Egocentric Monsters

We Must Nurture a Monster

Egotistic tendencies often look rather bland. In many cases, they look and are positive, stemming from sensible concerns, natural wishes and expected ambitions. So ignoring their evil potential is easy. Evil is made even easier when consequences are not immediately evident, or if no-one will ever know. When it seems others are behaving in a similar way, succumbing to temptation is almost automatic.

So evil tendencies are rooted in our very self and our social milieu. They are sustained because the greater or lesser degree of harm caused by their realization can be obscure and ignored. Even if evil is often wilful or due to laziness, it is evident that much that is labeled «evil» or «failure to restrain evil» is inadvertent or based on ignorance. Review the cosmic struggle within.

Obedience to Primal Injunctions protects against or inhibits the tendency to willingly generate evil. However, the benefit of adherence to any Injunction in any particular situation may not be evident, even on close scrutiny. Obeying the Injunction may look superficially like a loss or defeat. It may attract social disapproval, or even generate ethical condemnation.

This is because Primal Injunctions are about protecting the best in human nature, not protecting social mores and local laws, and certainly not about winning in a situation or getting your own way. The benefit accrues to humanity. But how?Closed The answer is not known for certain, but the conjecture here is that it occurs by sustaining the Planes of Psychosocial Existence i.e. by replenishing the pleroma.

  • Compare this requirement with the framework about interacting for personal/social benefit, which is based in societal ethics where egocentric drives are taken for granted.

So the Injunctions are Hard

Despite their impersonality, Primal Injunctions seem rather straightforward and natural. Yet a moment's reflection reveals that switching on a «better Self» is often hard for most us.

The great religions and philosophies, aware of this difficulty, advise regular contemplation of one's daily life. They provide inspirational texts to help keep attention on the demands and implications of the Primal Injunctions. The inherent difficulties in each were proposed in their exposition and will be developed further in the topics to follow.

Paradoxically, awareness of the need to obey an Injunction often fails to come to the fore precisely at the moment that it is most needed. The reason for this can be summed up in a word: egotism. In examining what egocentric monsters we can be, violation of the highest Injunction to see unity emerges as the origin of our troubles.

Christopher Booker identified seven basic plots that underpin the world's great stories. The commonality that Booker perceives in his 7 plots is that they are all ultimately about one thing: the description and ultimate defeat of egocentricity by a self-hero who can then marry, receive a kingdom, and live happily ever after. This resolution is gratifying for us.

The root plot is about Killing the Monster. The monster represents egotism incarnate: hard-hearted, inhuman, incapable of warmth and relatedness. It is invariably defeated through being blind to its own vulnerability.

Originally posted: 7-Dec-2012