Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

Excerpts from the Archives
of the
Narcissism List

Part 6 cont.

13. WHY?

To avoid a proliferation of "he/she", I will use "it" to denote a unisex narcissist.

Didn't you feel something was wrong from the very first minute when it couldn't stop talking about itself, bragging, outlining grandiose schemes, and ignoring you altogether?

Couldn't you penetrate the torrential charm, the incisive intelligence, the baby face, the "need to be protected", the "no one understands me" facade?

Didn't you ask yourself "is this for real" with growing intensity?

Weren't you repelled and upset by its haughtiness, venomous diatribes, constant criticism, self pity and "ne'er do wrong" attitude?

Didn't you sense that it was vacuous despite its academic degrees, vain despite its professed modesty, vicious despite its exhibitionistic altruism?

Ever wonder why it humiliates and then melts into a saccharinic show of unbearable sentimentality?

Had you no suspicion that something was awfully wrong when it exhibited abnormal attachment to Mommy/Daddy?

Did you feel that you had to compete and do battle to gain minimal acknowledgement, a modicum of attention, a fleeting (insincere, absent-minded) smile?

Then WHY, on earth, WHY did you stay?

WHAT were you looking for and how can you be convinced that you did not get it?

14. Unified Dysfunction Theory

Ever since Freud and Bleuler there has been an overt effort to "scientify"psychology. Freud - a medical doctor (neuorology, as it was known then) tried to invent a "physics of the mind" with structures and drives in lieu of molecules and forces in Newtonian mechanics (a.k.a. "Psychodynamics"). He used "scientific" language and believed that he was "objectifying" the subjective (=analysis).

Psychology and psychologists are beset by an inferiority complex given to them by physicists. They also want to be considered "an accurate science" with predictions, falsifications, repeatable experiments, the whole smorgasbord of respectability (not to mention budgets and prestige). Just compare the status of physicists and psychologists in courts of law ...

So, when quantum mechanics developed - there was a movement of "quantum and the mind" or the mind as a physical field. Now, in physics, physicists are self-importantly discussing the next illusion of grandeur (=narcissistic grandiose fantasy): TOE. A Theory of Everything (formerly known as a Unified Field Theory). Immediately the ugly, statistical, stepdaughter, psychology, also wants to have a TOE. What life does a discipline have without a TOE of its own? In comes the "Unified Dysfunction Theory" (which - on pure philosophical grounds - is impossible as long as the psychophysical problem has not been solved).

Humans are not atoms. The brain is more complex than any cluster of galaxies. The processes of energy conversion in the body far outweigh in complexity anything happening in the stars, to mention but one basic issue. We know very little about the brain (contrary to scientific claims. There are texts from 1900 which claimed as confidently that we know everything there is to know about the brain). We know even less about mental processes. Psychology is made up of one third fairy tales (psychoanalysis), one third educated guesses (object relations, behaviorism), one third prejudices and superstitions and some primitive ability to manipulate moods (psychopharmacology). Psychology today is where physics was when Plato was roaming the Earth. One should not succumb so lightly to the proposition of a unified theory pertaining to such a little understood phenomena and based on such fragmented knowledge.

15. Humbling Oneself

I recommend to you to HUMBLE yourselves. This way, you will not only be offering NS (which WILL be rejected if the source is "wrong") - but also vindication and validation of the PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY of the narcissist as a giant, misunderstood and wronged by the Lilliputians. The combination is irresistible and the narcissist will easily fall into this double trap.

16. The Time before Narcissism

That a condition has a beginning does not necessarily mean that it has an end. That its roots can be traced does not imply that it can be uprooted. Not only do I remember a time without narcissism (up to the age of 4, I believe) - but I remember INVENTING the d**n thing. I remember creating narratives of omnipotence, of brilliance and ideal heroism in which I was either the main character or able to manipulate the main character. 

How was the time before narcissism? Terrorizing, unpredictable, arbitrary, violent, capricious, unjust. I hated it. I still do.

I would be surprised to learn that a complex, interacting set of behavior and reaction patterns (known as personality) can be the result of a single biochemical or genetic cause, though.

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