What collective narcissism does to society
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
In particular given the example of Portuguese people who have antagonistic reactions to Germany in the EU. Seems to me the pretty straightforward explanation is material/political. There is conflict of interest within an institution for power, and if anything the psychological narcissism is at best an epiphenomenon. It doesn't seem irrational. Instead of trying to get people to 'unlearn' their behaviour it seems like the more straightforward way is to resolve the conflict by devolving power or something.
Same with the other example of US polarization. There is real material interests underpinning the groupings.
Most individuals display self-interest, material and otherwise. But most individuals aren't narcissists; they lack the grandiosity, the entitlement, the monopolization of conversation, etc. [1]
You can look at a similar difference between groups. E.g., to me as an American, Canada is not my "tribe". I might believe that each group has different strengths, and I might be quite happy to stay an American. That's perfectly normal. Indeed, having lived abroad a few times, those periods in some ways sharpened my sense of American identity.
In contrast, look at the American Confederacy. There's a ton of material on their grandiosity and entitlement, but the most obvious piece of evidence is their own Vice-President describing what the heart of their project was: "our new government['s] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." [2]
In my opinion, that's bonkers. To make one's own identity and purpose so deeply based in the inferiority of another group is fucking deranged.
Now was their real material interest underpinning that? Sure. If they didn't get to treat humans like livestock, the Southern aristocrats might actually have had to work for a living. God forbid they have to live by the sweat of their brows like everybody else. So their narcissistic derangement was adaptive in some sense. But that doesn't make it less diagnose; individual narcissism is also often adaptive in that sense.
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-...
Isn't something being adaptive exactly what it makes it not pathological? The definition of a disease is behaviour that produces adverse outcomes in the individual or group in question.
To take up your example of racism and subordination and slavery, I think it is fundamentally important to recognize it as the economical and political structure that it was to the benefit of slave owners, not as some sort of idea out of the ether or mental illness. The racist theory is the consequence or justification for the power relation not the other way around.
In the same vein my biggest problem with this theory of group narcissism is exactly what kind of thinking it leads to, from the article:
>"How, then, can we curtail the spread of group narcissism and promote more intergroup harmony? The good news is that, just as it’s possible to have healthy individual self-esteem, it is possible to have healthy in-group love where being a member of your group feels good and you have great pride in its genuine accomplishments"
Was the confederacy defeated by group therapy and promoting healthy in-group love among the confederates because they really just were insecure about themselves? No, people literally went to war and destroyed the slave economy and the institutions underpinning it. It wasn't an issue of mass psychology.
Seriously though, just like individuals who undergo a serious and dangerous psychotic episode often need to be restrained, even to the point of being shot if no other options are available that work, to avoid them causing massive damage to themselves or those around them, the same happens to nations sometimes.
Also, just like can happen in a small group with a psychotic individual, sometimes the crazy person wins.
For a nation that involves invasions, embargoes, etc. self-harm for an individual would be a country performing purges or genocide on it’s own people, or destroying it’s own economy due to some nonsensical ideology.
The issue with nations is the sheer scale of the damage they can cause, as compared to one standalone individual.
If say China starts going after neighbors, it’s roughly like it the 300 lb, heavily armed, weightlifter in the neighborhood starts going on a rampage on his family. Not much anyone can do without a whole lot of hurt for everyone.
Not at all. Hannibal Lecter thought he was just fine, that it was the rest of us with a problem. And there are plenty of times in history where being what we'd consider a diagnosable monster was a path to success.
> It wasn't an issue of mass psychology.
You haven't demonstrated that at all. Psychology didn't exist until after the Civil War. And even now most of it is focused on helping individuals who voluntarily seek treatment.
Indeed, I think you've created a false dichotomy. After WWII, the victors intervened massively in Germany and Japan. They thought that military wasn't enough. In the words of Field Marshal Montgomery, they had to "win the peace". For him, that included changing how Germans thought and felt: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/456873/Military-legend-...
So was a massive war the only way to defeat the Confederacy once it was formed? Probably. But was that war enough to stamp out the south's culture of racial hatred? Definitely not. You can read the reports from the Freedman's Bureau to see how the racial terrorism of Jim Crow was present during Reconstruction. I'd argue that failure to address the group psychology was one of America's biggest failures.
We stopped doing that because at some point we worked out that it was gross and - eventually - that it was also very unhealthy.
Technically it was a local minimum - a place to pause, but not somewhere you really want to stay.
Narcissism is similar. It's a hugely problematic way of being in the world that has been normalised for centuries. If we're lucky we're about to outgrow it.
Lacking empathy for others and for the environment is an issue of psychological hygiene and cognitive effectiveness.
In the same that poor physical hygiene causes serious health issues in the population, poor mental and psychological hygiene causes emotional and behavioural issues.
You could argue cannibalism should be a free choice and keeping the old ways is not only not harmful but a matter of honour and dignity.
No doubt those arguments were made when it was on its way out.
Narcissism is similar. It's incredibly corrosive personally and politically, and there isn't really a good argument for tolerating it.
Cannibalism is considered hopelessly abnormal behaviour today, and with any luck individual and collective narcissism will soon go the same way.
Well, this isn't about individuals though, it's about groups.
And groups have legitimate political and material grievances against one another, not just "narcissistic" ones, as if everything is perfect in the most perfect of possible worlds.
