The "Self Love" Movement and Why It's Toxic

This is an excerpt from the book "How Not to Become a Millennial."  In this segment we delve into a phenomenon I noticed when binging on feminist podcasts - the concept of "self love."  The term does NOT mean loving oneself a la self-respect or self-confidence, but is rather a very different and advanced concept within feminist (and other) circles that focuses on ignoring the wishes of others, putting yourself as the sole and only authoritative source of love, and thus the sole and only source of value and meaning in life.  It was - to put it in simple terms - delusional.  It's a combination of delusion, arrogance, and laziness where people are now simply declaring themselves "worthy," "valuable," or "deserving of love" simply because they are too lazy to put forth the effort, work, and toil to produce something of value that others might want. And so they turn inwards, deciding it is them and only them whose love they need.   

I predict you are going to see a lot more of this in the near future as an increasing percent of the population is going to be too fearful and cowardly of work to be of any use to anybody, and thus they will revert to this circularly delusional mental religion to masturbate their own value in life.  If you have not ran into this yet, you will shortly.  And remember you heard it here first.

"But among the many and important existential questions this fork in the road presented, a critically important one was what would give an individual value in life?  In the real world (as discussed in Chapter 24) what you offer other people is what gives you value in life.  Be it a product you make, a service you render, or perhaps improving yourself so much others wish to spend time with you, value was externally-conferred.  But in the insular world of the Millennial political religion value was self-conferred or internally conferred.  What you believed.  What you thought. Which correct politics you advocated.  It required the approval or participation of no one.  And so when presented with the choice of sacrificing your time and effort to produce something of value to society, or simply self-declaring yourself to have value because “reasons,” people realized one takes an incredible amount of effort and labor and the other does not. And as human laziness springs eternal we all know which path most Millennials (and most people) chose.

This resulted in pushing self-esteem another mile marker down the road into “self-love.”  But not the traditional self-love we’re familiar with (be it the healthy kind where you love yourself in the form of self-respect and self-confidence, or the bad kind where you are narcissistic or arrogant).  This new form of “self-love” is the next evolutionary stage of self-esteem where it creates an entire value structure where 100% of your life value is derived internally, not externally.  You don’t have to do anything for anyone. You don’t have to work or sacrifice or toil to create something of value for others.  You don’t have to invest in yourself to make yourself attractive to other people.  The concept of selflessness and altruism is completely absent from this form of love, if for the simple fact there is no counter-party to be selfless or altruistic towards.  And so this new love is a completely self-contained system.  A truly individual and personal affair, only requiring the individual and no one else.

The epitomal example of this new form of self-love can be found within the fat acceptance movement.  I was binging on a whole host of female-oriented podcasts, one of which was dedicated solely towards fat acceptance.  But of the many theories, sub-theories, concepts, and philosophies within the fat acceptance movement, “self-love” was one of the more interesting ones.  And best as my observations could tell me, self-love within the fat acceptance movement took on a role of asexuality.  That you didn’t need other people to have a full and rewarding love life.  That you unto yourself were enough to love.  Matter of fact seeking approval or love from others was a form of weakness, even oppression.  And therefore you had no obligation to others, only to yourself.

But this concept of self-love isn’t relegated to fat acceptance podcasts.  You can see it elsewhere.  Though anecdotal (and usually clickbait) there is the twice-a-year article about a woman marrying herself, her cat, or her dog.  There was even an article about a woman marrying her degree.  There is no limit to the number of men who live in alternative realities be it via video games, RPG’s, or “waifus.”  And not in a healthy and fun way where people get together and play a session of D&D, but where they love their character and their lives in a world that does not exist more than the one that does.  And there is no limit to the number of young people who place their politics ahead of everything else in life, including other people, deriving value only from their sanctimonious selves.

But whether it’s people in the fat acceptance movement, a woman marrying herself, a NEET playing a 48^th level Paladin, or a self-obsessed “anarcho-communist” telling you about his politics when you didn’t ask, whatever mental acrobatics people execute to confer “self-love” upon themselves, in the end it boils down to one thing and one thing only – laziness.  These people are just too damn lazy to produce anything of value.  It’s not intellectual.  It’s not avant-garde.  It’s not edgy.  It’s just a huge, bogus, intellectual façade to lie to yourself that you have worth without having to produce anything of value because you’re so deathly afraid of work.  And ultimately it’s an admission of weakness as you’d rather stare into a pond like Narcissus instead of put in the work to get a profession, get a life, find love, or make some friends.

The Saddest Thing Ever – When Laziness Trumps Love

In the end self-love cannot have value and for multiple reasons why. 

First, in self-conferring love you essentially make yourself your own printing press of love.  And just like a government printing off money causes hyperinflation and destroys the value of a currency, so too does “printing off” self-love.  I can look in the mirror all day and say “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog gone it, people like me,” that doesn’t make it so.  There needs to be some genuine production, achievement, or accomplishments to give the individual intrinsic value.  Not a mere declaration of value by fiat.

Second the only consumer of this self-love currency can be the individual who manufactures it, because who else is going to want it?  The quickest way to deter somebody from spending time with you is to tell that person how great you are all the time.  And while certainly there is value in self-respect and self-confidence, when all somebody talks about is themselves without some amazing achievements and accomplishments in life to back it up (say like The World’s Most Interesting Man), other people quickly tune out, divest from the individual, and spend no time with that person.  Once again rendering that person insular and irrelevant to the rest of the entire world.

Third, there is an observational effect of value or love as we discussed about the musician’s theoretical composition sitting unseen on the surface of Mars in Chapter 24.  Unless there is another party or person to observe, appreciate, and like/love another person, then no such value exists.  Proponents of self-love would argue that this is precisely the point of self-love – that they don’t need an external party to confer or condone value/love upon them – but this then reinforces the entire point that self-love offers no value to society, only to one’s self.  And this is perhaps the core definition of self-love as it only benefits the individual, is for the sake of the individual, and offers nothing of value to others.  And so while podcasts can be recorded, research conducted, articles written, even books published about “self-love,” all that intellectually ballyhoo and pablum is completely unnecessary as the entire concept of self-love is completely summarized and described in one word:

Masturbation.

And a life based solely on masturbation is a very, very, very lonely life."

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