Why We're So Self-Obsessed

it's lovely to have you on the show thanks for coming on and talk about your new book just feel that the media has told my story the past two decades and they have no idea what I've really been through in life be useful because this is what my father always said Arnold and then I just started writing my first memory to my last and it became this kind of 60-page poem and I showed it to him and he goes okay well my autobiography Me by El John that's me I'm gearing up to celebrate the publication of my first book well you've written this very Memoir which which I've read and it's it's fascinating it's it's a very it's a very good be by itself one of the best autobiographies ever written happens to be one of the first one of the darkest and one of the most creative the title of Thomas D Quincy's 1821 classic says it all confessions of an English eer yes it's about addiction but he uses the subject yet to explore something much more groundbreaking for the time the inner self the inner Universe we now live in an age of self Obsession I just told you who I thought I was a Gody I am the josen one somebody had to do it Oscar winner George Clooney sexiest man alive 1997 hi I'm Kim Kardashian West and I'm going to give you a little tutorial on how to take the perfect selfie if you don't have a mirror in the era of everybody's autobiography as the writer gerud Stein said we all have our story in the future everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes everybody celebrities and politicians sell Memoirs and take part in tell all interviews we're surrounded by reality TV personal Vlogs and podcasts about personal growth we live in a culture of self-development the age of me D Quincy's Story begins with his pains and afflictions toothache poverty hunger sufferings that quote threaten to besiege the Citadel of life and hope in his own words crucially he says that usually guilt and misery shrink by a natural instinct from public notice they caught privacy and Solitude I am the Quincy I dream and I create dreams out of the Opium pipe his book is a confession because he says that usually people omit the ugly parts of their character and emphasize their successes he wanted to challenge that D Quincy describes the relief of taking for the first time what an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner Spirit what an apocalypse of the world within me he describes an abys of divine enjoyment and a pania for all human woes here was the secret of Happiness about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages at once discovered happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waste coat pocket portable ecstasies might be cked up in a pint bottle and peace of mind could be sent down in gall by the mail coach he uses the experience of his addiction to explore psychologically and innovatively the abys within what he called The Apocalypse of the world within me this gazing into the abyss within is a mode of self-exploration that's still unfolding culturally I'm a papa compare the popular TV shows of the last year with those of just 20 years ago from The Last of Us to the bear to succession these new shows are not what they're obenson or business but are about something much more Universal Character much of their Genius Like Oppenheimer for example relies on the shallow depth of field closeups and on the intense emotions displayed on the torn characters faces so where did this inward gaze come from before de Quincy's time we have to remember that knowledge traditionally speaking was not about what's in here endogenous but what's out there exogenous everything from moral rules coming from God to science coming from studying the world to Art coming from classical models and forms was about studying and learning from the external world there's an incredible book on the ancient Greeks of Homer's time that influentially makes the case that the people of that period saw their emotions passions angers and desires not as coming from within but as being placed upon them in the Moment by the gods agamon says that Zeus but wild eight eight being the goddess of mischief and delusion in him and made him act in a way contrary to how he usually would he says the plan of Zeus was fulfilled other characters talk as if Gods had taken away changed or destroyed a normal way of thinking and replaced it with something extraordinary in other words character came not from within but from without out remember the Ancients had no real concept of personality of biochemistry they genuinely believed in their gods think about how powerful our imaginations are why wouldn't you believe that an intense of an experience as say anger and a loss of self-control that comes with it wasn't something planted there by something as extraordinary as a god to take one more example in the Christian framework the self is always in reference to God St Augustine may have written the first autobiography the confessions in the 4th Century but his aim was to conform his behavior to the external rules of Christian teaching and God's greater will not to discover some true self within the medieval period was defined by roles you were born into Craftsman butcher peasant Lord the rules were laid down you didn't question them you inherited them but in D Quincy's time all of this was beginning to [Music] change D Quincy was obsessed with two poets William woodsworth and Samuel CID he idolized them wrote letters to them befriended them and traveled here to the English Lake District where they lived he idolized them because like other writers of the period people like Gerta and philosophers like Jean jaac rouso they were all working out a new idea of the self Wordsworth before D Quincy also wrote one of the first modern autobiographies a very long poem called the Prelude about quote the growth of a poet's mind all about his childhood experiences he admitted that it is a thing unprecedented in literary history that a man should talk so much about himself Wordsworth believed that the inner life the structure the patterns