There is a direct line that runs through human history, connecting unchecked self-importance to elitism, domination, and the worst of brutalities.
Can it really be that simple? Self-importance is usually called out by friends and curtailed before we become adults, but when it survives, it can wreak havoc.
It’s not just people like Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk, and the utter miserableness of their behaviour. It’s also the billionaires, and the leaders of corporations and private equity funds, who care about nothing except their wealth, power, and shareholder value.
Hurt to the workers, hurt to the communities where they operate, hurt to the Earth, and its animals – these are dismissed as “externalities”, thanks to the ethical vacuum that self-importance creates, justified when needed by a similar vacuum in conventional neoclassical economics. Homo economicus, paragon of the discipline’s equations, was born self-important, caring only about personal gain. He is not a neutral figure, living in a world that tends to equilibrium. He is a villain, selfishly extracting whatever he can while ignoring the realities of power and the costs to humanity and the natural world.
All of us know people whose self-importance creates conflict, generating weariness and disrupting meetings. But how much do we realize that simple selfishness and the self-importance that feeds it are the main factors causing the collapses that are tearing hope out of people’s hearts? In every major crisis, the same moral failure recurs.
The collapse of nature and climate stability is being caused primarily by the selfish determination of unethical investors to maximize their capital gains by destroying forests, habitats, and oceans, and by selling fossil fuels and livestock. Not all investors, but enough to do the damage.
The collapse of housing affordability has been caused primarily by the desire of selfish, unethical real estate developers to eliminate programs to build cooperative and public housing, and by selfish corporate and private landlords to squeeze as much rent as they can out of their tenants.
The collapse of relative economic equality has been caused primarily by people who made it their life’s work to weaken labor unions, reduce taxes for the wealthy, and funnel wealth upwards.
The collapse of social trust has been caused by the selfish determination of platform owners and investors to monetize anger, hatred, and division. The parallel collapse of democratic trust has been caused by self-important politicians who are determined to cling to power, using fearmongering, gerrymandering, and voter suppression to get their way.
“This way we cool his heart, and make him gentle.”
Our Indigenous ancestors understood the trouble self-important people could cause if they were allowed to get their way. In the 1960s, when the Canadian anthropologist Richard Lee lived among the Ju’hoansi bushmen in the Kalahari, he decided to throw a feast, offering a large black cow as a gift. The bushmen went out of their way to insult it, however, saying it was a useless scrawny carcass without the fat they loved. When the puzzled Richard enquired why, this was an elder’s reply:
“When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a chief or a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle.”
This was not cruelty. It was the Ju’hoansi’s social technology, their deliberate practice to prevent hierarchy from taking root.
The impulse to self-importance is as old as the hills. Think of any species, and there’s a good chance they give power to an alpha-male. It’s not just the chimps and lions; it also happens among mice and mole-rats.
If someone has a chip on their shoulder, or a grievance about a real or imagined hurt, feeling that you are better than others scratches that itch. If you are able to seize power and carry your self-importance into palaces and manor houses, proclaiming that you are better than others, that you are now their ruler, you can shape the whole history of a country, elevating friends and cronies to elite status while suppressing peasants, workers, and anyone who challenges your power.
In North and Meso-America, in the centuries before white settlement, villages often grew into towns and cities, and sooner or later, as Luke Kemp relates in Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, an élite would seize power. Riding high on self-importance, they would claim privileges, assign themselves divine attributes, and demand taxes and sacrifices. Without exception, the people eventually rebelled and went back to the land. Drought or climate change may have played a role, but at the end of the day, the people said “Enough” and packed their bags. From Europe to China, by contrast, the peasants were unable to reject their elites. Cooperative resistance was suppressed but never defeated, for resistance to domination is a persistent aspect of our human nature. It was not until the French Revolution and the years that followed that ordinary people found success in pushing back against their elites and claiming democratic power.
The need to believe that you are better than others
The need to believe that you are better than others can become deeply ingrained. In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson reveals how people in India, Germany, and America embraced a caste system in which one group of people is or was permanently on the bottom – the Untouchables (Dalits) in India, the Jews in Germany, Black communities in America. This enabled many to view themselves as inherently superior, entitled to rape, abuse and kill in the most brutal of ways. Whatever mess you have made of your life, you are better than them. People who may be perfectly kind among their friends may treat people in the lower castes abominably, and be rewarded by their peers for doing so.
The feeling of self-importance can be chemically addictive. It brings a dopamine high, corrupting the senses and weakening concerns about reputation. Many studies have shown that empathy diminishes with wealth and power. Wealthy, self-important people are more likely to cheat on taxes, accept bribes, and advocate harsh penalties for those who break the law.
In the Nordic countries, by contrast, especially Denmark and Norway, the Law of Jante shapes everyday life. It’s a modern holdover from our Indigenous ancestors: don’t boast, don’t flaunt success, don’t place yourself above others. Don’t get too big for your boots. Status is earned quietly, and self-promotion is met with raised eyebrows rather than applause. This has an egalitarian effect, narrowing pay gaps, restraining executive compensation, and positioning political leaders as ordinary citizens rather than exalted figures. The Nordic nations are not free of hierarchy or abuse, but they have cultural antibodies against glorified self-importance.
In Britain, America, and Australia, by contrast, wealth is displayed and ambition loudly advertised. Most people still dislike self-importance, but the culture as a whole promotes it.
This offers us a really important lesson. A hierarchical society tempts some people to claim superiority by dominating and bullying. A cooperative society makes far more people feel appreciated. It strengthens our agency and enables us to develop healthy self-respect. A kinder, more cooperative society is an essential defense against the abuses and corruptions of power.
The moral of this story? It is necessary to build a world based on kindness, as well as building the institutions of a cooperative economy; we must suppress self-importance in every form, including bullying, racism, sexism, elitism, domination, monopolies, and our feeling of superiority over nature.
A society that rewards self-importance will always slide toward cruelty. A society that cultivates self-respect and humility, on the other hand, will be able to build an economy based on kindness.
