What's not to self-love?
Feb. 7th, 2010 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusAm I a narcissist? The question itself is self-indulgent and self-absorbed, but I can't help asking it. Maybe my six years demanding your daily attention here at Click Opera have been nothing but "digital narcissism", a daily seduction, an attempt to put myself at the centre of the world, to spin myself into every story, to make myself the universal prism, the central aleph, the keystone in a grand facade. Has the motif behind every story (and almost thirty years of records, for that matter) really been "me, me, me"?
I think it's clear that I am a narcissist -- God knows, I love and believe in myself strongly enough -- but I'd say I'm also rather guilty about it. I'd say I diffuse my self-love out into so many other things that it becomes acceptable. It's not sticky and repulsive any more, as immoderate self-love tends to be.
Or does it? According to an article on PsyBlog, Why we love narcissists (at first), "despite being self-absorbed, arrogant, entitled and exploitative, narcissists are also fascinating... we are strangely drawn to their self-centred personalities, their dominance and their hostility, their sensitivity and their despair, at least for a while."
The article reports an experiment by social psychologist Mitja Back which found that narcissists make a good first impression because they look, sound and move better. They use charming facial expressions, have a more confident speaking tone, wear more fashionable clothes, have trendier haircuts and are funnier.
Wow, what's not to self-love? Narcissists sound like attractive hipsters! They must get laid a lot!
If they do -- and surely they do -- their relationships don't last long, Back found. Weirdly enough, it's the narcissist-hipster's entitlement and exploitative abilities which lure people in initially: "participants liked narcissists' sense of entitlement most -- of the four aspects of narcissism they studied (leadership/authority, self-admiration/self-absorption, arrogance/superiority and entitlement/exploitativeness) it was the last of these that most predicted liking". However, "narcissists are usually soon found out and shunned since few people will put up with a self-absorbed, authoritarian, arrogant, exploitative friend".
At this point my picture of the narcissist -- with his trendy haircut and funny comments -- became the image of a musician on tour, getting laid every night but exhausting sympathy just in time to move on to the next concert in the next town. But the digital dandy could fit the bill just as well: instead of sticking around long enough for real people to get the message that there's no place in the dandy's heart for anyone but himself, he can simply display himself digitally in the web's shop window.
"Behaving selfishly seems to bring them a rush of admiration which they get addicted to, while devaluing others when the inevitable rejection comes, covering it up by searching out new people to worship them. The reason narcissists fail to spot this cycle may well be that friends and partners never hang around long enough to tell them in such a way that they actually believe it and want to do something about it," the article concludes.
That almost makes it sound like narcissism is being made into a "cycle of abuse", a "clinical condition requiring treatment", and even a "disease". And it might well be a facet of the narcissism of psychologists that they see themselves as the universal prism, the central aleph, the see-all and cure-all. Do scientists have a grudge against artists? Do they want us to be as boring as them? It's certainly understandable that these science types would prefer to vest their own value in something other than cool clothes, immediate charm, and a nice line in chat-up patter.
So, therapy for narcissists. Would it remove their charm and attractiveness, or only their own exploitation and manipulation of it to seduce the easily-impressed? Would the trendy haircut, the nice voice, the funny remarks, vanish after a course of antibiotics? Would the narcissist become one of those English self-deprecators who proudly proclaims his complete inadequacy, stupidity and laziness at every opportunity (surely a kind of "inverted narcissism" even more egregious than the overt kind, since it often comes with a refusal to improve)?
Attacks on narcissists disturb me just as attacks on hipsters do. After reading the PsyBlog piece -- to get the astringent flavour of crushed aspirin out of my mouth -- I watched a lot of Prince videos: Kiss, Sexy MF, Alphabet Street, Cream. You can only watch them on dodgy offshore servers, because either Prince or the media moguls who own his material slap suits on anyone showing them (and I don't mean padded-shouldered, wasp-waisted numbers with peep-holes for chest hair).
The narcissism levels in the Prince vids were off the meter, way beyond the red. I loved them. I imagined that if I'd been born a girl (Sheena Easton, for instance) I'd willingly have served my time as a love-slave in the pimp-imp's harem. The idea of a "normal" Prince cured of his scandalous self-love... well, it's just plain fugly.
I think it's clear that I am a narcissist -- God knows, I love and believe in myself strongly enough -- but I'd say I'm also rather guilty about it. I'd say I diffuse my self-love out into so many other things that it becomes acceptable. It's not sticky and repulsive any more, as immoderate self-love tends to be.
