How Narcissists Reassure Their Conscience

Feeling comfortable in our own skins is our most immediate, visceral, and pressing priority. Our discomfort is an early warning system crying out that there’s something is amiss. But it’s not like an external alarm system we can unplug by choice. Our internal alarm is inescapable discomfort surging through our bodies.

Given this, how do people really feel about self-awareness? In principle, we approve of it. It gives us comfort in our own skin to say that everyone should be self-aware and that since we should be, we are.

In practice, self-awareness is no walk in the park. It's not as stressful as waiting for the results of a cancer biopsy, but there are parallels: What if you discover that you have a fatal character flaw? What if you stumble on evidence that you don’t really walk your talk, that you’re not as good as you think you are? If you’re a smoker you might feel shame for a cancer diagnosis, but you can also attribute it to chance. Discovering a fatal flaw in your character is on you, so you’re more likely to feel shame.

People tend to get flustered and defensive when criticized by others. How then would we expect people to feel about self-criticism? Confronting your flaws is so in-your-face. It’s not like you can just storm off. Everywhere you go, there you are.

In short, the examined life is risky. We praise self-awareness without recognizing the high risks and costs that make us want to avoid it. No one finds self-disappointment a pleasant experience, no matter how much they applaud self-awareness in principle.

In practice then, what do we do about the self-examined life? We tend to self-examine gingerly and selectively, cherry-picking our self-awareness, harvesting self-affirmations, and deflecting self-disaffirmations. We try to avoid the risk of second-guessing ourselves. We’d prefer to “second-yes” ourselves: “Am I great? Yes! I checked with myself three times and each time my answer came back in the resounding affirmative! That proves it!”

Narcissists are second-yessers. They’re named after a mythical guy who couldn’t stop gazing at himself approvingly. Narcissists avoid all self-awareness. Same with the gaslighters, know-it-alls, dark-triad personalities, and folks who talk down from their high horse when they can get away with it.

Psychopaths may lack conscience, but I doubt that’s what’s going on with narcissists and their ilk. Rather I think their consciences are permanently coddled, reassured, and affirmed. They’ve put their consciences in a permanent painkilling coma. No risk of self-doubt, second-guessing, or self-consciousness.

How does one do that? Many ways, but the easiest are by outsourcing self-monitoring to some outside authority. After all, that’s how we handled our consciences as kids— adult approval as the source of a child’s peace of mind.

Once we’re adults we get to pick our outside authority. There are plenty to choose from—religious, spiritual and political leaders, for a few.

The most convenient are like strict-talking loyalty-demanding, neglectful you-approving parents. They preach the hard line but don’t track whether we tow it. They just assume we do and forgive us all trespasses except disloyalty to them.

Loyalty to them serves us. We don’t need to monitor ourselves. No need for self-awareness. The leader is all the monitoring we need. So long as we stay on their good side, we’re good. It’s a bit like saying “My conscience is satisfied. My dog loves me!”

It’s almost ideal, but one can do better. Find an abstract higher authority. They too are easy to find. Gods are great for that. So long as you stay loyal to them, you don’t need a conscience. They’re very judgmental but they approve of whatever you do except disloyalty to them. It’s a bit like saying “My conscience is satisfied. My imaginary dog loves me."

One can do better than that, too. Treat positively loaded weasel words as your higher-authority source of approval. Brand yourself to patriotism, mindfulness, some religious faith or political faith like MAGA and your conscience need never nag you again. Its primary role is to assure you that your conscience need not be stirred. After all, you’re branded to the virtue brand. You’re a patriot. You can even brand yourself to self-awareness, another positive, loaded weasel word, perfect for keeping self-awareness at bay.

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And one can do even better, by simply splitting yourself into two parts: Your imaginary ideal self, your inner god, who approves of his loyal defender, your inner soldier. Anyone who threatens to awaken your conscience is attacking your almighty gut and has earned the wrath of your inner self-loyal soldier.

Whether you choose as your approving outside authority, a God, a demagogue, loaded words, or your own almighty gut, you don’t need to eliminate conscience because it’s constantly soothed; no discomfort in your own skin.

We talk about man’s search for meaning. I suspect that’s less the case than we assume. Rather, it's our search for easy, ritual, marching orders to pacify our consciences.

People talk about how, by submitting to a higher authority, they shed their egos. Why, then, do they often act like narcissists? Because, the ego they anesthetize is the Freudian ego, the self-aware ego that navigates the tension between their impulsive id and their super ego. By outsourcing to conveniently strict-talking yet tolerant external authorities, they grant full freedom to their ids.

Such “selfless devotion” to a higher power is not egomania. Egomania in the Freudian sense would be an overactive conscience. Rather, it’s “id-omania” an overactive id, liberated by the approving gaze of some pandering, inattentive authority who loves and approves of us unconditionally.

An alert conscience is a heavy burden for us to carry. Outsourcing, we can claim we made some grand sacrifice to become a disciplined soldier to this higher authority. I’m suggesting that while there’s sacrifice in serving a higher authority, it’s more than worth it for the relief it affords us from self-awareness and the risk of discomfort in our own skins.

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