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Superego: Fuck you.

My philosophy has a villain: the Superego. Well, Christians too, since they contribute to the life-force of the Superego with their revolting indoctrination of children. Whatever feeds the Superego is its minion and is tarred by the same brush.  

When you feel shame – rare as that might be for such as we – probe as best you can for a memory of when you first came to believe in the wrongness of whatever you did that feels shameful to you. If you can’t remember, or if you can and the memory is from childhood, then your shame derives from the Superego, and as far as I’m concerned, it has no legitimacy. You must decide if, as an adult, you still choose to carry such a belief in your psyche. If you don’t, then purge yourself of its poison. Cathartic ritual can help with that.

I don’t advocate moral nihilism. I advocate a conscience that is conscious. The Superego operates at the subconscious level, where the intellect has no voice, and your conscious will has no power. I advocate raising morality up out of the subconscious, up into the light of day, where your intellect can place it under a microscope, and your conscious will can grab the reins.

“Blessed are they who are laws unto themselves, for they shall be called Lords of Order.”

My own consciously constructed conscience has five precepts:

1. Be a blessing unto those who help you and a curse unto those who would hinder or harm you.

2. Do not fake friendship.

3. Do not feed your friends to the wolves.

4. Do not break your word unless the matter is too trivial to fret over or too dire for scruples to reign.

5. Do not be a fucking psychopath.

None of these contradict my childhood indoctrination, and that’s perfectly fine as far as I’m concerned. Not everything children are taught is despicable. Some of it can stand up to scrutiny. The whole point is to claim the right to perform that scrutiny, then perform it, and reject what you have no further use for, while retaining what still seems good to you. I rejected a ton of bullshit.

By the way, if you want to save yourself a lot of wasted time, don’t read academic moral philosophers. They’ll spin you around in circles until nausea causes you to heave. All you need to do is formulate a moral proposition and then ask yourself, “Keep it or trash it?” Make trashing it your default position. Only keep it if it strikes you as a thing of beauty, or as a bulwark against ugliness - conscious morality is a form of aesthetics - and if it's untainted by stupidity. You don’t need to read a thousand pages of verbal diarrhea to justify your choice. Be a law unto yourself. I dub thee a Lord of Order.   

Demon of Shame: HAIL! Grant me the power of self-awareness.

This saying is a good one: Think for yourself. ISCHYROS DIAVOLOS!