IJSP Number 6, 2024

98 important as oneself is, or as one has to be in order to be always above them, always one step in front of them. Even on a political level, in our liberal democracy, full of or stuffed with human rights, we have learned that the places on the podium of life are, after all, very limited. It is clear to everyone that we, no matter how liberal or democratic, cannot be, all at once, number one. The democratic ideal and the rights for all, imprinted by utilitarian and pragmatic ideas of at least one hundred years old philosophies, actually imply an oxymoron, namely the strange idea of all being ‘number ones ’! Self-importance is always on pursue for what is important: obviously and exclusively: oneself. From such a perspective there are no ‘others’, at least as equally valuable and important subjects. Indeed, self-importance in itself is already a wrong existential step. It starts from recognizing an only, unique, and all-important subject, and neglects all the others. Being self-important implies that others cannot be the same. The perspective onto the social world is fundamentally wrong and distorted. The existential inscribing of such an individual is mostly or mainly emotional and, as such, more or less irrational. And, where there is not very much reason, there cannot be much morality either, because, as Ayn Rand specified: “The relationship of reason and morality is reciprocal: the man who accepts the role of a sacrificial animal, will not achieve the self-confidence necessary to uphold the validity of his mind–the man who doubts the validity of his mind, will not achieve the self-esteem necessary to uphold the value of his person and to discover the moral premises that make man’s value possible.” [20] Consequently, and we may say, unavoidably, relationships are built on a precarious ground and have at their very base a built-in principle of uncertainty, a quantum reality of vast emptiness populated rather by fields of energy, but not by the ‘solid emotional matter’ or warmth we would expect from interactions among humans. For the self-important ones the value of one’s own person does not come from within; it cannot flow from the interior and the profoundness of one’s self because it is, by its own nature, distorted by the shallowness of its own superficiality. Morality, on the other hand, if it is to be real and ‘substantial’, is not something superficial or something one can take easily. As such, the ‘morality’ of self-importance can hardly be understood as morality itself. It is rather a pastiche which can hardly conceal its own falsity and superficiality. Anchored only in formulas and conveniences, such a ‘morality’ is no more than an empty shell or a very thin mask of politeness that tries to hide the unilateral preoccupations of a self-absorbed individual. On the other hand, self-esteem commence from a different perspective, namely that of esteem and appreciation. The starting point of esteem is, of course, the self-esteem. A person that is capable to esteem oneself will be able to extend that perspective onto others as well. As such, others are understood, valued, and esteemed because, in the first place they exist, they are recognised as human