ShrinkWrapped

Narcissism with Real World Consequences

The danger posed by those in positions of power having enhanced narcissism is well documented and illustrated by Heather Mac Donald in her City Journal article, Baghdad’s Real Torturers.  She points out that the "torture narrative" that held sway at the New York Times, much of the media, among various anti-War intellectuals, and came to dominate much coverage from Iraq for months at a time, is now being brought into serious question by the finding of real torture chambers in Baghdad.

The U.S. military recently uncovered alleged evidence of torture in Iraqi-run Baghdad prisons, including what appeared to be a torture chamber in an Iraqi Ministry of Interior detention facility. The Sunni reaction to these discoveries poses a considerable problem for proponents of the anti-American “torture narrative”: The Sunnis are calling on the U.S. military to correct the situation! “I wish the Americans would go to [the prisons] and find out about it,” former detainee Sadiq Abdul Razzaq Samarrai told the New York Times.

This is bizarre behavior indeed. According to Andrew Sullivan, Seymour Hersh, and other proponents of the “torture narrative,” Americans are the leading sadists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba. For the Sunnis to ask the Americans to protect them against alleged Shiite abuse would seem to them as delusional as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz appealing to Hitler for salvation.

The abu Graib "torture narrative" was always about the fantasies of the proponents rather than the reality on the ground.  The American response to the abuses at abu Graib, abuses by a group of immature, irresponsible, sadistic soldiers who relished abusing those who were under their power, was exemplary for a nation at war.  The abuses were identified and actions initiated to redress the situation and hold those responsible; this was well before the story ever became fodder for 50+ front page stories in the New York Times.  That the soldiers involved may have been acting out their own dramas to enhance their narcissism is arguable but not of particular interest to me; they are no longer in a position to harm anyone.  The abuse of power of the media and the arguments of the intellectual elites who do still hold power in the West is of much greater moment.

[When I talk about enhanced narcissism, it includes true, developmentally derived,, Narcissistic Character Traits/Disorder as well as what has recently been described as Acquired Narcissistic Character Traits/Disorder;  I will address the distinction in future posts in my current series on Narcissism]

Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West: Part II

The first two installments of this series are:

Introduction

Part I: Narcissism and Drive Containment

Part II: The Natural History of Narcissism

Before talking about those pro-civilization forces that are under assault in the West today, a little background should be helpful.  Narcissism is a condition of abundance. When you live on the edge of starvation, which is what subsistence is, and the likelihood of a child reaching adulthood is on the order of %50, there is very little time or energy to worry about the developmental line of narcissism. Throughout most of mankind's time, children were considered to be nothing more than little adults; when they were old enough to work, they worked, when they were big enough to fight, they helped defend the community. It was only with the Renaissance and the industrial revolution that men finally began to develop enough abundance to allow for an extended (non-productive) childhood, as well as the leisure time to reflect upon development. By the mid-1900's, the young science of Psychoanalysis had determined that the Narcissistic character, named by Freud after Narcissus, of Greek mythology, was essentially untreatable. Narcissus was such a handsome young man that all who saw him would fall in love with him. Unfortunately, none were beautiful enough for Narcissus, until one day he inadvertently caught sight of his reflection in a pool of water and fell in love on the spot. Echo was a young wood nymph who fell in love with Narcissus, who never even took notice of her. The two of them were doomed by their love of beauty to be alone forever, Narcissus ultimately becoming the flower which bears his name and all that was left of Echo being the fading sound of his voice, echoed by her. Like Narcissus, the narcissists were thought to be so self-involved that they could not form a real relationship with anyone, let alone their therapist and without the formation of a transference relationship, no therapy could take place. At the same time, the arrogance and tendency to alternately idealize and then devalue the therapist made them particularly unpleasant to work with; counter-transference issues abounded.

In the 1960's Heinz Kohut developed his theory of the developmental line of narcissism as well as techniques which allowed the patient to be engaged in treatment. Our understanding of this condition flourished. Kohut's brilliant insight was that the narcissist, far from needing no one, actually needed the other person to be, as for Narcissus, a mirror which showed them their own specialness.The other person was not seen as another independent person with his own needs and desires, but merely as an audience whose role was to admiringly mirror the Narcissist's greatness back to him. IN fact, It turns out that the Narcissist typically has extremely fragile self-esteem; he depends on the admiration of the world in order to maintain his self-esteem.

