The Impostor and the Ascetic

Todd McGowan (in the Why Theory? episode "A.I." in April 2025) says that everyone should have impostor syndrome, but not as it is pathologized today. Between a good and bad professor, he asks, which one is more likely to consider themselves an impostor? A bad professor who teaches a lackluster course probably does not, because they have nothing to prove. A professor who has impostor syndrome is more likely to be a good professor because they feel the impetus to improve. One improves because one has something to prove.

The problem with this framework for good practice is that the impostor's root motivation is bound up with their self-perception of others' perception. The impostor does not want to be found out as a fraud. They feel as if they do not belong due to a perceived lack of ability. Whatever their abilities, the impostor subordinates them to their belief that only others are capable. In short, I disagree that impostor syndrome can be de-pathologized.

I think a better term for McGowan's idea of an impostor is the ascetic. Ascesis means: to work on oneself as a form that is in-formation; to struggle with oneself as the medium and thus the conditions of that form. The ascetic dwells on and in their individuation through regimes of training. They pratice. Peter Sloterdijk defines practice as what a person does to improve relative to the next time they practice. (This improvement may manifest as maintenance or even degradation relative to the previous repetition, yet without it the next repetition would be even worse.) An asymptotic ascent toward new heights of performance is therefore implicit in practice. No matter how easy the virtuoso makes their improbable performance appear, they are subordinated to the superordinate lure of practice. Does this not express what is intended by a de-pathologized impostor: a deficiency matched with a capacity to close that gap; an insecurity in the durability of one's achievements? The impossibility of belonging is replaced by the impossibility of a finished perfection.

Whereas impostor syndrome is a self-perception of one's social role, ascesis is fundamentally an individual discipline, whatever its social scaffolding may be. The ascetic exists on the basis of an "ethical distinction" between a focused "self-concern" and an unfiltered "attention to everything" (Sloterdijk You Must Change Your Life). This distinction and its development prune the ascetic's attention of ordinary concerns so as to focus on the shape of one's life as manipulable layers of habitual media. The ascetic's grounding "withdrawal exercise" precludes impostor syndrome. Whether someone believes themselves to belong to a class of professionals or to a social identity is immaterial to their performance. Their achievement is a sign of having lived for an ideal. Indeed, the performance, far from serving as an entrance exam to be socially accepted, is itself yet another instance of practice.