Add new comment

"The arrogant narcissist, whether a winner gloating in their fortune, or the loser depressed by their failure and wallowing in feelings of low self-esteem, both resemble a kind of ascetic"

To me asceticism is a rejection of the benefit of civilization (I call this profit, from Perlmans Against His-Story Against Leviathan) I don't see how being a winner with a fortune can be ascetic. And I don't think losers can be ascetic since they still desire to be winners.

"Resembling a fundamentalist religious doctrine of selfish acquisition "

I'm very confused at your connection of Randyianism to asceticism since it seems extremely focused on the "material" world where to me asceticism is a rejection of this materialism.

Your theory is uniquely phrased but honestly it seems little more then the average ego-com rejection of individualism, where you critique the selflessness of certain ideologies but still hold some things above yourself, such as the collective, or society, or communism.

I reject both selflessness and selfishness for a couple reasons. Firstly again I do not believe in the self. Secondly I think asceticism is simultaneously a rejection of selfishness in the form of materiality but an affirmation of the wholistic self (a self outside of our self) in a selfish sense. To rephrase, asceticism to me is a rejection of civilized selfishness in the form of rejecting profit, which can also be an affirmation of natural drives, or immateriality (some people call this spirituality, I do not). Personally I focus more on the rejection then on affirmation since I believe affirmation without complet rejection often leads to recreation of that which you attempt to reject.

For example the ascetic may reject the written word of civilization (material), and in doing so affirm the spoken word (immaterial). Or reject the agriculture of civilization (possessive -> material) and in doing so affirm foraging (non-possesive -> immaterial).