MY COMMENTARY ON PROFESSOR SAM VAKNIN’S VIDEO
The words “narcissist” and “narcissism” have been taglines for some time now. It welded its ugly head in the late 1990’s and over the past 2 decades has gotten a hot spot in the current dialogue around personality disorders. Words like narcissistic psychopath, narcissistic sociopath and pure evil 😈have been ascribed to this personality disorder. The number of articles, videos, books, self-help groups and even self-aware narcissists that focus on the nature of, the qualities of, the downfall of and a host of other topics, have made “narcissism and narcissists” mainstream. Today’s social media apps are writhe with Narcissists and the people they injure. Here, they have an opportunity to garnish themselves with praises from strangers one the one hand, while on the other hand, their victims commandeer center stage, vying for just as much attention.
In Greek mythology, Narcissus (/nɑːrˈsɪsəs/; Greek: Νάρκισσος, Nárkissos) was a hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty. He was the son of the river god Cephissus and nymph Liriope. He was proud, in that he disdained those who loved him. Nemesis noticed this behavior and attracted Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus lost his will to live. He stared at his reflection until he died. Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself and one's physical appearance and/or public perception.
People have been diagnosing family members, friends, associates, bosses and even the gardener as narcissists. They’ve changed the DSM-5-TR 2022 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) from previous iterations to expand even further on the various personality traits that may have someone diagnosed with this personality disorder. Please, let’s not go into a tailspin about the history of the profession of Psychiatry, Lord Have Mercy, that would take me on a whole other tangent. So let’s suffice it to say that the following lists of “symptoms” might have most of us if not all of us wondering if we may in fact be a narcissist ourselves.
To name just a few: entitled, grandiose notions, exploitation, compulsive, criticism and disapproval, blaming others, abuse, reckless behavior, depressive, unstable, primordial confabulation, fantasies, superiority.
“Due to the vastness of the internet, it's impossible to accurately count the exact number of articles on narcissism, but there are likely thousands, if not millions of articles available across various websites, blogs, and online publications, covering different aspects of narcissism, from clinical definitions to personal experiences and societal impacts.” Generative AI is experimental.
Suffice it to say, that we, especially in the Western world have been inundated with all manner of examples of the what, where, how and why people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder bespeckle our reality in every nook and cranny of our very existence. We are searching the internet for more and more information about them and how we can eradicate them from our lives and our immediate environment.
They are the cause for weight loss, weight gain, low self-esteem, nightmares, familial dysfunction, disease and climate change. They are the purveyors of war, pestilence, atrocities, famine, and solar flares. They are relentless in their attempts to extract our very substance and feed off our red blood cells. We have to avoid their vampiric adulations as they only want more and more supply of our light energy. Thousands upon thousands of wounded souls recount with great mental anguish the pain and destruction these vipers have caused in their lives. Narcissists want to darken the light of every empathic soul. They want to make carbon copies of themselves that’s why they turn every empathic, compassionate, loving, caring being into a toxic wreck of human expression.
THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY UNABLE TO BE REFORMED BECAUSE THERE IS NO HOPE THAT THEY CAN EVER, EVER BE CURED.
In the final analysis, Narcissists are bad witches, an existential threat to the entire world and should be summarily banished to the highest mountain top with no access to food, water or shelter until they all die off. If drastic measures are not taken then these vipers will reproduce like a virus and spread their venom for generations to come. They must be eradicated, perhaps sent in a space capsule to Mars or some other desolate planet, should the highest mountain fail to eliminate them. All in all, in order for the Utopia this world has been crying for since Adam fell to the enchantments of Eve in the Garden of Eden, narcissists must not be allowed to exist! Period!
All jokes aside, as a Mental Health Professional myself, I am a little miffed by all the uproar over “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” and the claims that go with it. I think that to give them this much attention is to give them even more power over us. I think it’s best to ignore them, radically accept that they do not bring harmony into our lives and then search within ourselves and ask why we attracted such individuals to begin with. They are actually the shadow of our own personality. They are the ones who challenge us to face our own demons, lies, masks and falsehoods we hold dear. They are there to make “us” look into the mirror at our own predations and change ourselves. The less time we spend pointing fingers at them, sharing videos about them, pointing out their ineptitudes, screaming at them, “you’re a Narcissist!”, the less we empower them. We cannot know the light until we know the dark. And it is the darkness within each and every one of us, that they personify. It is totally disingenuous to claim that they are after our light, when in fact they feed off our darkness.
CONCLUSION
I must also say, that I do understand Professor Vaknin’s perspective. With all that uproar against these individuals, why oh why, would people knowingly put such individuals in the position of power over their very lives. Surely there is a serious cognitive dissonance going on here. He seems to be utterly baffled by the fact that the same people who denigrated the Narcissists, are now applauding, forgiving, supporting and even admiring them.
He states:
Accomplished, super-rich, super powerful narcissists have the right to be grandiose and abuse other people. They are forgiven because of their alleged or real contributions to society. Their grandiosity is not fantastic because it is grounded in real life achievements. They are perceived as benevolent and protective.
There is an obvious disconnect happening here. The masses are in lock-step validating the role that Donald Trump and Elon Musk play (and of course a host of other billionaires) in our society. They are in lock-step scurrying around to keep their continuity of thought when previously they were heralding the utter demise of anyone presenting these traits. In fact, they could not tolerate such characters in their personal lives. “Actually it’s really only an interesting psychological phenomenon.”
For some reason, human beings tend to overlook the foibles of their SUPERHEROES. I think that happens because in reality, humans want to be SUPERHEROES themselves, but feel so dis-empowered that they project what they think is power onto the object of their affection. Instead of empowering themselves or their leaders, they render a disservice to both.
Superheroes and the Group Mind
In college back in the 70's my major was Sociology. During that time there were several changes happening on the landscape of the entire world. The 60's & 70's brought in the assassination of several leaders in the US, Apartheid was being exposed to the world, and words like "urban blight", "racism", "inequality" "LSD", the "War on Drugs", "urban unrest…
Link to Professor Sam Vaknin’s Work: https://samvak.tripod.com/ Sam Vaknin
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