top of any given field. In terms of the distribution of money in the United States, for instance, the median household income in 2015 was $56,516.  According to the United States Census Bureau, the top 1% of people share 20% of the total wealth in the U.S. In general, inequality tends to widen during times to economic recovery, and it tends to converge during times of recession.

According to some studies, about one-percent of the population have characteristics of psychopathy. According to Kevin Dutton, CEO’s have the highest distribution of psychopaths. Some studies show that as many as 21% of senior professionals are psychopaths who display characteristics of narcissism. This evidence indicates that narcissism and success are linked, and this presents a compelling argument in favor of egoism.

However, I would like to offer a different framework for thinking about the world in which financial success and goal oriented thinking are detriments to the production of art. Economics is an important aspect of the physical world, but bringing the temporal world into music defeats its very purpose. The following chapter will present an informal proof that egoism prevents art from reaching the highest potential - the sublime.

Just wait....