You know what happened after all of that? Well we generally became more and more condescending towards people less accomplished than us, and all that impostor syndrome became directed outward.
Maybe I’m a little annoyed at the simplistic view towards “ego.” Ego is not just good or bad. Even in Western thought, the Jungians had a deeper treatment of the self than most would ever read, and there’s an idea that the best parts of ourselves are also related to the worst parts of ourselves. This is where someone with Buddhist inclinations might say it’s important to be able to see past/through the ego. Losing the self is important. Among other things, it helps you get in touch with your own mortality. Just as important is accepting one’s inevitable death, and for that, one must find some peace with the sense of self. So I wouldn’t read too much into it if some scientist, trying to stick verifiable labels onto things, mistook finding the self for “self-enhancement.” Then a journalist continued with their interpretation of the paper, and now we have a game of telephone. Last but not least, it is possible to do yoga and meditation badly.
Before modern times it makes you starve and die, because you didn't feel like you need to be selfish to take precautions for winter and put the needs of others first.
Today, it'll prevent you from becoming well off and free from corporate bullshit, because you don't really have ambition. So you have to work for the rest of your life in some middle class job.
Having a big ego is bad, having no ego is bad.
You need to figure out in which situations you need a big ego and in which you need none.
"Ego" is a fairly loaded word too. Most people don't use that word in the same sense that psychologists do, and psychologists don't have a consensus view on what ego means. In the vernacular, it tends to refer to pride, arrogance, and defensiveness.