[Main Blog Post] Narcissism and Me

[jprussell]

(The title's a joke, btw).

Check out the new post, and feel free to comment here on Dreamwidth.

Comments

[causticus]

A very informative and enjoyable read, if I may say so!

This topic, the notion of non-clinical narcissism, is something I've thought about a lot over the years. What you describe I've conceptualized as "the egocentricity spectrum." I do think these mental states and resulting behaviors fall on a rather wide spectrum, and as you say, everyone has it to some degree, even if in a minute amount. I personally think this casual narcissism is an evolutionary trait that helps us avoid constantly slipping into a state of existential despair, and thus have a much better chance of survival in this very weird and unpredictable world. Unfortunately in many cases this "narcissism" goes beyond a manageable level and gets out of hand, resulting in pathological levels of crude selfishness and solipsism.

[jprussell]

Thanks very much!

The evolutionary explanation makes sense to me, though TLP argues that whatever "normal" levels of narcissism might be, in the US, the Baby Boomers and Gen X had kicked the pop culture levels of narcissism up to 11 (he didn't have much to say about millenials or anything to say about Gen Z, as he stopped writing the blog in 2014, but I don't think we'd fare much better in his analysis).

Take, for example, JMG's frequent complaints about stories about someone who is the hero because of his special specialness fighting a villain who is evil because of his evilly evil. This whole set up is about identity labels, what you "really are" rather than about what you do, what consequences that has, and so forth. TLP has a great couple of articles on how the Matrix is pure narcissistic fantasy (a fun, badass narcissistic fantasy, but still):
What Was the Matrix?
Reality Responds to the Matrix

[causticus]

Oh yeah I agree there's definitely a lot of variables at play here, like generational subculture, one's culture in general, economic conditions, family structure, genetics, karma, ect.

JMG's example is great. I think it dials into a very specially special American flavor of narcissism, based on the idea we can "manifest" our own desired reality just by wishing for the right things; they'll come to you.....well, just because....you deserve the best! (regardless of what you bring to the table). I think one big factor that amplifies narcissism in America is the hyper-individualistic, atomized living arrangement that is now standard here. In more communitarian and authoritarian cultures, the individual isn't so important; it's their function in the group that matters; thus there's considerably less of a pressure for each individual to pretend as if they are their own king or queen, much less act like one in mixed company. I think a clear social hierarchy can greatly mitigate induvial narcissism and humble people in general. Just some random thoughts here...

[jprussell]

Hmmm, I think you're right about the atomized living - one thing TLP talks about in some of his posts is how narcissism is more prevalent in first children, and if that's true, then a country of families with 1.5 kids could be contributing.

Another thought that came to mind as I read your response, though, was about JMG's tamanous theory of the direction of the unique spiritual development of North America in contrast to other lands. It doesn't strike me as crazy that narcissism could be an awkward stumbling block, an imperfect groping toward, the reality that each of us do have our own unique relationship with the Divine, but not yet getting that that doesn't make us special.

Huh, which also reminded me of one of the things I mentioned in the post: TLP states that narcissism is more common in young folks who don't have the life experience to ground out their identity in an actual track record and still have a lot of possibilities they might step into. If you think of North American culture as adolescent or young adult (at most!), then maybe this is a necessary phase to pass through.

(But I'm not going to use that as an excuse for my own development!)

[sdi]

So I read jprussell's blog post and walked away feeling totally confused. Not a single piece of it made the least lick of sense to me. But then, causticus, you said, I personally think this casual narcissism is an evolutionary trait that helps us avoid constantly slipping into a state of existential despair. Well! I think you must be on to something, since "constantly slipping into a state of existential despair" is something I understand very well! So consider this a data point that there is maybe something to your "inverse relationship between narcissism and despair" theory.

