4 ms·

I’m starting to realize that we’ve always had highly narcissistic undertones in the narratives of Western society: * “You should aspire to be successful” * “Y

I’m starting to realize that we’ve always had highly narcissistic undertones in the narratives of Western society: * “You should aspire to be successful” * “You need to be beautiful” * “You won’t get what you want unless you are powerful” All of these statements share the same narcissistic attribute of requiring attention and validation from people whom you have no other connection to. This is deeply weird. Social media gives this narcissism a platform.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Wanting self-improvement isn't narcissism. Its the flaunting for status by actively advertising things.
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  I'd argue vying for fame is inherently narcissistic even if it is not as obvious as other behaviors.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
imbnwa 5y ago
I sometimes consider the notion that, socially, Western modernity was just reified feudalism: everybody's a lord now! Up until 30 - 40 years ago, men were regularly addressed as Mister/Herr/Signor/etc [insert name], titles which were originally reserved for landed gentry and royalty in their respective locales; it use to be said that a man's home "was his castle"; "Rights" were something that nobles worked out with the monarch, see the Magna Carta, not something meant for everybody, the peasantry in particular. Within The Federalist Papers it was still being debated whether it was a good idea to ennoble everyone, whether a democracy where everyone has a say was a good idea(which, then, meant the mass of unenslaved men); today, people colloquially refer to themselves as a "queen" or "king", also "boss". The presumption of a distinction is pivotal to Western subjectivity, again, particularly in America; "class distinction" is an ornament of the individual. Not saying, like Carl Schmitt, that we need to bring back actual, explicitly stratified distinction between the people and the people who make sovereign decisions, but that perhaps we need to reconsider the way we relate to ourselves in the form of some sort of socio-political mastery. Then again, this idea of the self as master is as old as Aristotle, but the ancient Greek polis was a whole political organization built for that idea.
- uniqueid 5y ago
  I sometimes consider the notion that, socially, Western modernity was just reified feudalism: everybody's a lord now! I figure historians of the future will view it like this: there were people in Europe who practiced feudalism domestically for several centuries. Eventually they developed the technology to outsource serfdom to the rest of the world. For most of my life, people in the 'third world' lived in barely imaginable poverty while the rest of the world walked off with oil, lumber, precious metals, gems, historical artifacts, slave labor, etc. I was well out of highschool before I appreciated the connection between the squalor elsewhere, and the four or five previous centuries of pillaging that contributed to it. That unpleasant state of affairs tempers my ability to feel triumphalist about 'first-world' nations ridding themselves of feudalism.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    If you're thinking that global poverty was invented by European exploitation, you're pretty severely overcorrecting. For most of history, the vast majority of people were even poorer than what we call "barely imaginable poverty" today.
    - uniqueid 5y ago
      That way of looking at things is mostly wrong, but it is a belief that suited the winners, so it is a wide-spread belief. I'm not keen to rebut it at much length because my previous comment already leaves the wrong impression: my point is less about the morality of the past few hundred years than the stupidity of the narrative we built around it. If I did expand on things, I'd list off the usual examples (Conquistadors and gold, Chinese opium trade, slaughter of native Americans, ad nauseum). I don't know how to make those points without sounding like I'm appealing to emotion. The actual point is that - though the Steven Pinkers and Hans Roslings might disagree - people subject to those conditions clearly are worse-off than before (and than today, compared to the nations who plundered them). To the original point of the thread, the colonial powers attained such obscene wealth (ie: by stealing gold, oil, farming cotton with slave labor, etc) that even the poorest among us, until the past decade, was rich compared to the rest of the world.
thewarrior 5y ago
Is it really true that wanting to be successful is just western culture?
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  I doubt it, but I'm not qualified to comment on anything other than Western culture, so I didn't. :)
- macrolocal 5y ago
  Probably not, but people in WEIRD cultures tend to disproportionately value impersonal social accomplishments, trust in institutions, individualism, self-enhancements, and confidence. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/joseph-henrich-explores-weird-societies/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/joseph-henric...

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

Wanting self-improvement isn't narcissism. Its the flaunting for status by actively advertising things.

mattgreenrocks 5y ago
I'd argue vying for fame is inherently narcissistic even if it is not as obvious as other behaviors.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

imbnwa 5y ago

I sometimes consider the notion that, socially, Western modernity was just reified feudalism: everybody's a lord now! Up until 30 - 40 years ago, men were regularly addressed as Mister/Herr/Signor/etc [insert name], titles which were originally reserved for landed gentry and royalty in their respective locales; it use to be said that a man's home "was his castle"; "Rights" were something that nobles worked out with the monarch, see the Magna Carta, not something meant for everybody, the peasantry in particular. Within The Federalist Papers it was still being debated whether it was a good idea to ennoble everyone, whether a democracy where everyone has a say was a good idea(which, then, meant the mass of unenslaved men); today, people colloquially refer to themselves as a "queen" or "king", also "boss". The presumption of a distinction is pivotal to Western subjectivity, again, particularly in America; "class distinction" is an ornament of the individual. Not saying, like Carl Schmitt, that we need to bring back actual, explicitly stratified distinction between the people and the people who make sovereign decisions, but that perhaps we need to reconsider the way we relate to ourselves in the form of some sort of socio-political mastery. Then again, this idea of the self as master is as old as Aristotle, but the ancient Greek polis was a whole political organization built for that idea.

uniqueid 5y ago
I sometimes consider the notion that, socially, Western modernity was just reified feudalism: everybody's a lord now! I figure historians of the future will view it like this: there were people in Europe who practiced feudalism domestically for several centuries. Eventually they developed the technology to outsource serfdom to the rest of the world. For most of my life, people in the 'third world' lived in barely imaginable poverty while the rest of the world walked off with oil, lumber, precious metals, gems, historical artifacts, slave labor, etc. I was well out of highschool before I appreciated the connection between the squalor elsewhere, and the four or five previous centuries of pillaging that contributed to it. That unpleasant state of affairs tempers my ability to feel triumphalist about 'first-world' nations ridding themselves of feudalism.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  If you're thinking that global poverty was invented by European exploitation, you're pretty severely overcorrecting. For most of history, the vast majority of people were even poorer than what we call "barely imaginable poverty" today.
  - uniqueid 5y ago
    That way of looking at things is mostly wrong, but it is a belief that suited the winners, so it is a wide-spread belief. I'm not keen to rebut it at much length because my previous comment already leaves the wrong impression: my point is less about the morality of the past few hundred years than the stupidity of the narrative we built around it. If I did expand on things, I'd list off the usual examples (Conquistadors and gold, Chinese opium trade, slaughter of native Americans, ad nauseum). I don't know how to make those points without sounding like I'm appealing to emotion. The actual point is that - though the Steven Pinkers and Hans Roslings might disagree - people subject to those conditions clearly are worse-off than before (and than today, compared to the nations who plundered them). To the original point of the thread, the colonial powers attained such obscene wealth (ie: by stealing gold, oil, farming cotton with slave labor, etc) that even the poorest among us, until the past decade, was rich compared to the rest of the world.

thewarrior 5y ago

Is it really true that wanting to be successful is just western culture?

mattgreenrocks 5y ago
I doubt it, but I'm not qualified to comment on anything other than Western culture, so I didn't. :)
macrolocal 5y ago
Probably not, but people in WEIRD cultures tend to disproportionately value impersonal social accomplishments, trust in institutions, individualism, self-enhancements, and confidence. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/joseph-henrich-explores-weird-societies/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/joseph-henric...