jprussell | (Reply)

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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