The traditional definition of narcissism is excessive self-love. The term comes from the ancient myth of Narcissus, a beautiful young man who fell in love with his own reflection. The word was adopted by psychology to describe psychological conditions of out of proportion self-involvement, including narcissistic personality disorder. We take the definition psychologists use and add an important factor that media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out: Narcissus did not know it was own reflection he had fallen in love with. The person he saw in the pond and tried to kiss and embrace was an illusion, but the young man thought it was a real person, someone else. This is an important factor in understanding narcissocracy as a social phenomenon. This kind of narcissism confuses the subjective with the objective. And that is the source of the tsunami of falsehood, half-truth, truthiness, bullshit and stupidity that pervades modern America.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Narcissism and narcissocracy
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My participation here is willing, but guarded, because I know nothing about the "blog" culture. I risk embarrassing myself and offending others. Nevertheless here is my initial reaction to the opening salvo of "Narcissocracy" the blog.
ReplyDelete"Wow!" As I read the first blog entry I heard a lot of tooth grinding between the lines. This first impression of desperate seriousness was a bit off-putting, but everything rang true none the less. I was reminded of Mark Twain's comment about Wagner's music: "It's better than it sounds."
I have known some people who fit the definition of narcissistic given here, and I would like to discover how they came to be the way they are. At present I lean toward genetic influences because two of the examples I know I have known since childhood, and they always exhibited narcissistic behavior. On the other hand, though knowing what produces such people would be interesting, knowing how to deal with them would be useful and valuable. What can we do about this phenomenon?
Paul
Reread the first paragraph of Paul's post and ditto for me.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of narcissists Paul has known since childhood, to prepare myself for my first daring plunge into Blogdom, I googled Martha Beck.
Up popped her blog with the opening subtitle, "Call Me Crazy."
Simple irony or fate? You should check it out (if you have the stomach) at http://marthabeck.com/blog/.
Her well-known self-deprecating (ha!) wit and sage, inspired wisdom are on ample display; and all comments comprise a swollen chorus of praise to her wonderfulness. I sensed that my own comments would be neither welcome nor published.
In her case, if she is a true narcissist, the traditional definition of narcissism Alex uses seems to fit pretty well. All the gratitude and "love" that she professes for her admiring minions is blatantly absent for her own family. All of them.
They obviously no longer provide her with a mirror that reflects what she wants to see.
Just got your e-mail.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction: Holy shit, yes! The word Narcissocracy and its definition caught my attention immediately.
I feel like I have a lot to say about this topic...but the words escape me.
For now, I pose this question: Is any perspective objective? Objectivity (based on human perception) may be another veil of illusion.
Say there are two opposing sides (A & B) arguing over something, and a judge (C). It is easy to think that A & B are seeing the issue subjectively, each trying to assert their own reality over the other, while C is observing the interaction objectively. However, C still views the interaction subjectively because in order to judge, one must interpret the facts (in favor of A or B).
This interpretation of information is automatic. Our senses are bombarded with information, which sends signals to the brain. Then the mind takes these signals and labels them based on past experience. I see something, oh, it's a couch. I hear something, oh, that's a car.
Right now, the closest I can imagine to objectivity is having no prior knowledge of that which we are sensing. But even then we still interpret: "I have no idea what this is."
Just some food for thought. I have all these ideas swimming in my head but articulating them is difficult right now (especially in response to one post). I'll keep an eye out on your future posts. Hopefully they'll trigger some sort of organization out of my mind.
Oh and one more thing. I've been reading "Zen Training" by Katsuki Sekida and "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman, and it seems like some sort of meditative practice should be used to separate ourselves from our minds (the goal: living in direct experience). As soon as I wrote that another flurry of ideas popped into my head, so I'll just stop there.
Anyways, good luck to your blog!
"This kind of narcissism confuses the subjective with the objective."
ReplyDeleteI wonder then, what shifts the mind from being subjective to objective? I cannot help but feel that subjective is generally more natural for us and the we push to become objective, but why?
what is appealing about being objective? I half feel that the drive to be objective comes from a narcissistic behavior of wanting to be right or have some understanding greater than another. Thus causing a self love that could inevitably be our downfall..."pride comes before the fall" comes to mind...
where then do we draw our lines? A fair amount of reasoning must exist in order to measure what is good, right, virtuous, fair, etc. How then should we measure the importance of subjective and objective views? If we can measure that value, how would we apply it?