NARCISSISM IN WASHINGTON, DANGER IN THE WORLD
Approximately one percent of the population suffers from the serious character disorder of narcissism and many more people exhibit telling narcissistic traits. The self-absorbed, impulsive and contemptuous behavior of a narcissist represents one of the most corrosive challenges to any family or workplace. There are signs that narcissism may be the signature personality disorder of our time: fueled by media adulation, our sports, entertainment and political ‘stars’ are not only narcissistically rampant, but appear to be replicating across our culture, our economy and now noticeably in Washington.
Narcissism’s origins are sometimes attributed to the failure of a small child to make the transition from perceiving himself the sole center of his mother’s universe to being one of the several children in kindergarten between whom a teacher divides attention. When the toddler fails to adapt to being one member of a larger community, great misery can result not only for the resulting life-long narcissist but even more so for those around him or her. And yes, three-quarters of narcissists are men.
A narcissist believes he is invulnerable. His excessive need for approval creates rage and depression when the flattery he craves is not satisfied. He rarely listens to those around him and mostly cannot recall anything said in his presence unless it is affirming. Narcissists have such a distorted view of their place in the world that they are frequently in trouble with the law, engage in substance abuse, make insensitive parents and inflict a bewildering chaos on those whose lives they touch. Narcissists lack the capacity for empathy and thus are often contemptuous, cruel and critical. This interpersonal sadism is totally irrational, entirely self-motivated and almost impossible to treat. Narcissists can only be dealt with symptomatically: “So you do not sleep and you feel depressed?”, “You feel an emptiness?”, “You feel wounded and misunderstood?”, “You think people are attacking you?” Mental health professionals frequently state that narcissists are their most challenging clients: As soon as the “N-word” is mentioned, most of them are never again seen in therapy.
As a film producer, I’ve had stressful, demeaning and oftentimes quietly hilarious experiences with true narcissists. I once worked with a star, a legend in his own mind, who would not act if anyone on the set was wearing green. I worked with another who arrived an hour late every day, reared up on the back wheel of his gigantic motorbike. And with an executive who, on a very hot and humid day, obliviously leaned over to the oscillating table fan and pressed the button so that it would point only at him. We can laugh discreetly at the model who is so proud of her hobby: taking pictures of herself in mirrors and at the one who said what she loved best about being pregnant was that “everyone paid me so much attention”. Studies of Acquired Situational Narcissism by Robert Millman, Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School have demonstrated that in pop-culture saturated America, the narcissism latent in some individuals can dominate their lives when a tidal wave of celebrity perks, irrational adulation and fawning acolytes suddenly falls on swelling heads courtesy of our fame-obsessed media.
Luckily, in our personal lives and in the pages of the tabloids we don’t meet narcissists with the power of life or death over others, nor with the ability to send powerful military forces to impose their will. We rarely see the grandiose personal fantasies of an average narcissist threaten very large numbers of people. Most everyday narcissists don’t possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. But when narcissism does inhabit the most senior leadership of a world power, its corrosive effects are felt among the whole family of nations.
The United States in the last four years has entirely squandered the empathy most of the world felt for us immediately after 9-11. Right after those appalling events, the French Foreign Minister proclaimed “Today we are all American”. Possibly never before in history has so warm a relationship between nations been so quickly reduced to hostility, belligerence and ostracism. And just like the classic narcissist, we strut ever onwards, oblivious to jaws dropped around the world by those who used to be our friends and colleagues.
It was not only the Republicans who voted for a pre-emptive war, but many of the Democrats in Congress alongside them. Our willful refusal to have the patience to harness the United Nations in sorting out Saddam Hussein was not a party political decision…. no, this huge mistake – one of the biggest in the last hundred years of government - was made on both sides of the aisle. Our intelligence was faulty and we sent a good man to the U.N. to trumpet it in all its error…. But even given the CIA debacle, we still could have empowered the United Nations to take out the tyrant: when we cut off discussion by invading Iraq, the French were down to asking for only a couple of months of ultimatum before they would support joint U.N. military intervention. But we didn’t and still don’t like those blue helmets. Pity the poor boys and girls who wear our helmets now. It is lonely as well as deadly over there: we’ve lost 2000 plus troops and perhaps 15 times that number of Iraqi civilians are dead. And how many troops and bystanders have been maimed?
