ShrinkWrapped

The Rising Tide of Narcissism

A number of readers sent me links to reports of a new study about the rising tide of Narcissism among the offspring of the baby boomers, who wrote some of the major chapters on Narcissism:

Study finds rising narcissism, self-centeredness among college students

Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You’re special' and having children repeat that back," said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."

Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a link to the actual study, which may not have been published yet.  Nonetheless, there are a number of important points that can be made about the study, based on the description of the study instrument, the reporting of the study, and the words of the authors. 

Iran and the Core

Iran is never far from the thoughts of people who are concerned about the future. It remains the state sponsor of some of the most effective terrorist groups in the world and has been threatening to destroy both the Great Satan (America) and the Little Satan (Israel) since the theocratic revolution of 1979.

There are some who propose that we tolerate Iran gaining nuclear capabilities; they suggest containment worked during the last cold war and would work just as well with Iran. Unfortunately, the people most in need of reassurance that such an outcome would be tolerable are behaving in ways which suggest that such reassurances are unlikely to be persuasive. The Sunni Arab states in the Gulf have been on a shopping spree, grabbing up an assortment of military weaponry to direct against their Persian Shia foes. Furthermore, such stable and responsible nations as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have all made loud noises about revving up their own nuclear programs (and lower volume noises about gaining access to the already extant Sunni bomb in Pakistan.) Not to mention Israel, which tends to react with some anxiety to genocidal threats.

There remains a window of opportunity for the world to avoid the worst possible future scenarios. Iran does not yet have a bomb and their technical stumbles offer some reason for believing that their ability to actually master the Uranium enrichment cycle is still questionable. At the same time, past examples of nations surprising the West with their unexpected progress toward the bomb (India, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq in 1991) give reason for concern and raise serious questions about how much time we have to work with.

As readers here know, I am a fan of Tom Barnett and believe he is absolutely onto something important when he suggest that the most crucial strategic goal for America should be to enlarge the core and shrink the gap. Tom believes that the recent signs that the conservative Mullahs are reigning in Ahmadinejad suggest they may be more willing to deal than we credit them. He believes a deal is possible:

The Bell Curve and Social Stability

Last month Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, wrote a series of provocative articles in the Wall Street Journal decrying our relative ignorance of the importance of the role that native intelligence plays in our ability to maintain a highly complex, modern society.  He wrote specifically about the poor fit between those whose IQ is below the 75-85% mark and four year colleges.  He suggested we should focus much more on vocational training for those whose IQ, interests, or aptitudes are inimical to obtaining a four year college education (not a degree, which has been devalued by the need for colleges to reward their consumers in order to keep the funds flowing).  He also suggested in the last article that the "gifted" should be challenged more and taught a sense of responsibility to those who are less well equipped to run our complex society.

He correctly anticipated that his arguments would meet with some resistance from those who believe that equality means that we must deny differences between individuals.  His arguments are also amenable to dissenting views as to what constitutes intelligence.

In particular, Arnold Kling and Claude M. Steele have written essays that attempt to address the questions around intelligence.  There are many others who have attempted to address intelligence, usually in an attempt to explain or minimize the possibility of intelligence being constitutional and relatively immutable.  For the purposes of my discussion, these distinctions do not matter.

I would suggest that in any society, technological progress depends on an extremely small percentage of extremely talented people (1/2%, perhaps?); they are supported by a larger, though still quite small, group of talented people who can apply and expand on the genius of the very few (another 2-5%?); in turn,there is a larger cohort, perhaps 15-25% of the population who have the requisite abilities to work the levers of the complex machinery that supports our incredibly complex society.  How societies manage the inequalities that spring from such unequal abilities seems to me to be a key factor in sustaining a stable, highly dynamic, society.

[NB-My numbers are mere guesses but are reflective of the underlying dynamic of the intelligence bell curve.]

Abortion on Demand: Reverberations and Vicissitudes (Part IV)

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Mothers and Fathers: When Does Life Begin?