Or does it? According to an article on PsyBlog, Why we love narcissists (at first), "despite being self-absorbed, arrogant, entitled and exploitative, narcissists are also fascinating... we are strangely drawn to their self-centred personalities, their dominance and their hostility, their sensitivity and their despair, at least for a while."
The article reports an experiment by social psychologist Mitja Back which found that narcissists make a good first impression because they look, sound and move better. They use charming facial expressions, have a more confident speaking tone, wear more fashionable clothes, have trendier haircuts and are funnier.
Wow, what's not to self-love? Narcissists sound like attractive hipsters! They must get laid a lot!
If they do -- and surely they do -- their relationships don't last long, Back found. Weirdly enough, it's the narcissist-hipster's entitlement and exploitative abilities which lure people in initially: "participants liked narcissists' sense of entitlement most -- of the four aspects of narcissism they studied (leadership/authority, self-admiration/self-absorption, arrogance/superiority and entitlement/exploitativeness) it was the last of these that most predicted liking". However, "narcissists are usually soon found out and shunned since few people will put up with a self-absorbed, authoritarian, arrogant, exploitative friend".
At this point my picture of the narcissist -- with his trendy haircut and funny comments -- became the image of a musician on tour, getting laid every night but exhausting sympathy just in time to move on to the next concert in the next town. But the digital dandy could fit the bill just as well: instead of sticking around long enough for real people to get the message that there's no place in the dandy's heart for anyone but himself, he can simply display himself digitally in the web's shop window.
"Behaving selfishly seems to bring them a rush of admiration which they get addicted to, while devaluing others when the inevitable rejection comes, covering it up by searching out new people to worship them. The reason narcissists fail to spot this cycle may well be that friends and partners never hang around long enough to tell them in such a way that they actually believe it and want to do something about it," the article concludes.
That almost makes it sound like narcissism is being made into a "cycle of abuse", a "clinical condition requiring treatment", and even a "disease". And it might well be a facet of the narcissism of psychologists that they see themselves as the universal prism, the central aleph, the see-all and cure-all. Do scientists have a grudge against artists? Do they want us to be as boring as them? It's certainly understandable that these science types would prefer to vest their own value in something other than cool clothes, immediate charm, and a nice line in chat-up patter.
So, therapy for narcissists. Would it remove their charm and attractiveness, or only their own exploitation and manipulation of it to seduce the easily-impressed? Would the trendy haircut, the nice voice, the funny remarks, vanish after a course of antibiotics? Would the narcissist become one of those English self-deprecators who proudly proclaims his complete inadequacy, stupidity and laziness at every opportunity (surely a kind of "inverted narcissism" even more egregious than the overt kind, since it often comes with a refusal to improve)?
Attacks on narcissists disturb me just as attacks on hipsters do. After reading the PsyBlog piece -- to get the astringent flavour of crushed aspirin out of my mouth -- I watched a lot of Prince videos: Kiss, Sexy MF, Alphabet Street, Cream. You can only watch them on dodgy offshore servers, because either Prince or the media moguls who own his material slap suits on anyone showing them (and I don't mean padded-shouldered, wasp-waisted numbers with peep-holes for chest hair).
The narcissism levels in the Prince vids were off the meter, way beyond the red. I loved them. I imagined that if I'd been born a girl (Sheena Easton, for instance) I'd willingly have served my time as a love-slave in the pimp-imp's harem. The idea of a "normal" Prince cured of his scandalous self-love... well, it's just plain fugly.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Vanity
Date: 2010-02-07 12:01 pm (UTC)I mean, the singer Vanity, not the concept:
Or do I mean both?
Anyway, if narcissism is attractive, then Stuart Goddard and Prince are worthy rivals. I'd pay to see them in the ring together for pose-off. Who would win?
I must say, though, I'm a bit suspicious of the definition of narcissism offered by PsyBlog and Back. I always thought that I must be a narcissist, but I don't recognise myself here:
The article reports an experiment by social psychologist Mitja Back which found that narcissists make a good first impression because they look, sound and move better. They use charming facial expressions, have a more confident speaking tone, wear more fashionable clothes, have trendier haircuts and are funnier.
Wow, what's not to self-love? Narcissists sound like attractive hipsters! They must get laid a lot!