The United States has tried to impose its will by force, with a tell-tale narcissistic lack of long-term planning and with a seeming lack of interest in understanding the complex realities it seeks to change. Through the skillful use of fear and with the help of a mostly hypnotized media, the narcissists’ manipulative skills were seen in the sudden replacement of the uncatchable bin Laden by Saddam as our preferred single enemy. Now that the core rationale of this particular Middle East adventure has been proven false, we witness the narcissist’s deliberately sown verbal confusion, his lack of remorse or guilt, his failure to accept responsibility and a colossal sense of authoritarian entitlement: we are America, therefore it is to be expected that we will impose our will on the rest of the world.
Pax Americana was the stated goal (in exactly those words) in the year 2000 manifesto Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Permanent military bases should be placed throughout the world and up in space to impose U.S. hegemony and maximize our commercial and political interests. A narcissist often helpfully publishes his plans far in advance: for him it’s the truth, so why not? Mein Kampf came out in 1925. When one is so sure of being right, like the Crusaders, any amount of blood can be justified on the way to the Holy Land. Only the ends matter…and God will forgive the means.
With the obliviousness of the narcissistic bully this entitlement has led us into a naïve attempt to change the world without the courtesy of first trying to understand it. The widespread rage and bewilderment in Europe among our erstwhile allies runs parallel to the shock and horror which greet the narcissist’s grandiose fantasies, cruelty and lack of empathy in an individual family unit. The social isolation we increasingly feel as our plans go awry has no effect on us…. we do not bother to listen and we are so sure we are right that those who disagree must be unpatriotic or just plain stupid.
We kick carelessly through international treaties and shared long-term common purpose… Kyoto, the ABM Treaty with Russia, the vetoed U.S. support of a World Court to try war crimes…without realizing that the previously admired American Cowboy looks awfully destructive if he lies, if he fails to listen, if he misuses his position to feed self-entitlement and if he exhibits the self-same amoral lack of conscience of a classic narcissist. As Hitler wrote “In the size of the lie there is always contained a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a great lie than to a small one”.
One has to wonder what further incursion could have been made in the last three years against the verifiable risks of growing terrorism if we had deployed the same resources of money, of materiel, and most of all of thousands of human lives to attacking the terrorists themselves rather than Saddam’s despicable regime, one of many despicable regimes in the world who represent little threat to the United States and which had no serious link to the forces of evil which really should scare us. Smoke and mirrors and hypnotic delusion. And if, as we now know, there was zero Al Quaeda presence in Iraq before the war, there sure is now: we’ve lit a blazing beacon for those who hate us.
Meanwhile, a secretive authoritarianism at home, hallmark of the individual narcissist, seeks to roll back some important threads of the very fabric of our laws, our privacy, our Constitution and hundreds of years of checks and balances for a runaway narcissistic political fantasy. Freud wrote of “The Exceptions”, those who feel “entitled to live outside the limitations that apply to ordinary people”. Through what Freud termed Projection, the individual deals with internal conflict and stress by “falsely attributing to another his own unacceptable feelings, impulses or thoughts”. Think of the Swift Boat campaign and of those elephantine flip-flops: It’s bin Laden, no it’s Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, no it’s democracy, no it’s nation – building: we were so opposed to that ten minutes ago, weren’t we? We need neither a Department of Homeland Security, nor a 9 – 11 Commission, but then we need both. We do/don’t/do like Chalabi, do/don’t/do work with Baathists, don’t/do need more troops or money to finish the job. And we do/don’t want CO2 limits and for sure we either do or don’t want to leave gay marriage to the States. So let’s follow Freud and project our own indecisiveness elsewhere. This particular bird-brained flu can be seen on both sides of the aisle: knee-jerk, polarized finger-pointing has paralyzed responsible government.