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire

Yesterday I saw the new Harry Potter movie with my two youngest children (12 & 17) and we all agreed it was the darkest, but far and away the best, of the movies thus far.  As Harry and his friends move into adolescence, their depth of character increases; seeing these children struggle with the eternal "life and death" questions of adolescence from time immemorial (for Harry and Ron : Will she laugh at me when I ask her to the dance? and for Hermione: Will he ask me to the dance?) is sure to bring a knowing smile and slight tug of the heart strings to most parents, who have already been through this themselves so many years before.  At the same time, we know that they have been thrust pre-maturely into truly adult "life and death" questions; Voldemort has returned and is preparing a new reign of terror.

Last summer I wrote about the newborn mythology of our times, the stories of Harry Potter and Frodo, from Lord of the Rings.  In many ways, they represent an everyman who does not seek greatness but finds himself in the middle of great trials.  In both cases, their failure would result in the most horrifying terror being unleashed upon the world.  I pointed out that Frodo and Harry share many features.

The Writing on the Wall

The Brussels Journal takes a second look at the French Intifada from a more sociological point of view that dovetails nicely with my post yesterday.  In The Writing on the Wall, Alexandra Colen points to some of the inter-generational aspects of the Intifada, which are blinding the authorities, once young counter-cultural revolutionaries themselves, to certain aspects of the struggle which should cause them to reflect on what they are doing, but probably won't.  As she writes, the 60's radicals who rejected the crass materialism of their parent's generation are now being rejected themselves, and don't recognize it.

Those same cultural leaders, who still think of their own behaviour almost four decades ago as heroic and justified, find it hard to condemn the rioting “youths” of today. They are now condoning those who hate and despise them, because in their own secular “jihad” against the last remnants of the conservative Christian culture of Old Europe, they think that the Muslim immigrant “youths” are their allies. Hence, they fail to see their own mortal enemy. Conservative Christians and others who do not worship secular “multiculturalism” are branded as intolerant, racist xenophobes and laws are made to silence them. In doing so, however, the liberal establishment is feeding the beast that will eventually destroy it.

She concludes that these "youths" have no interest in being assimilated ("co-opted") into the system:

The French Intifada: A Second Look

[I am digressing from my series on Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West (Introduction, Part I) although this post can be considered a more specific example of the phenonena I am describing in those posts; Part II is in preparation and will be posted on Monday.]

With the French Intifada slowly returning to the status quo ante, with "only" ~100 cars being torched every night, (HT: Atlas Shrugs) the question of root causes, the relative impact of Islam, poverty, and racism is worth a second look. 

There are those, primarily in the Blogosphere, who have been insistent that radical Islam is at the core of the recent unrest, while others, including most of the LSM (LameStreamMedia) and the French government, insists the riots have nothing at all to do with Islam, but rather are related to poverty and discrimination.  The distinction is important in terms of the immediate government response to the crisis, but in the longer term, it represents a distinction without a difference.  In other words, the intersection of the future psychological development of the youthful rioters will increasingly force the crisis toward a clash of Islam with liberal, secular democracy; an understanding of the psychological developmental steps from late adolescence to early adult hood will dictate the long term outcome and the signs are inauspicious.

The most important of the several developmental steps that are required to move from late adolescence into early adulthood is the surrender of the adolescent fantasy of omnipotentiality (the idea that all future outcomes are available), which requires the acceptance of realistic limitations that are in concordance with one's abilities, and the establishment and consolidation of a stable identity.   A stable adult identity includes such things as one's sexual orientation, the desire or lack of desire for marriage and children, one's occupational interests, ethnic identifications, and religious orientation.  In all these areas, the young residents of the banlieus of France are being channeled toward radical Islam.

Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West: Part I

Introduction

The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud

Narcissism and Drive Containment

The obvious first question to address is what is the connection between increased narcissism and the fall of civilization. After all, some of our most overt narcissists reside at the pinnacle of our society. We celebrate celebrity, fill our Senate with preening peacocks, pay six figure incomes to "star" university professors, and have no difficulty cheering for our favorite football players as they do their end zone dance; so, again, what is the connection?

