Why do modern people become more and more self-centered?

Paul Roberts, a famous American journalist, wrote in the book Impulsive Society: Why are we becoming more and more short-sighted and the world becoming more and more extreme? ",combined with the research of sociology and psychology, talked about many problems in the current society, one of the most obvious is, why people are more and more self-centered, their views are more and more extreme, and their behavior is more and more irrational?

Why is everyone like this?

The author said that a long time ago, psychologist Freud put forward the "principle of reality". According to this theory, people must reluctantly sacrifice their subconscious satisfaction and learn how to delay satisfaction. If you don't compromise with reality and stubbornly adhere to the hedonistic principle of "I want what I want now" in infancy, then this person will stay in his childhood with imperfect thinking function both mentally and emotionally. It can neither realize self-worth nor communicate with society better. Realistic principles are like the laws in society, the orders of the boss, and the bondage of parents. It makes it impossible for us to deal with and treat some problems completely according to our self-awareness.

But now, the principle of reality is becoming more and more useless.

For an obvious reason, people increasingly believe that "people are divided into groups". It is not difficult to find that as far as the residential location of a city is concerned, there is a trend of gathering in groups. Especially in big cities, the word school district room is familiar to people, and it is a large-scale group gathering. People who can enter this community or circle can be said to be very close in family environment, academic background and even ideas. By the same token, compared with some high-grade residential areas, the entry threshold is only to easily isolate those who are far away from themselves, while some low-grade dilapidated old buildings are almost all migrant workers living in poverty.

It is by moving to different communities and cities that people form an imbalance in social development. Just as some cities are getting more and more developed and the rich are getting richer, some places are still conservative and backward.

In the book, the author quotes an economist who studies immigration: "Because we can easily choose our neighbors, we lose the society of contacting people with different backgrounds, so we can't contact people with completely different views."

Everyone likes to be with people who like themselves, and with people with similar views, whether online or in reality.

Carl Santander, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, once said, "As our lives and experiences become more and more adapted to our preferences, people increasingly believe that we have the right to avoid opinions we don't want to hear, stay away from people we hate, and avoid all kinds of unexpected encounters."

In short, under the influence of inconvenient transportation and environment, people in the past can only force themselves to adapt to reality, but compared with people now, many people can choose their own realistic environment and become reality to adapt to the crowd, otherwise others will flee.

Moreover, according to group psychology, if members of a group have extremely similar values, then they will enlarge these values, and their views will gradually become extreme, and the acceptance rate of different views is very low or even completely intolerable.

Santander's research believes that many times people are not very confident in their own opinions, so they will habitually ask others' opinions. Therefore, in a pluralistic community with obvious differences between people, people generally hold a neutral view. However, if people in a community are highly similar, we will become more and more confident, deepen the correctness of this view and feel good about ourselves.

Not only that, this kind of community will also affect people's self-awareness ability. Once people lose their willingness to tolerate different opinions, they lose their ability to gain true self-knowledge.

"When we refuse to accept people with different views from ours, we not only reject these specific people, but also reject the abstract concepts of others; We refuse to admit that there is a wider world outside our self, which is not controlled by us and does not depend on our self. Only when we realize that there is something broader than ourselves can we truly understand who we are and who we are not. " Michael lynch, a philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut, once said.

Over-self and over-confidence lead to more and more people unable to correctly understand their abilities, which is manifested as narcissism in the psychological sense. The book "The Age of Narcissism" wrote: "The growth rate of narcissism of ordinary people is as amazing as obesity."

Why do people become narcissistic?

The first is the influence of family environment. When cultivating children, modern people all emphasize the need to build children's self-esteem, and the mainstream of society also encourages people to think that they are special and different. This situation is not necessarily a good thing. Many children have a strong sense of self from childhood and think that they are in an extremely important position in the social environment.

The second is economic reasons. The essence of narcissism is to reject external restrictions, which in the past only very rich and powerful people could do. The principle of realism can make people quickly realize the limitations of the real world. However, the development of modern economy, the upsurge of consumer culture and the popularity of credit have changed this. On the one hand, it enables people to escape from the restriction of money temporarily, on the other hand, excessive consumption can also strengthen people's self-identity. So Jane Twenger said, "The financial revolution and narcissistic culture are mutually reinforcing."

The third reason is technology. Social networks such as Weibo, friends circle and Twitter are encouraging people to take photos to show their personal charm. If someone disagrees with your topic and photos, you can also choose to blacken or block them.

Therefore, the progress of society, economy and culture all emphasize that individuals and self are the standards to measure everything. Any behavior that can enlarge the ego and attract more people to pay attention to it, no matter how stupid or impulsive, is a sign of personal success.

The above views are for reference only!

(Some pictures are from the Internet)