What does it mean to love thy neighbour as thyself in the context of the abject self-loathing that many people display? Was the advice originally conceived as ironic? Or do most people actually conform to it, insofar as they treat other people with a good deal of cruelty and indifference. As this example, which Phillips attributes to Lacan, shows there is a beguiling simplicity to this Christian teaching that is unhelpful and untrue when considered in the context of an average person’s psychology. As Phillips goes on to show, most of our feelings are fundamentally ambivalent; meaning they are a mixture of opposing views. We hate what we love and vice-versa. All strong feelings are accompanied by their opposite. What satisfies us also frustrates us, and we must believe what frustrates us could potentially satisfy us otherwise we wouldn’t find it frustrating! Viewed from a position that accepts that love is meaningless, or impossible, without hate the Christian narrative of love may begin to look like a facile cover story designed to repress the ever-present ambivalence we all feel.
Phillips evokes “a malign parent that harms in the guise of protecting” when talking about the self-criticism. This highlights that there are, most certainly, positive and essential attributes to self-reflection. However, the relentless and unending self-criticism that most of us subject ourselves too is a strange and sadomasochistic way of loving ourselves. Nevertheless, it is so deeply ingrained in our day to day behaviour that the very idea that we should stop criticising ourselves ordinarily arouses a great deal of criticism itself! Over the past few days I have tried to catch myself in the act of self-criticism and have been struck by several things. First, it is almost unbelievably frequent. Secondly, it is extraordinarily repetitive consisting of limited variation around a couple of unimaginative and unexamined themes - “you’re lazy / useless / selfish”. Thirdly, it is cruel and leaves no room for other interpretations of the action or mindset it is criticising. As Phillips points out, if we met a person like this we would think them highly unusual, inexplicably cruel and very, very boring! Phillips suggests we would imagine that they had suffered a traumatic or damaging event from which they are recovering.
So what is this bizarre, but ubiquitous, part of the conscience that detaches itself from our conception of ourselves and repetitively abuses us in such unfeeling fashion? Is it a small fragment of an alternative self; someone we could be but is overpowered by other selves within us? For Freud, who calls it the superego, it is the voice of culturally learned behaviour that protects us from biological desires that are dangerous to us when we live in a society. For example, the urge to murder. Someone offends us, we want revenge by murdering them but we are afraid of the consequences this will have for our continued existence in society so we turn this violence on ourselves and internalise our hatred. This constant self-criticism makes it impossible to truly evaluate ourselves in a more measured and subtle manner; like someone shouting at you while you’re trying to watch a film. Furthermore, so great is our fear of the superego, perhaps because we are terrified of the murderous darkness inside ourselves, that we agree with the superego’s criticism and speak on its behalf!
However, as with ambivalence, understanding such a powerful and prevalent part of our psychology cannot be achieved via simple interpretation or singular methods of explanation. As Hamlet says in Act 3 Scene 1, “conscience does make cowards of us all”. Even though we are the creator of the superego; the superego also makes us something different by its existence. It is an unforbidden pleasure, allowed for and even encouraged by society, that is always available to us, which may go some way to explaining our near constant recourse to it. We relish our failure to live up to standards without reflecting on what the standards against which we are judging ourselves are. Partly because our conscience is too busy berating us and never allows us time to consider this question. Indeed, conscience itself may be a coward, as well as making cowards of us, afraid of allowing us to develop a more complex and subtle morality. Conscience criticises because it is afraid of what it it doesn’t know or cannot comprehend. Thus, by interpreting our conscience simplistically and taking its criticisms at face value we lend credibility to its boring seriousness, suffocating drama and fearfulness. Self-criticism itself is incredibly simplistic; involving no consensus or negotiation and endlessly repeating the same unexamined insults. It is dictatorial and tyrannical and leads to a situation where, for Freud, the superego enslaves the ego. Instead of this unconsidered dogma and ill supported judgement there should, instead, be reasoned conversation and inquisitive experimentation.
So why do we seem to enjoy something that is so cruel and boring? And why is it so prevalent? Freud thinks it arises from a fear of loss of love. Safety and security of love are the things we most covet and for this reason safety is preferred to fulfilment of desire and desire is, similarly, sacrificed for security. We conceive of ourselves as criminals and need to be protected from our immoral and wayward desires. However, this viewpoint leaves little room for us to explore desires that are not forbidden as we are constantly engaged in criticising out of fear of ourselves. We are so busy repressing our nature, on the supposition that it will be forbidden by society and hence unhelpful, that we are unable to truly get to know ourselves and our deepest desires. Again, there is certainly a risk of overly simplistic interpretation and explanation here. Nonetheless, once I began looking out for self-criticism I was shocked by how often I engage in it. It is amazing that something so unusual and mean can play such a large part in one’s life and yet go unnoticed. Part of this must be due to habituation; and another part to society’s endorsement of this trait, both explicit and implicit. However, once we have noticed what we are doing to ourselves it also allows us to see just how boring, unimaginative and overwhelmingly useless it is! Viewed in this light, Phillips advises us not to take the self-criticism of the superego too seriously. I also think it’s best to try and catch oneself indulging in this sadomasochism and to make a conscious effort to limit it. Such basic, repetitive cruelty cannot be helpful in coming to a proper understanding of who we are and we must strive for more intelligent, nuanced understanding.
One supplementary point I think is worth consideration is one’s response to the self-criticism of the superego. In the paragraph above, I mention Phillip’s advice to not take the superego too seriously; which I believe is fundamentally sound counsel. However, we must be cautious that these attempts to marginalise the message of the superego do not turn into an equally hateful counter-criticism. Just as the superego’s simplistic criticism is not helpful in coming to a deeper understanding of oneself, I think that an overly vitriolic assessment of the superego could be equally unhelpful. Rather than trying to despise the superego and dismiss it as idiotic, I believe it may ultimately be more rewarding to try and comprehend the superego from a position of acceptance and loving understanding. While the jibes of the superego may be cruel and hurtful, it is incumbent on us to resist the urge to respond to hatred with hatred or to return cruelty with further cruelty. As Spinoza tell us in The Ethics, “hate is increased by being returned but can be destroyed by love”.
