Thinking and Ego
(An excerpt from Beyond Mental Slavery)
Anyone with even a bit of life experience sees that ego often
gets in the way of clear thinking - at least we see it in others.
But how often do we really look for this ego-effect in our own
ideas and arguments? "Not very often," is the honest
answer for most of us.
On the other side of this matter, how often do we resist a
necessary change in understanding because it causes a diminishment
of the ego? Probably more often than that ego wants us to admit
to. Of course, we don't really have any clue if we're not practicing
self-observation and awareness.
Imagine you are a famous astrophysicist and mathematician,
and you find evidence that one of your major theories is wrong.
Furthermore, what if for thirty years no one has been able to
prove your theory wrong, but you have just discovered a flaw
in it? What do you do? In this situation, many people would never
publish the new evidence nor mention it at all. Of course if
you're a good scientist, you change your mind and announce your
findings to your peers.
This scenario is based on a true story, by the way. This is
exactly what Stephen Hawking did. He proved that his own theory
about black holes was wrong, even though no other astrophysicists
had been able to do so for thirty years. Without getting into
the scientific details, which I couldn't do justice to in any
case, I'll just summarize by saying that he had a theory that
black holes destroy the information about the objects they swallow,
and he later showed why his own theory was wrong.
Such reversals of belief or opinion are probably more common
among scientists, but in or out of the scientific world we may
wonder how many people would admit such an error. In fact, given
the insidiousness of how ego influences us, how many people could
bring themselves to suspect their error in the first place? And
if they did suspect an error, how many would then specifically
work to find a way to prove themselves wrong? What Hawking did
truly demonstrates intellectual integrity.
What if you can't see an error in your thinking? What if your
ego prevents you from acknowledging - even to yourself - a mistake
you should suspect? Such blindness could be very limiting to
both the range and depth of your future thinking, and this is
just one of the ways in which your ego can affect your thoughts.
The Great Toilet Paper Debate
At ten-years-old, I couldn't imagine having an opinion about
toilet paper brands. But I was in fifth grade, and we were separated
into groups and assigned a brand of toilet paper as part of a
lesson plan. Our task was to compare "our brand" with
others, based on softness, price, convenience and overall value.
Then we would have to present our findings to the rest of the
class.
Perhaps this assignment was supposed to teach us to analyze
and compare and come to reasoned conclusions. However, since
it was somewhat competitive, with each team defending a different
brand, it unfortunately taught us to just rationalize why our
brand was best. Soon, we not only had opinions about toilet paper
but also felt the need to defend them.
The good news is that I have no strong opinions about toilet
paper now, other than the view that it is a necessary and good
product in general. Nonetheless, after more than thirty years
I can still remember feeling that...
Continued in Chapter Four, Ego Masquerading As Self, of
Beyond Mental
Slavery. This chapter looks at many of the ways our egos
limit our thinking and even prevent us from seeing what is obviously
true. It ends with some suggestions on how to get past our habit
of mistaking one's ego for one's self, and how to avoid the more
subtle influences of the ego.
Click
here to get your copy of Beyond Mental Slavery |