[causticus]

I do think a select few of us are able to handle existential ambiguity. Many others can't and they'll get a mental "blue screen of death" whenever there's too many contradictory ideas juggling around in their noggin that they'll unable to quickly shut down with thought-stopping mantras and other forms of deflection and denialism. This is likely the same reason why occultism is only suited to a select few; the rest need religion or some other form of simple moral formulation to work from. So then "casual narcissism" is how so-called "normies" cope with reality when mentally stressed, especially in a hyper-individualistic culture such as America's. That last part I expand upon in my above reply to Jeff. I'm not saying us occult-interested weirdos don't have or narcissistic moments too (I've had too many to count), but I think we at least have more capacity for self-reflection and the entertaining of different ideas than the average person.

[sdi]

I'm afraid you've lost me—I'm not sure what you mean. (Certainly I'm as mentally stressed as the rest of us!)

Possibly I'm just overtired and need to come back to all this a different day.

[causticus]

My apologies. Now that I reread what I rambled above, it's clear to me I was going off on a caffeine-fueled tangent ;)

What you wrote above in your comment triggered a series of brain farts on how different people deal with existential angst and uncertainty.

[sdi]

I went for a walk and thought about it and I think maybe I figured out my confusion, which is simply this: I don't understand what self-reflection, or indeed occultism, has to do with any of this.

But let me back up. What jprussell is talking about is that some author says that everyone is selfish. But, like, no they're not: some people are selfless—and not just saints, there are plenty of normal people who are just plain kindly-natured, and there are tons of not-so-kindly people with self-consuming or martyr complexes, too.

So why is the author saying that? Presumably to justify his own selfishness, or at least justify his struggle with it, right? But, IMHO, this is just the Christian myth repurposed: that you are an irredeemably awful monster and here's what you should do about it. But I guess I fundamentally find that myth silly: it's not hard for some people to be a good neighbor, and saying no really it is doesn't change that. I can absolutely see how such a myth is valuable to people like Saint Paul or Augustine of Hippo or Bill Wilson who really did struggle with their problems and needed such a myth to help them overcome them, but not everybody has the same hangup. I think it was Raymond Smullyan who said something to the effect of, "there's a wide variety of religious beliefs because there's a wide variety of people in the world." So while I think the author's model of human behavior may make sense in some situations, I can't imagine that it's broadly useful.

So to bring this back around, the author that jprussell was quoting was making the point that most people think "I will be nice to X because I want X to perceive me as nice" instead of "I will be nice to X because I want X to be happy." I find that to be insane, but perhaps that's merely because my own hangup is that I struggle to get out of bed and endure through the pain of the day—it's easy to want to be nice to other people so that at least somebody will be happy even if I can't! (Perhaps it's also that I really do want other people to be happy, and if those people are selfish monsters, then my trying to make them happy must be a sinful act since I'm empowering someone to do more harm. This line of reasoning doesn't seem to be conducive to living a good life, though, which is why I think that one of the assumptions in it must be false.)

And so I think my confusion is that you're making the assumption that the author's point is fundamentally sound and correct, hence self-reflection and self-examination is fundamentally crucial to make sure you're balancing your own (selfish) desires against others' (selfish) desires, and since occultists spend more time on self-refection than others, then occultists are presumably better-than-average at being selfless. You're also, I think, making the point that since America is hyper-individualistic, and since individuals must be fundamentally selfish, then America is hyper-selfish, exacerbating the problem.

But since I reject the author's point from the get-go, neither of those further elaborations followed and I was confused why they might.

[jprussell]

I'm so glad to see y'all getting so into the topic!

sdi, if I may, I think some of your confusion might be coming from me not stating the main idea clearly enough, and then reinforced by the examples I chose.

TLP's definition of "narcissism" is not being "selfish", "egotistical", or "grandiose", though those commonly come along with it, and most of my examples reinforced that. Instead, TLP's definition is that narcissism is having a felt sense of "identity" that is some "thing" that you are or have, rather than the emergent outcome of the actions you do. Sometimes (often?), these things line up, and you might say that one way of measuring how pathological things have gotten is by the disconnect between these two things.

Let's go a little more concrete: Alice thinks of herself/sees herself as a "nice person". It's important to her sense of identity, "who she is", that she can apply that label to herself. To whatever degree Alice thinks she has some quality, some essence of "nice personness" that is insulated from rather than determined by her actions, that's narcissism. Happily, Alice actually does things she thinks other people will like, takes care of the worse off, gives people compliments, and so forth - in other words, she actually does nice things. So, she likely has a very small amount of narcissism that is pretty healthy.