Part III: Children of Choice

Susan, a Child of Choices

Susan L was in her mid-20s when she came to me for a consultation, referred by a colleague for Psychoanalysis. She was an attractive, extremely bright young woman who defiantly announced at our first meeting that she was an ardent feminist, didn’t think much of Psychoanalysis with its phallocentric bias, and was only coming for analysis because her family and her therapist thought it was necessary. She was skeptical but willing to try it, especially because she did, in fact, have some concerns about herself.

Susan was the younger of two children of a highly successful, though remote, father, and a brittle, beautiful, self involved mother. She had been unfavorably compared to her mother in subtle ways throughout her life, with her mother making it a point to comment on how thin she (the mother) was compared to how chunky Susan was. Susan had been quite successful in college but had difficulty in her jobs; she tended to get caught up in power struggles with her bosses, especially her male bosses, and she had recently been fired from a "dream" job because of her contentious behavior.

Needless to say, the early part of Susan’s Psychoanalysis was difficult.

Abortion on Demand: Reverberations and Vicissitudes (Part III)

Children of Choice

In Part I of this series, I described some of the historical developments that made the legalization of abortion on demand compelling. The advent of a large cohort of baby boomers, raised with heightened narcissism, along with the widespread use of birth control and anti-biotics which made "free love" a seemingly risk free development, combined to create a Zeitgeist in which the needs of the individual were thought to trump the unvoiced needs of the unborn.

In Part II I described the insidious effect that abortion has on the women and men who took part in elective abortions. Psychologically, a pregnancy is a baby; a great deal of psychological work has been required to defend against this awareness. Splitting and intellectualization were prominent parts of this process and have an impact on the individual long after the aborted child has been destroyed.

Today I would like to tackle the most problematic aspect of abortion on demand, its effect on the generations of children who have grown up in its shadow.

First, a disclaimer:  In this and previous posts, my interest has been on the psychic reality of abortion. I am not interested in disguising what abortion means or disguising the fact that a pregnancy involves a new life. Arguments that a first or second trimester fetus is incompatible with life outside the womb are irrelevant to the fact that such a pregnancy is already a partial person who in the course of nine months becomes a new individual. Discussions about the morality of abortion or weighing the rights of the woman against the rights of the unborn child are also irrelevant to this discussion, though clearly relevant to the legal questions involved in abortion. The circle that must be squared by those who are pro-choice is to come to grips with the myriad conflicts inherent in supporting an act which ends a life.

Saying Whatever Comes to Mind XXVII

The Sanity Squad is at it again, with learned commentary on history and current events, sparked by President's Day.  Pajamas Media has upgraded their site and you can now listen directly by clicking on the bar: Sanity Squad: The Presidents.

The comparisons of Lincoln and Bush are thought provoking; I would submit that we will not know if Bush will have been found to be a disaster or a great President for many, many years.  Beware of premature closure. 

Join Neo-neocon, Dr. Sanity, Siggy, and me for an enlightening discussion.

Abortion on Demand: Reverberations and Vicissitudes (Part II)

Part I: Introduction

Mothers and Fathers: When Does Life Begin?

For a couple who desire a child, life begins before conception. A couple trying to become pregnant find that each month, if the woman has her menses, there is a small feeling of loss; the hoped for and already loved child has not appeared. When, finally, the woman determines she is pregnant, often responding to barely conscious and unconscious bodily signals that herald the changes taking place within, the child begins to take on a reality, a life of its own. By the time of "quickening", typically in the fourth month or thereabouts, the child is already a baby in the minds of the parents. There is no question that wanted children are psychologically already babies from very early in the sequence. Furthermore, a wanted child is the repository of all that is best in the couple. They imbue the soon-to-be infant with all sorts of possibilities and qualities. Most first time parents have significant anxiety over their ability to parent and raise a child, but there is no question that from the moment of the positive EPT, reinforced each step of the way (heartbeat, sonograms, movement), the woman is carrying a person, not a fetus, and not a clump of cells.

Contrast this with an unwanted pregnancy. The language and the psychological processes couldn’t be more different. The future abortion is dehumanized from the start. It is a clump of cells or a fetus. It is the repository of all that is rejected and ambivalent in the parents.

Our society’s response to abortion is an almost direct reflection of the psychological process of splitting.