I suppose I must be one of those execrable inverse narcissists, the very lowest of the low. Just my luck. Oh well, I suppose I can't help it. People will just have to love me or leave me. I'd prefer the former, of course, but I know what will actually happen.
Re: Vanity
Date: 2010-02-07 12:24 pm (UTC)Is life like that? I'm not so sure. To the hubris-nemesis structure I'd counter with a more realistic idea from The Bible: the wicked flourish like the green bay tree.
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Date: 2010-02-07 01:59 pm (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
No, I don't think so.
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Date: 2010-02-07 02:03 pm (UTC)-Brian
www.seeyouinsleep.com/blog
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Date: 2010-02-07 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 02:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 02:49 pm (UTC)I don't think blogging is very narcissistic, neither posting 3478347834 images of yourself on the internetz. Everyone's doing it, so you're not really standing out in the crowd. Everyone who posts on the web on a daily basis on twitter/blogs/etc have a number of followers, and since most of us are flattered by that kind of attention, we're prone to continue posting, as to encourage our "fans" to keep affirming our ego.
Idk, I see narcissism as an entirely different thing than being a bit of a cam whore, wanting some attention and being a bit self obsessed. Most of us live in societies where the focus is on the individual, not the community, so of course we all tend to be a bit wrapped up in ourselves. That's not really narcisissim I think, it's a pretty common learned behavour that totally makes sense if you look at the bigger picture.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 03:24 pm (UTC)FrF
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 04:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 05:34 pm (UTC)The wigs and costumes are awesome, the self parody was well informed...
It seemed your main plan was to have fun... you always tried to give people what they wanted... if we asked for milk... more milk it was... more words... more words it was... more pics of hot japanese girls... so it was....
cant argue with that...
honestly pretty much amazed at this one man operation... just kept chugging along...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 01:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 05:43 pm (UTC)Also I don't think is necessarily art/science split of the snow-type, or an artist/scientist division but that's besides the point. I just think there's a distinction between between the Prince-narcissism and the personality disorder called 'malignant narcissism.' As much as a Prince revels in himself or herself, there's also a separtion from the self by carefully creating an image, and maybe that's what the narcissist you're describing is doing. On the other hand, being beguiled by that image might be 'narcissistic,' but that might only be true if the narcissist confuses the difference.
Also, the person who displays what a psychologist would call narcissistic personality deisorder isn't necessarily concerned with anything of that nature. Or anything creative at all. As has been said in comments before mine, its (according to psychology) rooted in self-loathing and seems, to me, to have more to do with taking whatever the person wants, in excess, while devaluing anybody who gets in the way of this whatsoever. It seems closer to the spousal-abuser personality, with a huge appetite, and a shitty attitude extended to the entire world.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 05:48 pm (UTC)It occurred to me the other day, in one of those glittering thoughts that flitter through the twinkling jitter of alpha waves we call consciousness, that Lolita could be read as an extended joke on Freud, a rebuke of his central oedipal theory. In that it is not the secret unconscious desire of all men to kill the father and sleep with the mother, but rather our desire is to kill the mother and sleep with the daughter.
What a fall! What a silly Julia! What luck that Mr. Romeo still gripped and twisted and cracked that crooked cricoid as X-rayed by the firemen and mountain guides in the street. How they flew! Superman carrying a young soul in his embrace!
...
The surroundings were unrecognizable--except for the white wall. His heart was beating as after an arduous climb. A blond little girl with a badminton racket crouched and picked up her shuttlecock from the sidewalk. Farther up he located Villa Nastia, now painted a celestial blue. All its windows were shuttered.
...
The tap expostulated, letting forth a strong squirt of rusty water before settling down to produce the meek normal stuff--which you do not appreciate sufficiently, which is a flowing mystery, and, yes, yes, which deserves monuments to be erected to it, cool shrines!
...
I believed that the treasured memories in a dying man's mind dwindled to rainbow wisps; but now I feel just the contrary: my most trivial sentiments and those of all men have aquired gigantic proportions. The entire solar system is but a reflection (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true) in the crystal of my (or your) wrist watch... Total rejection of all religions ever dreamt up by man and total composure in the face of total death! If I could explain this triple totality in one big book, that would become no doubt a new bible and its author the founder of a new creed.
...
This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being to another.
- transparent things
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Date: 2010-02-07 06:44 pm (UTC)People kick up these conversations about narcissism to which you can respond ("Isherwood was a narcissist!" "Was NOT!") because the actual concern-causing form of narcissism is so thankfully goddamn rare.