the emotions and beliefs of the person takes the data that we get from the senses the information and patterns it shapes it raises it up even changes it so that each person sees a lake for example in a different way depending on their beliefs and ideas this was radically new it all started with Jean jaac rouso who not long before in the 18th century made a profound realization if as he came to argue and believe it was the world political systems and social norms around him those exogenous features that were oppressing Ordinary People keeping them in Chains where was truth to be found it could only he decided be found within the self rouso in his autobiography also one of the firsts maybe the first also called confession said that I'm Different to anyone that I know maybe different to anyone in the whole world world I'm no better but at least I am different and he said because of that he wanted to make his soul transparent to the reader he said I'm about to embark on a project that has no model and afterwards could have no imitator check that view out the historian wjt Mitchell even described Russo as the first modern man the great originator he said gerter the German poet inspired by rouso said that he turned into himself and found a world rouso said his project was one that had no model and would have no imitator it was an act of pure singular individual irrepressible creativity from somewhere within the so-called Spirit of the age had a profound effect on the writers of the period woodsworth wrote so much about this place because it was where he was from and he thought that if you attended carefully to the local to the individual to the particular you could make the ordinary extraordinary you could find some Universal lesson or you could even feel something Transcendent or when he remembers stealing a boat at night when he was a child and became terrified in the middle of the lake at the dark imposing shapes of the mountains around him towering over him haunting him and he said it moved slowly through my mind by day and were the trouble of my dreams the Quincy admired words worth so much that he moved into his Cottage Dove Cottage just over there after him and at the beginning of his autobiography with his tongue firmly in his cheek wrote that there are no precedents for this kind of writing that I am aware but of course he was right because he was writing about himself but this is what makes D Quincy's confession so Innovative he focuses on what is usually Swept Away in our own self-rising narratives about ourselves he says nothing indeed is more revolting to English feelings than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars and tearing away that decent drapery he took wordsworth's exploration of emotion feeling the self and the natural world and applied it instead to his own warped experiences with and not the natural world but urban life he describes how furnished tremendous scenery in the dreams of the eer he writes poetically about the end L self multiplication of the self going up and down symbolic staircases and talks about the wondrous depth [Applause] within he uses metaphors like translucent Waters and Shining mirrors and oceans and Waters wrathful and surging to describe his own inner life my agitation was infinite he said my mind tossed and surged with the ocean of course this new inner self didn't just appear from nowhere it mirrored the scientific developments of the period when astronomers like Galileo made observations about the universe that contradicted the taught wisdom of Theology and the Bible all of these poets and philosophers were saying well what about the universe within words worth spots of time quin's inspections of the darker side of his own psyche Byron's Voyages of self-discovery of escape from the imposing Norms of traditional Society Traditional Values they all provide the foundations of modern psychology our modern idea of the self and they provide the primary injunction of the modern world that you can create yourself as something new the autobiographical self is the model that helps us Traverse the world outside and in the psychologist Kei Wang has written that the autobiographical self is self- knowledge that builds upon our memories and orients US towards the future allowing our existence to transcend the Here and Now moment and it's really easy to underestimate it but it had an incalculable effect on the culture and politics and psychologies of the modern period these writers were a sensation across Europe and anyone who argued for individual rights freedoms Liberties the power of ordinary people and democracy Drew on them in some way on the other hand the intense focus on the eye produced the narcissism and the obsessions with the self we see everywhere today we know no longer look outward as much but spend a lot of time Naval gazing within I think the big challenge of this century is going to be whether world within can be reconciled with the world without thank you to all of these incredible Patron supporters these videos take a long time to research write and make I do a lot of reading they're always sourced and there's a bibliography in the description below I've written something short on why I think this kind of well researched long form content is worth supporting it's through the link below too if you agree then you can support then or I by pledging anything from a single dollar per month and get your name in credits access to scripts early and become a member of the Discord server if you can't do that I know everyone says this but please do subscribe hit the Bell like leave a comment these things help with the algorithm so so much I'm also trying out a newsletter I'm going to distill and Summarize each video into a quick easily digestible email for those who don't have time or want to recap along with some related 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Channel: Then & Now

Views: 56,694

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Id: Eh4J_t8p60w

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 24 2024