The id, ego, superego and self-selected (manipulated) feedback mechanisms

In his January 2nd newsletter (2022), Rob Henderson connects two dots in a very interesting way.  

I have long been highly skeptical of Freud's work (probably from ignorance or reading the wrong materials about his approach) but Henderson puts it in fashion with which I can agree.

According to Freud, there are 3 distinct processes causing ferocious internal conflict within you.

 

Your actions and thoughts come not from a single entity, says Freud. They come from a set of contradictory personae within you.

 

These three parts are the id, the ego, and the superego.

 

Freud said the id is present at birth. It’s your animal nature. It seeks comfort, warmth, pleasure, and immediate gratification.

 

It works on what Freud called the “Pleasure Principle.”

 

Then there’s the ego. In the original German, it is called the Ich, or the self. The ego operates on the “Reality Principle.”

 

It tries to figure out how to navigate a world in which immediate pleasure is not possible. And tries to help you satisfy or give up your desires based on your circumstances.

 

Finally, the superego. It works on the rules you internalized from your parents and society.

 

Freud said what happens is that as a small child you try to satisfy your desires. But often you’re punished for them. Some desires are inappropriate. Others are wrong. And so you’re reprimanded for them.

 

Over time, a superego arises. An internalized version of parents and society that lives in your head. A conscience that tells when you’re doing something wrong. It inflicts guilt.

Alternatively, there is the animal human, the individual human, and the social human.  That makes much more sense to me as a frame of thinking.  

Henderson then connects this frame of thinking with that proposed by a blogger.

The anonymous blogger known as The Last Psychiatrist was one of the best to do it back in the early 2010s.

 

Initially, the website consisted mostly of discussions of psychiatric research and medications. But its popularity grew when it expanded to social commentary and analyses of pop culture.  

 

One of the most interesting concepts TLP coined was “crowdsourcing the superego.”

 

The idea is that when some people make poor choices and seek to subdue their guilt, they broadcast their harmful actions far and wide.

 

Some will ridicule you for your actions. Others will sympathize.

 

Crowdsourcing the superego means to ignore the haters, heed the sympathizers, and feel absolved of your misdeeds.

 

When you’ve done something you regret, you can crowdsource your superego by paying attention only to responses you want to hear. And tactically overlook people who condemn you for what you’ve done.

 

As TLP puts it:

 

“This is how narcissism eradicates guilt: it rewrites the story, or as the po-mo mofos say, ‘offer a competing narrative’…taking solace in the pockets of support that inevitably arise. Everyone is famous to 15 people, and that's just enough people to help you sleep at night. It is, in effect, crowdsourcing the superego, and when that expression catches on remember where you first heard it.  Then remember why you heard it.  And then don't do it.”

Ignore your obnoxious superego. And listen to these people who say they agree with what you've done, or at least don't condemn you for it.

Now you're okay. The choice you made in the moment, which resulted in pleasure in the short term and guilt in the long term, feels perfectly fine. For now. 

These two frames would explain a lot of the dynamics we see on social media and in ordinary group dynamics.  It also relates to one of the paradoxes posed by Judith Harris.  She posited, and presented good evidence, that the effect of children's peer networks are a greater influence (along with genes) than the direct behavioral influence of parents.

In the early popular formulation, this was represented as "parents don't matter".  In her later writings, she clarified that they do matter but that we need to take into other effects from outside the home.

My speculation has always been that parental behavioral influence (controlling for genes) is even greater than that.  Parents choose the environment in which their children grow, specifically the social networks to which they can avail themselves.  By choosing the churches, the schools, the neighborhoods, etc. in which their children grow, they are indirectly exerting behavioral influence (but not direct control).  

In Henderson's framing, the id, the animal self, the gene driven self is born into a multi-layered environment consisting of family and then multiple social groups, both of which have direct influence.  Family helps form ego and social groups form superego.  

But the individual can exert control on the feedback mechanisms by selecting those groups which are more likely to provide the positive feedback which they crave to justify their id and ego desires.  

An interesting way of thinking about these dynamics.  Especially when looking at Facebook, Twitter, NextDoor or any other social media platform.

Does social media provide the mechanism for more people to justify more anti-social behaviors and ineffective reasoning processes?  I don't know but this two component model would explain why it might.