Actual narcissists who are of concern to anybody are capable of letting their loved ones die, in the house with them or in front of them.
An actual narcissist is somebody who wouldn't call an ambulance for you if you fell and shook.
Or who would let you spend the winter with one pair of bad shoes and no socks while they bought skin cream, not because they were mean, not because they were Dickensian, but you didn't occur to them as having physical reality. Because when you're a narcissist of that real, rare, concern-causing kind something really statistically infrequent is going on in your head.
Dearest Momus, if you have a rabbit in your house and it's alive even thought you've been called upon to care for it occasionally, you're no narcissist. Of an other-than-the-Isherwoody-"here's-my-cliched-headline" variety.
The only problem with the general living-room fluffery about BEING A NARCISSIST! ("Do you like my new wig?" "You must be SICK!") is that it does trivialize the actual situation, which the human mind has some trouble getting around. Because, frankly, we prefer the Dickensian situation. Malice is physically easier to understand.
The only real problem with posts like this is that they do, to a very small, probably only truly troubling to people in true trouble type extent, make actual help harder to come by. Because they kick sand over something already easy to miss.
Basically, I think enabling
On the other hand, who cares? Which is what I've been asking myself a good deal lately. Does it matter if a story is racist? How does it matter? Does it matter if a story misrepresents the common physical experience of rape to coddle perpetrators or date-rapists? How does it matter? Your journal is devoting to assessing that how - those various hows - quite a lot of the time, for which I adore it. So maybe it's something at some point you'd pick up. I would love to read it. As I've loved every single wig and eyepatch variation, and another gentleman's every single shoulder-padded, wasp-waisted, cut-away suit.
Hisae
Date: 2010-02-07 07:06 pm (UTC)I used to be anon; after seeing you in Tokyo at the gallery-event, I think it pays to share, even if it means sticking your virtual neck out. who knows.
look Mom!
Date: 2010-02-07 07:59 pm (UTC)prince
Date: 2010-02-07 08:03 pm (UTC)liz
Re: prince
Date: 2010-02-07 10:25 pm (UTC)In case there's someone here who hasn't heard it:
Closer to You (http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/Momus/Poison-Boyfriend/Momus_The-Poison-Boyfriend_11_Closer_1987.mp3)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-07 11:39 pm (UTC)The disappointment of the young girls non gaze reflects your own disappointment to deal with trauma , that is the reaReal rejection of their non sensical formulations .....ocky milk is open..........................
Enda
non anonnon anon non
Date: 2010-02-08 12:34 am (UTC)i mean does it really change things if you can say, "oh, BonSaiPussyKat made a snarky comment, but at least i know who they are..." LOL
Re: non anonnon anon non
Date: 2010-02-08 03:56 am (UTC)As far as knowing anyone goes, even face to face, good luck.
BonSaiPussyKat
Re: non anonnon anon non
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-02-08 04:11 am (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 01:34 am (UTC)off the meter
Date: 2010-02-08 02:53 am (UTC)noun
Definition:
1. artistic presentation: a presentation of an artistic work such as a play or piece of music to an audience
2. manner of functioning: the manner in which something or somebody functions, operates, or behaves
a high-performance car
3. working effectiveness: the way in which somebody does a job, judged by its effectiveness ( often used before a noun )
performance-related pay
4. thing accomplished: something that is carried out or accomplished
5. accomplishment of something: the act of carrying out or accomplishing something such as a task or action
6. display of behavior: a public display of behavior that others find distasteful, e.g. an angry outburst that causes embarrassment ( informal )
7. linguistics language produced: the language that a speaker or writer actually produces, as distinct from his or her understanding of the language.
See also competence (sense 3) parolen (sense 5)
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Date: 2010-02-08 04:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 06:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 07:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-08 02:06 pm (UTC)What exactly do you do to love yourself? I suppose I can understand self-hate and self-absorption, but if you're cured of those then it seems to me that surely you don't even have to think about yourself particularly, much less go around loving yourself.
Well, it doesn't matter. It's just when people say this to me that I find irritating, they can go and love themselves as much as they like. I just find it to be gibberish.
(no subject)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-02-09 08:53 pm (UTC) - ExpandBubble e Go!
Date: 2010-02-08 09:56 am (UTC)Wondered what your thoughts were on this film which expresses nostalgia towards the bubble era?