Emily Hill

The curious cult of self love

  • From Spectator Life
Image: Getty

As Sigmund Freud once told me in a YouTube video: ‘Who lacks sex – speaks about sex, hungry talks about food, a person who has no money – about money, and our oligarchs and bankers talk about morality.’ So beware anyone who starts preaching ‘self-love’ at you. Chances are they hate themselves quite as much as you do – if not more so – and have been duped by the latest fad into revealing their deeply narcissistic behaviour patterns.

Tenets from the social media church of self-help include ‘do whatever feels right’; ‘if people don’t like you for who you are, that’s their problem’; ‘you don’t owe anybody anything’; ‘always trust your feelings’ and (my personal favourite) ‘guilt is a wasted emotion’ (it’s what psychopaths are unable to feel).

Self-grooming is the holy communion of self-love – it cleanses what is within – so ‘get a mani-pedi and do a face mask’ is the solution to all life problems

Celebrities are spreading the gospel with gusto.

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