“As there exists Narcissism in one, there also exists a potential tyrant in him.”
“As there exists Hedonism in one, he becomes a social parasite.”
While these two statements stand true in the present social scenario where modern culture is the advocator of narcissism and hedonism, I think it is equally true that nurturing narcissism and hedonism has been the way that social systems have enslaved humanity.
In this article, I will discuss the characteristic traits of narcissists and hedonists, and how social systems of the past and present, use them as tools to enslave people psychologically.
What Are Narcissism And Hedonism?
A narcissist is one among the enslaved herdsman, who believes in pride, self-admiration and authority over other men. He constantly searches for an opportunity to gain control and authority over others. He always tends to perceive his internal world as superior to others; with his accumulated identity of race, caste, religion, wealth, personal achievements. He glorifies everything of his existence.
A hedonist is a person who believes in maximising his pleasures and comforts by minimising pain. He is a pure-materialistic persona who views everything to be served for his own purpose. He has the least concern for anything, not concerning. Money and pleasure is his religion.
A hedonist is one who believes in a lifestyle that incurs less pain and more pleasures, for which he needs many humans to serve his purpose. He is, therefore, a social parasite.
A narcissist is one who believes in a collective ideology by establishing his identity, where he can look upon someone and look down on someone. He is the one that holds authority as well as propagates authority.
Based on the above statements, we can clearly understand that hedonism and narcissism need authoritarianism and social inequality to exist; for there are only unequal social situations, one can be a hedonist and one can be a narcissist.
At this point, I want you to ask yourself,
Have you been a narcissist?
Have you been a hedonist?
While for the further discussion, I want to introduce you two gentlemen who are critics of such evolving social worlds.
The World According To Huxley And Orwell
Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are two of the early visionaries who envisioned such evolving dystopian futures, in their novels Brave New World and 1984, where the human world is enslaved by using their narcissist and hedonistic tendencies to the extremity.
While we may not live in such extreme enslavement by pleasure or authority, but to an extent, we are enslaved both by authority and our materialistic needs attached to society.
Aldous Huxley, in his fiction novel, “Brave New World” (1931), creates a Dystopian view of a society in the future where humans are genetically modified and conditioned by altering their behaviour to create alphas, betas, gammas etc; a social intelligence hierarchy of people who are enslaved by using pleasure and conditioning as a tool for enslaving them to the social system.
By depicting this futuristic society, some relevant questions that Huxley raises to the present modern society are,
‘Could it be that technology, prescription drugs, pornography and other pleasurable diversions have created a citizenry too distracted to notice the chains which bind them, enslaving them?’
‘Does the social system use human hedonistic tendencies as a weakness to enslave man?’
Huxley also theorised that, in time, ruling classes would learn that control of populace could be achieved not only by use of explicit force but also with more covert method of drowning the masses in an endless supply of pleasurable diversions and drugs such as ‘SOMA’ in his novel.
Huxley, based on experiments of behaviourist scientist Skinner, assumed that similar to operant conditioning of animals; humans can be conditioned too. But was the intention to make humans adjust to new behaviours and social structures, to make them enslaved? Social systems design norms – social conditions and situations that moderate human behaviour by rewarding and punishing people with regard to appropriate behaviour in social reality, which has been an unconscious mechanism to moderate behaviour.
Huxley predicted that there would be an emergence of a ‘Controlling Oligarchy’ who would conduct similar experiments on human beings to condition docility and minimise the potential for civil unrest.
Oligarchical collectivism is a system in which we live in, where an elite few under the guise of a certain collectivist ideology centralise power using force and deception. Controlling oligarchy is a visible structure of a totalitarian government which always tries to control the masses by operant conditioning through propaganda and deception. This feature of oligarchical collectivism is visible in Indian democracy.
This controlling oligarchy can be clearly seen in the form of political parties, corporates and bureaucrats in the present scenario of our country. People are conditioned to believe in collective ideologies, for gaining social control, while these collective ideologies are pre-determined for the rise of totalitarian states.
Technology, smartphones, entertainment, hedonist lifestyles—all serve as distractions for the modern man, in seeing his true position where he is enslaved. Distractions, according to Huxley, create a dumbed down population which simply lacks the mental resources to resist their enslavement.
Money became the new religion of the modern man, with which he can buy pleasure for himself by inflicting minimum pain, with lots of service-men at his services. The modern man is conditioned to believe that money is the Ultimate achievement. He developed a ‘bad conscience’.
The modern man completely lost his natural survival instincts; now, he is completely dependent on society for survival. He is no more a caveman, but a social being who is caught in the vortex of his desires.
This hedonistic attitude of the modern man is one of the tools for enslaving him, for he no longer can live free without men and nature serving him.
On the other hand, George Orwell viewed that modern societies are becoming ever more like the dystopia depicted in his novel 1984. Whether it be authoritarianism, mass surveillance, the incessant use of propaganda, perpetual war, or the cult of personality surrounding political leaders, it is not surprising that many see Orwell’s novel as prophetic in many ways.
As a social critic of the increasingly urban and consumerist world, Orwell believed that many people were structuring their lives in a hedonistic manner and this did not bode well for the freedom of western civilization. A hedonistic lifestyle, according to Orwell, weakens people, it makes them feeble and incapable of mounting any resistance to fanatical ideologues who desire to rule over society.
Collectivism, as understood by Orwell, is a doctrine, or a set of ideologies, in which the goals of a certain collective, such as a state or a nation or a society; are given precedence and importance over the goals of Individuals. Communism, Nazism, Nationalism, Theism; all account to such Collective Ideologies.
He observed that the problem with Collective Ideologies is that, Collectivist Ideologies create narcissist identities with self-admiration and pride for people under Influence, where they are prepared to have a conflict with other Identities; as the globe has thousands of Collective Ideologies, they will naturally collide.
In emphasising on the Collective Ideologies, Orwell states that collective ideologies are pre-conditioned for the rise of totalitarianism.
Neil Postman, in a Public discourse, stating his views on this topic said that,
“What Orwell feared was a State that would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one…Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture…In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.”
But, in today’s social reality, we live both in a world that can ban books of resistance and also condition people to have no reason to read a book, distracted by technology, entertainment and pleasure. We live, both, in a world of authority by social control and voluntary servitude for pleasure. We are bound by captive culture as well as trivial culture, where we remain enslaved.
Our enslavement is conditioned, as we fail to see the chains that bind us. While we remain enslaved, our narcissist personal ambitions and hedonistic dependence would enchain us rigidly to the machine for pushing the social engine.
In the modern world, with social and economic policies, we develop inequalities on one end by creating wealth in the hands of a few, the controlling oligarchy, while the wealthy hedonistic lifestyle of a few is further used as an element of popular culture, propagated into the masses to psychologically assert them to aspire such a hedonistic lifestyle.
This is the way everyone is enslaved, as society makes individuals dependent by giving them identities and exercising authority over them through many agents in their socialisation. We are bound captive voluntarily in the present world with our needs that society guarantees.
Are you enslaved by narcissism or hedonism? If so, I would ask you to breaks the chains of your enslavement by reinventing your identity and minimising your dependence on others.
For the reason, in the social world, two groups are present, one that welcomes pleasurable servitude and ego-centrism and the other, that wants to retain liberty and freedom by breaking the chains of enslavement.
Are you the new slaves that want pleasurable servitude or the higher men that retain freedom and will of life?