Allow me a slight digression. The most crucial job for parents is to take an unformed little human baby, whose only experience of the world is to know himself as the center of the universe, and tame his instincts so that he can become a productive member of society. I focus primarily on the male because they tend to have more powerful drives or drive expressions, both libidinal and aggressive, and are more difficult to tame. Every infant demands instant gratification of all their needs. By adolescence, even the most intact families will often need help in controlling their teenager's burgeoning drives, and in order to make the transition into functioning adulthood, the young person will have needed to tame their drives, allow for and tolerate delayed gratification, and in the ideal case, to have sublimated their aggressive and sexual drives in the service of productive pursuits. Pathological narcissism interferes with the process of taming the instincts.

If the parents are emotionally unavailable or overtly neglectful or abusive, the children's need for nurturance is never adequately satisfied; they are forever in need of confirmation and admiration (emotional nurturing) from the environment. They require the environment to cater to their needs in order to make up for the missing nurturance they deserve (think of the word "entitlement"). On the other hand, infants who have the misfortune to have "perfect" parents, who attend to their every need and protect them from all hurts and disappointments, will never have the opportunity to develop ways to deal with the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of life. They are prone to become adults who have minimal resiliency in the face of reverses; as a result they constantly need the affirmation of the environment that protects their fragile self-esteem. In past posts, I have described the concept of the "good enough" mother, a concept from D. W. Winnicott which suggests we only need "good enough" parenting in order to develop into healthy adults. As a corollary, we also need our parents to be "bad enough" (HT: Robert Godwin), to allow us to find our way to dealing effectively with the vicissitudes of life. I will be pointing out in future posts how current trends in the Islamic world, in the West, and in the Islamic world within the West, tend to exacerbate the problem of insufficient emotional nurturing.

There is an extremely important implication of these parenting issues that forms the core of my argument.

Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West: Introduction

Western civilization based on Judeo-Christian values is at risk of collapse.  This may seem like a bit of alarmist hyperbole, but the evidence is mounting that the basic values upon which the great enterprise of Western civilization rests are under assault from within and without.  The invaluable Fjordman, who is closer to the immediate problem than I, wonders  Can Eurabia Still be Averted? and is fairly pessimistic that Europe can survive as a part of the civilized West:

Historian Bat Ye'or, who first coined the term "Eurabia", thinks that Europe's ties with the Arab-Islamic world are now so firmly entrenched and established that Eurabia is an irreversible fact. Europe will cease to be a Western, democratic continent, and will become an appendix to the Arab world, a civilization of dhimmitude employed to spread Jihad and further the cause of Islam on a global basis, while the original, non-Muslim population are held hostage in their own countries out of fear of Muslim violence. Do you think this is true, or can Eurabia still be reversed and Europe salvaged?

I must admit there are certain parts of Europe that do seem to be beyond hope, or very close to it. ALL of the largest Dutch cities are projected to have a Muslim majority within a generation, as will several English, French, Belgian, Scandinavian and Spanish cities. I forsee several possible scenarios.

The scenarios he proposes are uniformly distressing.  David Warren, writing on Sunday of the Apocalypse? is, if anything, even more pessimistic (Hat Tip: larwyn):

As the 20th century progressed, we saw two great ideological manifestations of an Atheism inconceivable to the European past -- respectively Communism, and Nazism. Together they committed horrors on such a scale, as to cause a partial recoil into belief. I’ve come to think the recovery of “traditional Christianity”, “family values”, the birth rate, and so forth -- phenomena we associate with the 1950s -- was only a response to that. At the core, Europe was mortally wounded, and the birth rates quickly fell again, to what they’d been in the 1920s and ’30s, and then lower still. The 1950s were, on this view, like the hesitation of the suicide on the brink. He shrinks for a moment, then makes his final leap.

Soon, the average age in Europe will be beyond childbearing. Among non-Muslim Europeans, in probably already is. We can no longer dream of a recovery. Europe has leapt. New immigrants are taking possession of the continent, transforming it, as in the "Dark Ages". Rome will be sacked again, in due course.

I would contend that what we are seeing, especially in Europe, is the natural history of Narcissism playing out on a wide stage; further, what is happening there is a cautionary tale for the American experiment.  This post is to be the first of a series examining the history of Narcissism, the ways in which the personal and the societal have interacted and continue to interact to worsen the problems that stem from the Narcissistic aggrandizement of the self, and offer some ideas on ways to lessen the impact of the societal illness so engendered.