Abortion on Demand: Reverberations and Vicissitudes (Part I)

Introduction

In 1973 the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade short-circuited the legislative process and, more importantly, the national conversation, and legalized Abortion on Demand. I believe the Court was acting out of a changing cultural milieu that encouraged just such a decision at the same time as it created conditions which have left the decision as a source of powerful passions unencumbered by reason. Abortion on Demand is one of the critical divides between the left and the right, between religious and non-religious, traditional and non-traditional; we may well be closing in on the time when the original decision will be re-examined and I thought it would be worthwhile to explore some of the Psychological issues that are inextricably involved in Abortion, consider how these issues have been expressed within our culture and society, and how a re-examination of Abortion may help or hinder the reconciliation of our cultural "split" psyche.

A cursory search of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association via the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing site (available by subscription only) which covers the premier Journal of American Psychoanalysis from 1953 -2003, revealed only 48 citations for "Psychoanalysis AND Abortion". In contrast, there were ~450 citations for "Pregnancy OR Pregnant AND Psychoanalysis" and a search for "Children AND Psychoanalysis" led to too many citations to list. It is no surprise that Psychoanalysis would be so concerned with Childhood and with Pregnancy, after all these are critical developmental milestones in people's lives, but the relative dearth of articles exploring the meaning of Abortion, despite the very high percentage of patients who have been touched by abortion in one way or another, is quite striking. I believe that, among other reasons, this reflects a probably unconscious decision among Psychoanalysts to avoid the topic for reasons that I will suggest as this series develops. Prominent among the reasons would be a sense that discussing Abortion has always been extremely likely to evoke and provoke extreme reactions. Abortion is such a charged issue that reason is rarely a part of the discussion. In some ways this would make it an ideal subject for Psychoanalytic exploration, but in reality, for political reasons, most Psychoanalysts have avoided the issue.

"Field of Dreams" Diplomacy

In Kevin Costner's last decent movie, Field of Dreams, the story was encapsulated by the repeated quote, "If you build it, he will come."  This seems to be the same fantasy underlying diplomacy in the Middle East.  Unfortunately the Middle East is film noir to the Field of Dreams fantasy wish-fulfillment.

According to the New York Times, Condoleeza Rice is committed to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together around a Peace Table, Rice Tries to Hold Together Plan for Mideast Talks:

“I’m committed to this,” Ms. Rice told reporters at the end of a day of preparatory meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials. “As long as I’m secretary of state, that’s what I’m going to do.”

The new talks — the first such negotiations in six years — are set for Monday. Ms. Rice will act as host for the meeting with Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel at her hotel in Jerusalem.

The article is accompanied by the usual photos of smiling politicians we have all grown so fond of over the years.  It includes various half-truths and shared-fantasy formations, along with some harsh realities which intrude [Emphasis mine-SW]:

History Repeats

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Karl Marx

This morning, on Fox News Sunday, during the course of discussion by the panel about the recent Congressional debates over Vietnam, er Iraq, Chris Wallace played a clip of John Murtha opining that once American troops are out of Iraq, peace will descend upon that Nation and al Qaeda will disappear.   The following exchange took place:

Britt Hume:  That sound bite suggests that he is long past his days when he had the foggiest awareness of whats going on in the world.

Juan Williams: But he's Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and will have a lot to say.

Britt Hume:  And a lot of it will be "dotty"!

Juan Williams: Well, we're in a Democratic process and not everybody is as smart as you are, but you know what?  He's going to have a voe, a voi, a vote and a voice and a lot of people identify with what he's saying.

Perhaps Juan Williams was unconsciously channeling former Senator Roman Hruska during the debate over Richard Nixon's nomination of  G. Harrold Carswell of Florida to the Supreme Court.  Upon being informed that Carswell was a "mediocre"  Court of Appeals judge on the Fifth Circuit and had been reversed an outrageous 58 percent of the time during his years in his prior position as a federal district court judge, Hruska made his famous comment:

“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers,” Hruska told reporters outside the Senate chamber. “They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there.”

Since Carswell was defeated, perhaps in the current setting, we need to amend Marx's comment:

History repeats itself, first as farce, second as tragedy.