Next, let's take a look at Bob. Bob also thinks of himself/sees himself as a "nice person," and it is likewise important to his sense of identity that that is what he is. Bob also is pretty good about helping other folks, saying kind things, and so forth, but every once in a while, something gets under his skin and he explodes in a tirade about how ungrateful and awful the person who set him off is, and as often as not, he makes the target of this outburst cry. Bob always feels bad about this and apologizes, does what he can to make it up, and tells himself "that's not really who I am, I'm really a nice person." That last part - protecting the identity of being "a nice person", without actually doing the work to stop the behaviors inconsistent with that identity, that's the narcissism talking, and it's started to get less healthy.

Lastly, we come to Charlie, who, like Alice and Bob, sees himself as "a nice person" and finds it important to define himself that way. Charlie, though, only sometimes helps people out, rarely says anything kind, and often makes jokes about things other folks are sensitie about. When someone confronts him about it, he says "okay, well, yeah, I don't help out that much, I say mean things more often than kind things, but I'm really a nice person deep down." That's getting to a much unhealthier level of narcissism, because the identity is now almost entirely divorced from the deeds.

The crucial point I wanted to highlight here is that narcissism does not obviously equate with selfishness as it's usually understood, but rather with a desire to protect one or more parts of the self's identity in the face of contradictory evidence. It is just at its ugliest and most likely to hurt other folks when that protected identity is either a) something harmful, like thinking you're better than other people, or b) the gap between identity label and actions is huge.

All that being said, it is quite possible that the author's (and my own!) experience and inner state are, in fact, rather different from yours - I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about definitions before discussing further.

[sdi]

I agree, I think my confusion is stemming from a different worldview: the very notion of identifying proscriptively (rather than descriptively) is foreign to me, and I would consider even Alice to be a very strange person! (Maybe I'm the very strange one? :) )

It could be that I'm running into the conflict of two useful rules of thumb:

• "A tree is known by its fruit." (So, Alice's impure motivations are justified by their good outcomes.)
  
• "When the wrong man does the right thing, it usually turns out wrong." (So, Alice's good outcomes are contaminated by her impure motivations.)

I'll have to spend some time pondering it, I think.

[jprussell]

One other important thing I left out above, that might help cast some further light: that self-identifying label of "nice person" (or however else the person wants to be seen: special, badass, smart, lovable, important, whatever) is almost always a defense against deeply felt insecurity. So, Alice, Bob, and Charlie all have deep-down worries that they may or may not be wholly aware of that there is something wrong with them/they're not likable/admirable/something, and the way each of them copes with this is by telling him/herself "but I'm a nice person!" and then seeking out other folks to validate that judgment. The trouble is, as long as there's a mismatch of this deeply-felt unworthiness and the label that other folks are validating, the person seeking the reassurance won't really buy it in the long run, it'll be a temporary fix ("wow, Alice, you're so nice!" "Gosh, thanks" [temporary feeling of security, then, to herself:] "wow, that guy thought I was nice just for that? He was just being polite, he didn't really mean it.")

[sdi]

Oh, so it's like how people talk about their jobs? They want to convince themselves and others that they're busy and important even (and especially) if they don't like their work or feel like it's pointless? If so, is this another manifestation of the commoditization-of-everything?

[jprussell]

Exactly! Rather than confronting the yawning existential horror that they are wasting their lives on stupid shit and the hard and scary work it would take to make that not true, they settle for trying to convince themselves that activity=value and that title/postition=real importance. Never mind that it's self-defeating, because the only reason they're working so hard to convince themselves is because they really don't buy it.

And huh, thank you, I had not explicitly linked this to JMG's "Reign of Quantity" and the commoditization-of-everything, but that's absolutely right. TLP talks about the "pornographization" of things, where a single piece of a complex whole is picked as a symbol/fetish and then elevated to the only thing that matters (easy example: measuring your worth as a productive human being by the size of your paycheck). That's his preferred way of looking at it, as he is more interested in how the piece can come to unhealthily stand for the whole. With commoditization, on the other hand, the emphasis is on the exchangeability or ability to make money, but I think both takes are getting at the idea of a simplification/reduction of something complex into something that's easier to deal with in the short run, but in the long run erases much of what is true and important about the more complex phenomena so reduced.