They're Baaack: The 9/11 Omission is Back in the News

Pardon my cynicism, but isn't there something unseemly about the members of the 9/11 Omission, who somehow missed the Able Danger story and allowed Jamie Gorelick, the author of the very regulations that prevented the CIA from talking to the FBI, among other Omissions, forming a lobbying group and then complaining the US Government has been failing to do what they told them to do?

This sounds like they are hyping intelligence; maybe the Democrats should demand an investigation:

US 'failing to stem terror risk'
The US government is not doing enough to thwart attempts by terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons, members of the former 11 September inquiry have said.

The US must also improve its image abroad, damaged by reports of abuse of terror suspects, the group said.

It was reporting on the government's progress in meeting key recommendations made by the 9/11 commission last year on how to prevent new terror attacks.

The pressure group was formed after the 9/11 commission was disbanded.

Called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the bipartisan body consists of the same commissioners that investigated the 11 September attacks.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for the same group of people who refused to investigate the group that tried to warn us of 9/11, to now turn around and complain we aren't paying them enough attention. 

Beware of Scientists Bearing Statistics

The statistics in question occur in an article in the December issue of Scientific American (not yet available online), which arrived in my mail box this weekend. Among some fascinating articles on a new approach to modeling the event horizon of a black hole, and a seemingly revolutionary approach to reducing nuclear waste (by extracting the residual energy from nuclear fuel the problem of what to do with the waste practically solves itself) is an article by Robert Sapolsky, Sick of Poverty, which asserts that "new studies suggest that the stress of being poor has a staggeringly harmful influence on health."

The first clue that the article would require close reading was the lack of any identifying data for the author; usually Scientific American has a box labeled "The Author(s)" and describes who they are; this article had no such box. A google search revealed this, about author Robert Sapolsky:

Sapolsky, a neuroendocrinologist, has focused his research on issues of stress and neuron degeneration, as well as on the possibilities of gene therapy strategies for help in protecting susceptible neurons from disease.

I would suggest that this is a rather curious person to do a review of the literature on Socioeconomic status (SES) but I didn't really notice until I read through the article and discovered it is anything but a scientific paper; it is a political tract disguised as a social scientific review.

Revisiting "Lessons from Vietnam: The Credibility Gap"

Blogging will be light this weekend, but I would like to point your attention to a post from RedState.org today in which Nick Danger (Regnad Kcin for those of you who remember who he is) asks the question, Has the Press Jumped the Shark?  Nick reports on the results of a Pew survey of attitudes toward George Bush; this poll took place prior to the President's speech yesterday in which he, at very long last, began a concerted campaign (I hope) against the lies and distortions of his mediacrat critics who have been perpetuating the "Bush lied" canard.  According to the poll:

It seems that since the last time they asked this question, there has been a rather large shift among Republicans and Independents, away from "Fair" and towards "Unfair." The percentage of Republicans who think the press is fair to Bush has dropped in half... from 50% in July 2003 to 25% today. Almost two-thirds of Republicans, 63%, now say the press is "unfair" to Bush. 64% say the press is "too critical."

Democrats, of course, would like the press to be even more critical. 45% of Democrats think the press is "not critical enough." But Independents do not share this sentiment: the percentage of Independents who think the press is fair to Bush has dropped from 67 to 55, with the changers splitting about equally between "unfair" and "don't know."

As frequently happens with Pew polls, they accidentally contacted more Democrats than either Republicans or Independents; but even at that, 59% of their respondents were not Democrats. And it is these people who are beginning to see the press as increasingly unfair to Bush.

I am reluctant to say, "I told you so," but I did predict this back on September 19, 2005, in my post, Lessons from Vietnam: The Credibility Gap, and will re-post it today since it is still so relevant, with some current annotations in italics.

Lessons from Vietnam: The Credibility Gap

The MSM* was permanently changed by the Vietnam war and its aftermath, including the Watergate scandal and the Nixon impeachment. [As commenter Jon Ravin points out in the interest of accuracy, Nixon was never actually impeached, but resigned when his impeachment became inevitable. This correction was made at the time of the original post-SW] The experiences of that time explain much of the agenda journalism of the MSM today, but I would submit that they have not only forgotten the most crucial lesson from Vietnam, but their failure to remember will ultimately destroy them as a uniquely important and powerful force in our society.

First some history: