The development of the Ego comes from trauma. The Ego is not a pseudonym for pride It is an enigma all of its own. If we are to take Sigmund Freud's analysis of the Ego, we find that it has three identities. The first is the Id. The second is the Ego. The third is the Super Ego.
The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality. It consists of all the inherited (i.e. biological) components of personality present at birth, including the sex (life) instinct – Eros (which contains the libido), and the aggressive (death) instinct - Thanatos.
The id is the impulsive (and unconscious) part of our psyche which responds directly and immediately to the instincts. The personality of the newborn child is all id and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego.
The id remains infantile in it's function throughout a persons life, and does not change with time or experience, as it is not in touch with the external world. The id is not affected by reality, logic or the everyday world, as it operates within the unconscious part of the mind.
The id demands immediate satisfaction and when this happens we experience pleasure, when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.
On the contrary, it operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences.
The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented. This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in nature. The ego is 'that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.' (Freud [1923], 1961, p. 25)
The ego develops in order to mediate between the unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision making component of personality. Ideally the ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and totally unreasonable.
The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave.
Like the id, the ego seeks pleasure (i.e. tension reduction) and avoids pain, but unlike the id the ego is concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure. The ego has no concept of right or wrong; something is good simply if it achieves its end of satisfying without causing harm to itself or to the id.
Often the ego is weak relative to the headstrong id and the best the ego can do is stay on, pointing the id in the right direction and claiming some credit at the end as if the action were its own.
Freud made the analogy of the id being a horse while the ego is the rider. The ego is 'like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse.'If the ego fails in its attempt to use the reality principle, and anxiety is experienced, unconscious defence mechanisms are employed, to help ward off unpleasant feelings (i.e. anxiety) or make good things feel better for the individual.
The ego engages in secondary process thinking, which is rational, realistic, and orientated towards problem solving. If a plan of action does not work, then it is thought through again until a solution is found. This is know as reality testing, and enables the person to control their impulses and demonstrate self-control, via mastery of the ego.
The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 – 5 during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.
The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.
Behavior which falls short of the ideal self may be punished by the superego through guilt. The super-ego can also reward us through the ideal self when we behave ‘properly’ by making us feel proud.
If a person’s ideal self is too high a standard, then whatever the person does will represent failure. The ideal self and conscience are largely determined in childhood from parental values and how you were brought up. In other words, the Super Ego are the values and experiences learned in childhood that guide the desires of the human.
If the reader struggles to grasp these concepts, a simpler way of explaining them is that the Ego develops in order for the individual to distinguish between matter and spirit. The Id is the unrestrained desire for material things. The Ego is the individual attempt to fit those desires within social boundaries, while the Super Ego is the knowledge of what is acceptable materialism and what is socially unacceptable based on the experience of the individual from childhood. All three, the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego are the attempt to express material values against that which is spiritual.
It is important to understand that a phenomenon as powerful as the Ego can not be destroyed. Jesus does not destroy the Devil, any more than the Devil destroys Jesus. It is necessary then, to understand this enigma so that we had subdue it and prevent ourselves from redefining the definitions of moral goodness. The Ego encourages the individual to view himself according to the value that society assigns him. However, knowledge of self comes when a man masters his Ego and subdues it. His value then, is determined by his ability to understand his Purpose and find his Potential. and ceases to guide the Purpose of your life. Today people virtually have clue as to who they are, they define themselves by their careers, or some other virtueless machination. It is the Ego which defines these false ideas of reality.
Consciousness can therefore be defined as the individual unrepresented by the Ego. Men who are not aware of the meta physical reality of the Ego, its existence, and its role in human development, look instead for Satan, and then call upon a Savior to defeat him. However, if we understand what the Ego is, we often find that men, ignorant of the truth, are actually calling on the Myth of Satan to defeat the Messiah. I know many Christians who, because of their lack of knowledge, worship the Devil but are convinced that they are worshipping Jesus. Matters of theology aside, Intelligence is the bright morning star spoke of in the bible. The secret of theology is that a star has two sides. One that exposes itself to nature, and the other nature never sees.
