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What collective narcissism does to society
- pald 5y agoOh there is a cure for narcissism and group narcissim. A good ass kicking.
- tux3 5y agoPsychology as a discipline might recommend just a little bit more nuance.
- bsanr 5y agoProbably found in the difference between being humiliated and being humbled. https://praveshkoirala.com/2021/11/03/combating-disinformation-with-humility/ https://praveshkoirala.com/2021/11/03/combating-disinformati... https://harpers.org/archive/2021/10/put-on-the-diamonds-notes-on-humiliation-vivian-gornick/ https://harpers.org/archive/2021/10/put-on-the-diamonds-note... (Both previously posted on HN.)
- asguy 5y agoWhat about the rise in mental health problems alongside the rise in the acceptance of modern psychology? Correlation? Causation? Viktor Frankl might have been on to something with his change in approach.
- watwut 5y agoMental health problems existed before modern psychology. Moder psychology gave them names, catalogized them and so on. No one could be diagnosed with bipolar disorder before the term existed. That does not mean such people did not existed before.
- asguy 5y agoDo you think there are more people with “mental health problems” before or after the advent of “modern psychology”? To be clear: do you think the practice is helping or hurting?
- YokoZar 5y agoGiven that narcissism is fueled by past trauma and by beliefs of having greatness being unrecognized, that sounds like the exact opposite of helpful.
- logicprojects 5y agohttps://archive.md/mNK3o https://archive.md/mNK3o
- Barrin92 5y agoAlthough the article makes an explicit distinction between tribalism and group narcissism it's not clear to me what it is or why the latter deserves to be treated like a distinct phenomenon. In particular given the example of Portuguese people who have antagonistic reactions to Germany in the EU. Seems to me the pretty straightforward explanation is material/political. There is conflict of interest within an institution for power, and if anything the psychological narcissism is at best an epiphenomenon. It doesn't seem irrational. Instead of trying to get people to 'unlearn' their behaviour it seems like the more straightforward way is to resolve the conflict by devolving power or something. Same with the other example of US polarization. There is real material interests underpinning the groupings.
- wpietri 5y agoSorry, but I'm not getting why you're not getting the distinction. It seems pretty obvious to me. Most individuals display self-interest, material and otherwise. But most individuals aren't narcissists; they lack the grandiosity, the entitlement, the monopolization of conversation, etc. [1] You can look at a similar difference between groups. E.g., to me as an American, Canada is not my "tribe". I might believe that each group has different strengths, and I might be quite happy to stay an American. That's perfectly normal. Indeed, having lived abroad a few times, those periods in some ways sharpened my sense of American identity. In contrast, look at the American Confederacy. There's a ton of material on their grandiosity and entitlement, but the most obvious piece of evidence is their own Vice-President describing what the heart of their project was: "our new government['s] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." [2] In my opinion, that's bonkers. To make one's own identity and purpose so deeply based in the inferiority of another group is fucking deranged. Now was their real material interest underpinning that? Sure. If they didn't get to treat humans like livestock, the Southern aristocrats might actually have had to work for a living. God forbid they have to live by the sweat of their brows like everybody else. So their narcissistic derangement was adaptive in some sense. But that doesn't make it less diagnose; individual narcissism is also often adaptive in that sense. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech
- bsanr 5y ago>She began to notice something that looked a lot like what the 20th-century scholars Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm had referred to as “group narcissism”: Golec de Zavala defined it to me as “a belief that the exaggerated greatness of one’s group is not sufficiently recognized by others,” in which that thirst for recognition is never satiated. As an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfaUDh42bRs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfaUDh42bRs I believe this was shortly after NYPD officers had brawled with protestors and an NYPD SUV had driven into a crowd of protestors. EDIT: This one's more succinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQmdKwn_dQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQmdKwn_dQ
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoLmfao I wasn't expecting that ending from the first one. It really knocks that press conference down a peg followed up by that.
- 323 5y agoIt's funny that the article only gives right-wing examples of group narcissism (Trump, Brexit, Poland, Hungary, ...) No mention of stuff on the left, maybe because the author fears to be labeled as "enemy within", as he explains in article: > Collective narcissists are hypervigilant about “enemies within,” members who, in their opinion, reflect negatively on the group.
- TeeMassive 5y agoThis is what a I thought too. A classical case of projection through accusation. "All narcissists tell on themselves" https://medium.com/@OwnYourReality/projection-the-narcissists-weapon-that-can-be-used-against-them-7ebb63848998 https://medium.com/@OwnYourReality/projection-the-narcissist...