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and to denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” When Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering uttered these words at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, he spoke on behalf of a defeated, vicious narcissistic regime which was so sure of the truth and virtue in its lies that it almost brought down the world.
While they wreak their havoc on others, bullies of every stripe are sad sacks inside. Cry for America and cry for the world.
Narcissism’s origins are sometimes attributed to the failure of a small child to make the transition from perceiving himself the sole center of his mother’s universe to being one of the several children in kindergarten between whom a teacher divides attention. When the toddler fails to adapt to being one member of a larger community, great misery can result not only for the resulting life-long narcissist but even more so for those around him or her. And yes, three-quarters of narcissists are men.
A narcissist believes he is invulnerable. His excessive need for approval creates rage and depression when the flattery he craves is not satisfied. He rarely listens to those around him and mostly cannot recall anything said in his presence unless it is affirming. Narcissists have such a distorted view of their place in the world that they are frequently in trouble with the law, engage in substance abuse, make insensitive parents and inflict a bewildering chaos on those whose lives they touch. Narcissists lack the capacity for empathy and thus are often contemptuous, cruel and critical. This interpersonal sadism is totally irrational, entirely self-motivated and almost impossible to treat. Narcissists can only be dealt with symptomatically: “So you do not sleep and you feel depressed?”, “You feel an emptiness?”, “You feel wounded and misunderstood?”, “You think people are attacking you?” Mental health professionals frequently state that narcissists are their most challenging clients: As soon as the “N-word” is mentioned, most of them are never again seen in therapy.
As a film producer, I’ve had stressful, demeaning and oftentimes quietly hilarious experiences with true narcissists. I once worked with a star, a legend in his own mind, who would not act if anyone on the set was wearing green. I worked with another who arrived an hour late every day, reared up on the back wheel of his gigantic motorbike. And with an executive who, on a very hot and humid day, obliviously leaned over to the oscillating table fan and pressed the button so that it would point only at him. We can laugh discreetly at the model who is so proud of her hobby: taking pictures of herself in mirrors and at the one who said what she loved best about being pregnant was that “everyone paid me so much attention”. Studies of Acquired Situational Narcissism by Robert Millman, Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School have demonstrated that in pop-culture saturated America, the narcissism latent in some individuals can dominate their lives when a tidal wave of celebrity perks, irrational adulation and fawning acolytes suddenly falls on swelling heads courtesy of our fame-obsessed media.
Luckily, in our personal lives and in the pages of the tabloids we don’t meet narcissists with the power of life or death over others, nor with the ability to send powerful military forces to impose their will. We rarely see the grandiose personal fantasies of an average narcissist threaten very large numbers of people. Most everyday narcissists don’t possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. But when narcissism does inhabit the most senior leadership of a world power, its corrosive effects are felt among the whole family of nations.
The United States in the last four years has entirely squandered the empathy most of the world felt for us immediately after 9-11. Right after those appalling events, the French Foreign Minister proclaimed “Today we are all American”. Possibly never before in history has so warm a relationship between nations been so quickly reduced to hostility, belligerence and ostracism. And just like the classic narcissist, we strut ever onwards, oblivious to jaws dropped around the world by those who used to be our friends and colleagues.
It was not only the Republicans who voted for a pre-emptive war, but many of the Democrats in Congress alongside them. Our willful refusal to have the patience to harness the United Nations in sorting out Saddam Hussein was not a party political decision…. no, this huge mistake – one of the biggest in the last hundred years of government - was made on both sides of the aisle. Our intelligence was faulty and we sent a good man to the U.N. to trumpet it in all its error…. But even given the CIA debacle, we still could have empowered the United Nations to take out the tyrant: when we cut off discussion by invading Iraq, the French were down to asking for only a couple of months of ultimatum before they would support joint U.N. military intervention. But we didn’t and still don’t like those blue helmets. Pity the poor boys and girls who wear our helmets now. It is lonely as well as deadly over there: we’ve lost 2000 plus troops and perhaps 15 times that number of Iraqi civilians are dead. And how many troops and bystanders have been maimed?