[sdi]

I believe you're focusing on dead authors presently, right? If you have room for an author who is aged-but-alive, I might suggest "Seeing Like a State" by James Scott. His premise is that when a government (or anyone, really, but Scott's an anarchist and so he's talking about governments :) ) measures something, it optimizes for that measure at the expense of all else (including it's long-term sustainability).

A simple example from the first chapter is how a government (I believe one of the various German governments of the 1800s) wanted to optimize timber production on a piece of land, so they chopped down all the trees (getting timber), planted a monocrop of the best-producing species, in 30 years chopped down all the trees (getting lots of timber, hooray), replanted the monocrop, and then found to their dismay that the land was barren and none of the trees they planted grew. Turns out a forest isn't just a collection of trees, who knew?

The book is largely a series of case studies along these lines about various other measures (land use, weights and measures, etc.).

I suppose we're seeing now what happens when one applies such a methodology to the value of a human life?

[jprussell]

Oh man, Seeing Like a State has been on my list for years. I think I first heard of it either through Eric S. Raymond or Scott Alexander, but it was the Uruk Series by Lou Keep of sam[]zdat. He slightly tweaks Scott's concept of "legibility" in the series, but I have found it tremendously useful for understanding what goes wrong with well-meaning interventions (and makes less well-intentioned ones even worse).

I'm actually not holding myself to only dead authors now that 2022 is up, so maybe this is a sign to bump Scott back up the list (Against the Grain is also on my list). Thanks!

Interesting!

[cs2]

Don't say "I want to be more secure in myself", instead say "here's how my deeds stack up to an outside, measurable standard."

That sparked a good list of items for me, thank you!

Another thing that fosters self-centeredness in America is the way our neighborhoods are laid out and what is viewed as a good place to raise children. I had a childhood that was The American Dream(tm) but it was pretty nightmarish. The isolation of a child in a suburban home, unable to go anywhere on their own, leads to a deep loneliness. I tried having imaginary friends (Maybe zonking out in front of a screen is more common these days). "Of course my life is about me. I'm the only one who talks to me after I get home from school and my parents turn on the TV." That kind of thing.

Re: Interesting!

[jprussell]

Thank you, I'm glad it's been helpful so far!

And yeah, I agree - I think suburbs are one of the prime examples of "you don't actually want what you think you want." Big house? Great, now you can be anxious about property values and your mortgage! Big yard? Huzzah, you've all but eliminated casual interactions with your neighbors! Away from the crowding and bustle of the city? Welcome to a wasted ~1 hour a day of commuting! Since you're commuting, want some big, easy to drive in streets? Great, now it's not walkable and it's dangerous for your kids and pets to play outside!

Basically, I've had a pet theory since college that suburbs are anomie machines thanks to the over-abundance of negative space and near total lack of organic, unplanned coming-together.

And all that's not even touching the isolation of kids that you're talking about, which I agree with. I was pretty lucky to be able to ride my bike around with my friends, but I definitely see how different things are now.

And, err, I'm deeply worried about how the suburb we live in is going to affect our daughters :/

[realmscryer]

Oh man! Just read your article Jeff and the one at TLP. This take on narcissism is incredibly helpful!

Explains my first marriage and what I grappled with for over twenty years before finally throwing in the towel.

Also nails what I need to do to unstick myself and get back to writing.

I don’t have anything else to contribute to the conversation. Just wanted to say thanks for writing the article. Very helpful!

—Eric

[jprussell]

Thank you for the kind words, and glad you found it helpful! Having come out of my deep dive on TLP's archive, I think he might be a bit overly-general (and overly pessimistic) on "narcissism," but I still think there's a lot of useful stuff there. He released his book, which I bought, but have yet to read, and apparently it's deeply weird, and maybe not as useful as his blog. I was going to link to a review I found helpful, but the substack it's on (Zero HP Lovecraft) apparently went private.