>In my opinion, that's bonkers. To make one's own identity and purpose so deeply based in the inferiority of another group is fucking deranged.
Well, that's the case with the North too, and the whole American experiment was established on this, and continues on the same path: on the superiority religious zealots thrown out of Europe (and later immigrants adopted into their culture cult) claim against other countries. "Greatest country in the world", "Manifest destiny", "Home of the free", "leader of the free world", and so on.
Sure. I was talking about individuals in that sentence setting up for a later pivot to groups.
> groups have legitimate political and material grievances against one another, not just "narcissistic" ones
Yes, this is a thing I also agree with. And basically said. I don't get why you're writing as if you're contradicting me.
> Well, that's the case with the North too,
In some ways with some groups at some times, yes. But that isn't proof that group-level narcissism doesn't exist. Indeed, it is evidence for it.
That's the problem with such "science" (using the term loosely, this is not physics, but "soft" science, that is, bogus ideology with questionaire-and-stats-as-evaluated-by-the-researcher-based "validation").
They start from it being "irrational", based on whatever status quo ideas (in the general society or among their peers or funding sources) they take as given, and in their "results" take for granted what they should have proven. It's easy to see the markers for "psychological narcissim" when all you allow for is that, and not other causes. It's even easier to overblow them.
E.g. "tension between say Portugal and Germany 'must' be psychological narcissism", because they don't see (or want to hide under the rag) the political and material antagonisms. More often than not, they don't have a clue about them anyway - being politically naive, and isolated and uniformed about both the political, legislative, etc, manifestations, and the material circumstances of such antagonisms.
(Not that the antagonistic populations have theoritically studied those material and political antagonisms. But they can feel their results, and can follow certain changes in policy and their effects on them and their country -they have skin in the game, so to speak. Changes and effects that some PhD researcher in "social sciences" in some universy in a remote country has no clue whatsover, unless they've specifically gone and searched for them).
We’re offered everything from terrorists and racists through to sports teams and gender identity.
> Now, she said, she’s terrified at how widely she’s finding it manifested across the globe.
If it’s everywhere, maybe it’s just part of the normal variation of human personality?
We can’t exclude the possibility that phones are extremely rapidly (<8 years) transforming human traits.
In parallel, I’m seeing the emergence of a new layer of “bogan millionaires” (that I’m part of): People who shouldn’t reach there so fast, but did it anyway through apps, instagram, stock exchange or bitcoins. There are so many of us that it’s a real danger (or a real chance), it feels like undeserved power for people who didn’t struggle enough to know what a few million dollars really is. It is mostly due to the decentralization of power brought by the internet, but moving masses from learned inability to having some power, while leaving the rest of the population (the good old workers who kept at his work diligently) in the ditch… It may change the face of humanity.
Also, narcissism - as in the actually identifiable pathology, has a number of falsifiable elements (as much as one can get in psychology anyway, which isn’t much) which this theory doesn’t really have.
So it’s basically horoscoping.
Also, good luck trying to clearly define society wide pathology in a credible way.
I think it's nonsense. Narcissism is in general a severe problem for most societies today, but does not explain polarization or intolerance or which political group you might be in or why the other side is all messed up.
They started the article off suggesting that desperate political groups that resort to terrorism are just full of themselves thinking they need to be more recognized. It's ludicrous to say that. These are violent political groups who have lost, been ostracized and oppressed not just militarily but also as civilians or as group identities. Whatever it is when they ask to be recognized, it's not narcissism.
Personally I think most if not all worldviews are skewed in various ways. Part of that is based on group identity, tribalism, etc. It's not a rational process. And the billions of people who are not in your group are not out there because of personality flaws.
As an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfaUDh42bRs
I believe this was shortly after NYPD officers had brawled with protestors and an NYPD SUV had driven into a crowd of protestors.
EDIT: This one's more succinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQmdKwn_dQ
No mention of stuff on the left, maybe because the author fears to be labeled as "enemy within", as he explains in article:
> Collective narcissists are hypervigilant about “enemies within,” members who, in their opinion, reflect negatively on the group.
"All narcissists tell on themselves" https://medium.com/@OwnYourReality/projection-the-narcissist...
- The progressive think tanker who was fired for citing a black prof's research saying riots are detrimental to social change
- The star NYT science reporter who was fired for mentioning the n-word a decade ago in a conversation where it was relevant
- The Smith College janitor who was publicly smeared as racist for, in accordance with instructions from his own bosses, asking a black student why she was in a closed-off dining hall
- The progressive young Asian novelist who was viciously slandered for writing a story inspired by human trafficking in Asia, under the pretense that she had appropriated the American black experience of slavery
I could go on all day. It's been a nasty few years. Start with anything by Michael Powell at the NYT if you want to know more.
If we are being honest, the "group narcissism" elephant in the room is neoliberalism, which portrays itself unambiguously as the One True Way to manage human societies (everything else is "totalitarian"), to absolutely disastrous human consequences in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and many more regions.
But I also can’t help but notice that such ‘narcissistic’ in-group preference dominant groups seem to be doing really well for themselves. The Amish and Hasidic populations are doubling about every twenty years.
But you can have a successful, cohesive group without being fascist.
These three also have something in common...
> Ukraine
It was doomed from the start, with a neighbor we failed to keep in check.