There are many of us, indeed many who will eventually read, who are convinced that their views of this life are sound, and their god divine. These are the same mode of people without philosophic integrity. They are slaves to the laws of men, and will do all that is necessary not to offend that which holds power over their society. This book is not written for men such as this. We are not resigned to be governed for we believe that man is perfectly capable of governing himself. When colonialism visited the Americas, the invaders could not believe that the Native culture had no ownership over nature's vast resources. Humanity was self governed, whereas the Ego did indeed exist, it was fully understood and therein subdued by the wise ones of this ruined culture.
There are many in this world who are resigned to be governed. The illusion of freedom is all that is required because, in the pursuit of happiness, one must remain distracted in order to gain value from the injustice of the chase. Therefore without the Ego, this baser version of humanity is lost. In every major religion of the world today, it is the Ego which is god. Children are taught to conform and to obey, not the voice of Reason within, but the laws of suppression without, never stopping to consider the fact that injustice is the very language of tyranny. No government will formerly announce to its citizens that it is a despotic regime run my mad barons. Instead they cloak themselves in royal colors and cry freedom! The reality is that all forms of government are merely separate forms of tyranny. The various forms of government are the costumes of dictatorship, they are robes of fascism and communism. Unbridled conservatism will lead to the corporate takeover of all a nation holds dear. Unbridled conservatism is fascism.
On the other hand, the continued expansion of government and its unreserved takeover of private enterprise leads to communism. Democracy is merely the diplomatic banter of Communists and Fascists, creating opportunities to succeed the other. There is no freedom in elected officials, democracy simply offers the citizen the opportunity to be complicit in the forced arraignment of tyranny.
Understanding therefore, the duplicitous relationship between the Self and the Ego, we must understand then, that civilization takes the individual away from himself. If indeed it is the Ego which conceived civilization then it is the Ego that is directly, and even more boldly, solely responsible for the alienation of the body of man, the temple of god from loving itself. Intellect then despises Nature and Nature in turn takes vengeance on our futile attempts to Organize it. Civilization takes humanity away from morality and forces his loyalties to the society. A man who enlists into military service or the police force, is venerated highly above the man who goes into the wilderness to fast and pray. Why is this? One lifestyle properly demonstrates the Ego and the other does not. We find then that in order to build and maintain a civilization, morality too becomes subverted by the Ego.
In this civilization the Barons used the ignorant pursuit of happiness to control him while they instead pursue power. There is no power of one man over another if the Ego is subdued. There is no civilization, there is instead, egalitarianism. The men who claim ownership over our earth's natural resources are firmly in control of the Ego. The highest good of the Ego therefore, is to obey the laws which allow them to remain in power and to follow the social normalcies which orchestrate our conformity.
God is a duplicitous creature. It is the man who uses his consciousness to unite his Soul and his Spirit who has the ability to frustrate his hypocrisy. The purpose of humanity is not to surrender to the lowest frequencies of vibrations in the universe. It is to test the limits of the greatest and set even greater still. The greater the vibration, the stronger the bond between man and himself. We must strive to understand the Ego, and then destroy it once it is understood. God will not destroy Satan, until you have the courage to subdue your Ego.
There is a legitimate argument to be had that young people, especially young men, who act out of what society views as esteemed character, are perfectly rational in their confusion. We cannot expect an increasingly artificial society to be well received by innocents. The ego is the soul's response to materialism. Every modern religion seeks to seduce these children into accepting materialism as a virtue. The reality is that this lie deserves each violent response it receives. The reaction to the response by the establishment is to design further unrealistic expectations when it should be to deconstruct the madness that our collective egos have created. We adults are afraid not to vote but we complain about the candidates. We don't approve of where our taxes are going but we pay them anyway. We pray to God for peace but turn right around and support preemptive warfare. We are disgusted by inflation but continue to trust the banks. This is not an honest life, it is a desperate one. Culture is the attitude, or response, of a society to civilization. If we do not agree with the culture, we must deconstruct what we have accepted as civilization. And if we do not have the courage to do so, we must accept the direction of our society and the violence and perversion that comes with it.
"God will not make himself known to cowards." -Ralph W. Emerson
