OF IDIOTS AND EGOISTS

1. Returning from the physiological and psychical extremes of the self to the primary distinction between the id and the ego, it comes as no surprise for me to discover that the struggle here is effectively one between idiocy and egoism for control of the self in its relationship to the not-self and to selflessness.

2. Now just as the ego, or conscious mind, is responsible for the rational manipulation of verbal conceptions, or thoughts, so the id, or unconscious mind, is responsible for the irrational, or impulsive, manipulation of non-verbal perceptions, or images.

3. Thus, broadly speaking, it transpires that while the ego is paramount during the day or, at any rate, the period of one's being awake, the id becomes paramount, over and above instinctual activity, during the time, more usually at night, when one is asleep, since the id is just as disposed, in its physiological activity, to manipulating mental perceptions as the ego ... to manipulating mental conceptions.

4. But just as there are different ways of manipulating verbal conceptions ... from reading to thinking (noumenal) via speaking and writing (phenomenal), so there are different ways of manipulating non-verbal perceptions ... from hallucinating to dreaming (noumenal) via fantasizing and daydreaming (phenomenal).

5. Certainly, it is not invariably the case that the id only comes to light, so to speak, at night, during sleep; for dreaming is only one mode of unconscious activity, if generally the most prevalent and persistent mode.

6. Nor, conversely, can it be said that the ego only functions during the day, when one is awake; for there are actually times when it manages or contrives to subvert the dream process in the interests of verbal conceptions.

7. Nevertheless, the distinction between dreams and thoughts or, rather, between the manipulation of non-verbal perceptions by the id and the manipulation of verbal conceptions by the ego, the former largely unconscious and the latter usually conscious, is a very definite and, in most cases, clear-cut one, with corresponding distinctions between idiocy on the one hand, and egoism on the other.

8. I happen to believe that egoists are an altogether superior breed to idiots, although the age is not altogether on my side in this respect, particularly in view of the extents to which artificial modes of idiocy, or id-based activity, including photography, cinema, video, and television, have generally prevailed in life, often to the detriment, if not effective exclusion, of egoism.

9. For there is arguably a parallel, it seems to me, between visionary hallucination and photography, dreams and cinema films, fantasies and videos, and, last but not altogether least, between daydreaming and television, and the artificial has tended, when it hasn't altogether eclipsed the natural ... to at any rate reinforce it, making for an age in which id-oriented idiots have been free to explore a variety of impulsive activities, with due mechanistic disregard for the soul.

10. Thus whether the bias of the id has been metachemical and vision- and/or photography-orientated; chemical and fantasy and/or video-orientated; physical and daydream- and/or television-orientated; or metaphysical and dream- and/or film-orientated, the idiots have been granted, by a plethora of modern technologies, virtually a free hand to do their damnedest in delineating and exaggerating the significance of instinct and impulsive action in the conduct of life.

11. The results, none too surprisingly, have been the systematic selfishness and 'up-tightness', together with a correlative lack of self-cultivation, which modern life presents to the disinterested spectator or philosophical outsider as a lesson in how not to behave if you want to reach any sort of gratificatory accommodation with the soul, whether in life or, more importantly perhaps, in death.

12. Yet, despite populist culture and the general drift of heathenistic modernity, aided and abetted by those twin pillars of objective freedom, 'Britannia' and 'the Liberty Belle', it hasn't all been just 'one way'. The egoist may have been a second-class citizen in those countries especially besotted with idiocy and in the grip of various kinds of image-obsessed idiot, but latterly his predilection for reading or thinking (noumenal) and/or speaking or writing (phenomenal) has ceased to lag naturalistically behind, in book-like vein, the trendy id-mongers of technological advancement, but acquired greater artificial definition, not least of all with respect to the growth of personal and/or universal (Internet-oriented) computing, which surely signifies a writerly if not, in relation to CD-ROMs, a readerly mode of egoism which would suggest that egoism no longer languishes in the painful shadows of idiocy, like a Christian under fire from communist Godlessness, but is now leading society towards a better future, in which the soul will once again become the be-all-and-end-all of earthly or, at any rate, post-worldly if not otherworldly striving.

13. Yes, it seems to me that as the id acquired artificial definition in a variety of image-dominated contexts, so the ego has now acquired something comparable which, whether with regard to computers and/or calculators or to telephones (including mobiles) and/or telephone answering-machines or to midis and/or CD-Players or even to radio and/or radio-cassette recorders, should keep it in the vanguard of contemporary civilization for some time to come.

14. Thus whether the egocentric medium be naturalistic or artificial, traditional or modern, it too has been transmuted in all elemental contexts, from metachemistry and chemistry on the female side of life to physics and metaphysics on its male side, and I fancy that whereas reading and CD-ROMing, or the intellectual utilization of CD-ROMs, constitute metachemical alternatives, speaking and voice-recording, writing and typing, and thinking and computing are their chemical, physical, and metaphysical counterparts within the natural and artificial alternatives of egoism.