This is a philosophical post about a worldview, mainly about ego. It leads to thoughts about the society of spectacle.

I don't state that it is my worldview, for my worldview changes quite often based on mood, recent events, and the random of life. But it is a worldview that, I think, is good to have. Its basis is the existence of physical reality, which is self-consistent, and definitionally follows laws. This definition is based on observation -- the nonevident axiom here is one that has been discussed for ages, the principle that there actually is something that leads to said observation and justifies the idea we derive from it.

Once physical reality is asserted, it would be easy to get lost in the mazes of consciousness, what it physically means, etc. We don't, for we don't have the tools required to answer. We instead focus on oneself, and postulate the existence of innate ego: the definition of oneself. Innate ego is not altered by reality: events, such as those social in nature, and opinions of others as they at least have physical meaning, do not have consequences on it. Psychologically, this is not true of the definition one gives oneself of oneself. The existence of innate ego is a negatively helpful intuition, in the sense that its lack is harder to justify than its existence, and would lead to less clear reasoning about oneself.

Innate ego, as it is postulated, is most importantly what gives meaning to one. It may also be responsible for part of one's impetus. It is not as obvious as its apparent counterpart, apparent ego, which is the "ego" you interact with. Innate ego distinguishes itself by simply being there. It reveals itself through the existence of one's actions upon one's environment. Apparent ego may be what directs the action or at least tries to; innate ego is what generates the motion in the first place. Apparent ego can be modified by the environment, most notably social interaction. Innate ego cannot, barring major restructurations of one's cognition at a deep level.

Innate ego reveals itself through action, and one's awareness of one's innate ego, as an intuition, leads to more action. Lack of awareness of one's innate ego leads one to believe that there is no possible action to take. Apparent ego may further hinder action taking, as it is the potential source of will to not be associated with certain ideas. For this reason, apparent ego must be fought: action taking is the basis of self-determination, and self-determination is the one wish of innate ego. This is the first ethical postulate: innate ego is the highest form of being. It is what must be respected. Apparent ego is tainted by the pettiness of being a primate-brained individual in a world that we developed too fast for ourselves. It is what dreads the cringey moments; those must be lived and accepted, as they cut into the apparent ego and weaken it. Apparent ego is what cries for respect, what generates the shining pain when it does not get what it wants. To ignore it is an act of self-respect. Apparent ego is a parasite and an accident of history.

Apparent ego is further fed by tales of perfect lives and smoothing modernity. Those tales are not reality, and chasing their realization is pointless at best and potentially dangerous at worst. This is because smoothing the world by changing it to one's taste is going to satisfy only one's apparent ego, and may hurt others. It may hurt others less if the others' tastes are first adapted to the smoothing that is being done, but as is the case for the smoother, their innate ego is not going to be affected. Everyone's will to self-determine is eventually going to conflict with the vision of smoothness whose realization is being attempted. Pursuing on that path would be trying to erase innate ego in favor of apparent ego: it would be altering reality to erase what is needed in favor of what is wanted, and what is wanted is only wanted because of the reality that was there before. That would be erasing oneself in favor of an autonomous movement of that which is not alive (from Guy Debord, The Society of Spectacle).

Now, modernity is still useful for self-determination and the domination of that which hinders life. It is up to us to have the clarity to determine if it is life -- innate ego -- or self-attributed taste -- apparent ego -- that is being respected by each action we undertake. As it happens, the world we currently live in is apparent ego galore, simply because profit has shaped social thought, and social thought shapes individual thought (through apparent ego), and it turns out that profit is easier when some kinds of desire are incentivized, or even created. Those are, most obviously, desire for specific material objects, but incentivizing those is made even easier by shaping the world-desire of individuals. That is: the aspects of the world that they would like to shape, and the direction to shape them in. The profitable world-desire has been more or less clearly theorized, a Weltanschauung (still referring to Debord) has been born of it, and then its most clearly seen aspects could be transmitted through marketing, to shape desires in its form. The society of spectacle is the actual realization of that Weltanschauung after years of application of this strategy: the theory this name comes from is one consistent theory of our current world. Its observations have to be taken into account in reasoning, and its tools may be useful.

The previous paragraph contains a superficial look at the theory of the society of spectacle, and should not be taken as a serious summary of it. Most importantly, it is not conspiracy theory, as it does not designate one specific group of responsible individuals. It designates specific mechanisms through which apparent ego propagates itself, mediated by society.

The conclusion is that our current world is shaped by and for apparent ego, which naturally makes it difficult for innate ego to arise, and for one to become aware of it. This is a reminder to keep looking for it and acting on it. It is also up to us to recognize the feedback loops that created this situation, and that must be overturned to reach a world respectful of life.

Also, the act of reminding others of this participates in a positive feedback loop in favor of life. This may be what Debord meant by harming the society of spectacle. It is what must be sought: let's go and do it some harm. Do not get lost on the way. Do not let your apparent ego seize the meaning of this.