The United States has tried to impose its will by force, with a tell-tale narcissistic lack of long-term planning and with a seeming lack of interest in understanding the complex realities it seeks to change. Through the skillful use of fear and with the help of a mostly hypnotized media, the narcissists’ manipulative skills were seen in the sudden replacement of the uncatchable bin Laden by Saddam as our preferred single enemy. Now that the core rationale of this particular Middle East adventure has been proven false, we witness the narcissist’s deliberately sown verbal confusion, his lack of remorse or guilt, his failure to accept responsibility and a colossal sense of authoritarian entitlement: we are America, therefore it is to be expected that we will impose our will on the rest of the world.
Pax Americana was the stated goal (in exactly those words) in the year 2000 manifesto Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Permanent military bases should be placed throughout the world and up in space to impose U.S. hegemony and maximize our commercial and political interests. A narcissist often helpfully publishes his plans far in advance: for him it’s the truth, so why not? Mein Kampf came out in 1925. When one is so sure of being right, like the Crusaders, any amount of blood can be justified on the way to the Holy Land. Only the ends matter…and God will forgive the means.
With the obliviousness of the narcissistic bully this entitlement has led us into a naïve attempt to change the world without the courtesy of first trying to understand it. The widespread rage and bewilderment in Europe among our erstwhile allies runs parallel to the shock and horror which greet the narcissist’s grandiose fantasies, cruelty and lack of empathy in an individual family unit. The social isolation we increasingly feel as our plans go awry has no effect on us…. we do not bother to listen and we are so sure we are right that those who disagree must be unpatriotic or just plain stupid.
We kick carelessly through international treaties and shared long-term common purpose… Kyoto, the ABM Treaty with Russia, the vetoed U.S. support of a World Court to try war crimes…without realizing that the previously admired American Cowboy looks awfully destructive if he lies, if he fails to listen, if he misuses his position to feed self-entitlement and if he exhibits the self-same amoral lack of conscience of a classic narcissist. As Hitler wrote “In the size of the lie there is always contained a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a great lie than to a small one”.
One has to wonder what further incursion could have been made in the last three years against the verifiable risks of growing terrorism if we had deployed the same resources of money, of materiel, and most of all of thousands of human lives to attacking the terrorists themselves rather than Saddam’s despicable regime, one of many despicable regimes in the world who represent little threat to the United States and which had no serious link to the forces of evil which really should scare us. Smoke and mirrors and hypnotic delusion. And if, as we now know, there was zero Al Quaeda presence in Iraq before the war, there sure is now: we’ve lit a blazing beacon for those who hate us.
Meanwhile, a secretive authoritarianism at home, hallmark of the individual narcissist, seeks to roll back some important threads of the very fabric of our laws, our privacy, our Constitution and hundreds of years of checks and balances for a runaway narcissistic political fantasy. Freud wrote of “The Exceptions”, those who feel “entitled to live outside the limitations that apply to ordinary people”. Through what Freud termed Projection, the individual deals with internal conflict and stress by “falsely attributing to another his own unacceptable feelings, impulses or thoughts”. Think of the Swift Boat campaign and of those elephantine flip-flops: It’s bin Laden, no it’s Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, no it’s democracy, no it’s nation – building: we were so opposed to that ten minutes ago, weren’t we? We need neither a Department of Homeland Security, nor a 9 – 11 Commission, but then we need both. We do/don’t/do like Chalabi, do/don’t/do work with Baathists, don’t/do need more troops or money to finish the job. And we do/don’t want CO2 limits and for sure we either do or don’t want to leave gay marriage to the States. So let’s follow Freud and project our own indecisiveness elsewhere. This particular bird-brained flu can be seen on both sides of the aisle: knee-jerk, polarized finger-pointing has paralyzed responsible government.
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and to denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” When Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering uttered these words at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, he spoke on behalf of a defeated, vicious narcissistic regime which was so sure of the truth and virtue in its lies that it almost brought down the world.
While they wreak their havoc on others, bullies of every stripe are sad sacks inside. Cry for America and cry for the world.
posted by Peter Samuelson at
10:34 AM
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