- civilized 5y agoThere are many enemies within on the left: - The progressive think tanker who was fired for citing a black prof's research saying riots are detrimental to social change - The star NYT science reporter who was fired for mentioning the n-word a decade ago in a conversation where it was relevant - The Smith College janitor who was publicly smeared as racist for, in accordance with instructions from his own bosses, asking a black student why she was in a closed-off dining hall - The progressive young Asian novelist who was viciously slandered for writing a story inspired by human trafficking in Asia, under the pretense that she had appropriated the American black experience of slavery I could go on all day. It's been a nasty few years. Start with anything by Michael Powell at the NYT if you want to know more.
- lazyeye 5y agoIt always the same with these kinds studies. Its actually the exact kind of group narcissism they claim exists in others. "everyone that disagrees with us is a hater and extremist".. or to rephrase "we're morally perfect"
- jl6 5y agoAlthough the description of the phenomenon sounds plausible - it triggers the “oh yeah, I’ve definitely met one of those types” reflex - the incredibly broad set of examples makes me question the idea’s explanatory power. We’re offered everything from terrorists and racists through to sports teams and gender identity. > Now, she said, she’s terrified at how widely she’s finding it manifested across the globe. If it’s everywhere, maybe it’s just part of the normal variation of human personality?
- kordlessagain 5y agoNarcissistic behaviors are not unusual or always bad (kids need it for example), but many times in adults they manifest as a means to offload the work from the pain they are experiencing based on their own judgments, of themselves. When cornered, some may freely admit this as they can easily pin it on you later if you aren’t paying attention.
- austincheney 5y agoSounds like adult immaturity.
- lazide 5y agoIt is a type of emotional regulation offloading. Which can be considered that way. Adult immaturity does tend to be highly correlated with it in my experience, but I’m no psychologist.
- laurent92 5y ago> normal variation of human personality? We can’t exclude the possibility that phones are extremely rapidly (<8 years) transforming human traits. In parallel, I’m seeing the emergence of a new layer of “bogan millionaires” (that I’m part of): People who shouldn’t reach there so fast, but did it anyway through apps, instagram, stock exchange or bitcoins. There are so many of us that it’s a real danger (or a real chance), it feels like undeserved power for people who didn’t struggle enough to know what a few million dollars really is. It is mostly due to the decentralization of power brought by the internet, but moving masses from learned inability to having some power, while leaving the rest of the population (the good old workers who kept at his work diligently) in the ditch… It may change the face of humanity.
- coldtea 5y agoSounds like a catch-all theory to pin everything you want and get any result you'd like from it...
- pphysch 5y agoOne of the [dead]/censored comments correctly pointed out that the examples have a clear political bias. If we are being honest, the "group narcissism" elephant in the room is neoliberalism, which portrays itself unambiguously as the One True Way to manage human societies (everything else is "totalitarian"), to absolutely disastrous human consequences in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and many more regions.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoI believe it’s also the case that tribalism is the norm throughout human history and the authors of the article are of the neoliberal mindset that in-group preference is immoral because it defies egalitarianism. But I also can’t help but notice that such ‘narcissistic’ in-group preference dominant groups seem to be doing really well for themselves. The Amish and Hasidic populations are doubling about every twenty years.
- pphysch 5y agoCollective cohesion and "group narcissism" are not identical. Virtually every successful group has relatively high cohesion. Some of them also have exceptionalist/"narcissist" tendencies, like Nazism, Soviet Communism, Zionism, American Exceptionalism, neoliberalism, et al. But you can have a successful, cohesive group without being fascist.
- golemiprague 5y agoSince when Zionism is fascist or narcissist? Same as the article itself, it is just another way to say, we are the progressives are good and anything we don't like is bad. It is not even lazy science, just simple and useless propaganda
- TeeMassive 5y ago[flagged]
- pphysch 5y ago
- BrianOnHN 5y ago> Collective narcissism is not simply tribalism. Humans are inherently tribal, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Having a healthy social identity can have an immensely positive impact on well-being. Collective narcissists, though, are often more focused on out-group prejudice than in-group loyalty.
- mpalczewski 5y agoThese tools of analysis should be used for self reflection and not for explaining positions and behaviors of others that you don’t really understand at all.
- ilaksh 5y agoIn other words, their theory is that about 25-50% of the planet who are in conservative groups all just have a severe personality flaw. I think it's nonsense. Narcissism is in general a severe problem for most societies today, but does not explain polarization or intolerance or which political group you might be in or why the other side is all messed up. They started the article off suggesting that desperate political groups that resort to terrorism are just full of themselves thinking they need to be more recognized. It's ludicrous to say that. These are violent political groups who have lost, been ostracized and oppressed not just militarily but also as civilians or as group identities. Whatever it is when they ask to be recognized, it's not narcissism. Personally I think most if not all worldviews are skewed in various ways. Part of that is based on group identity, tribalism, etc. It's not a rational process. And the billions of people who are not in your group are not out there because of personality flaws.