Some Uses of the Ego

From the perspective of one who would perform such tasks as bodily hygiene, dressing well and making lots of beautiful money the well-functioning ego is an obvious necessity. The problem (as I see it) is that western civilization tends to reduce the human down to these ego-qualities alone, as if an ideal person were a neuro-hacker with a great skin care routine and a large apartment; while little realizing how limited and boring—not to mention how disturbed—this person may be (literature and cinema have no shortage of such disturbed and successful persons living on ego alone: see for instance Christian Bale in American Psycho, 2000). This kind of ego finds the barbaric impulses only in fantasy; and of course projects them on the subway, into the carceral state and, currently, in Gaza city.

Christian Bale’s Apartment, American Psycho, 2000