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Book Review:
The Narcissism Epidemic Published 2009 by Twenge & Campbell Reviewed May 30-31, 2015 by Kris Freeberg, Economist |
"[Fighting the cultural ideas at the root of the Narcissism Epidemic] is kind of like telling people they don`t really need to wear pants."
(Chapter 17, Treating the Epidemic of Narcissism, page 289).
(Chapter 17, Treating the Epidemic of Narcissism, page 289).
Narcissism - Wikipedia article
Author web site According to the below time line, in 1963 I was born into the beginnings of an epidemic that, according to this book, has been ravaging our society during my whole lifetime. I've never known anything else. As water is to a fish, Narcissism has been my element. It has been a suffocating, toxic soup that, among other effects, since the remedies my practice offers conflict with Narcissist values, has occasionally caused me to wonder about its viability. Obviously, since I've been in business for twenty years, it IS viable. The work has definitely been like swimming upstream. Because Narcissism dominates our culture, it has been, and will continue to be, counter-cultural work. It's still worth doing. I am so grateful to the authors of this book for helping me understand it and cope with this thing that has been suffocating me, my peers, and all of those born since. It's a vindicating breath of fresh air that encourages me to persevere. Now it's clear to me. But then, during all of my childhood and most of my adulthood, I felt so perplexed by Narcissism that I didn't even know what to call it. I'd encounter it and deal with it on a case-by-case basis, regarding each case as an annoying fluke. Because my parents sheltered me from the turbulence of the times and did their best to give me what they considered to be a normal, healthy, 1940s & 1950s-style childhood experience, for quite a long time, probably through my mid-30s, I was quite naive about it, and each narcissistic encounter came as a perplexing shock. It has ravaged both my own life and the lives of my loved ones, ruining relationships that were precious and dear to us, including marriages, wreaking serious havoc, much of it economic. I'll bet it has ravaged yours somehow, too. As I'll demonstrate below, its economic consequences are profound, making the writing of a review like this worthwhile. Hopefully this review, and the book itself, will help mitigate some of the damage, providing relief, remedies, recovery, and health. The authors devote sixteen chapters to demonstrating that Narcissism is not just an epidemic, but a pandemic (Americans have been exporting it), and the final seventeenth chapter to antidotes. In this review I'll not rehash the sixteen chapters, but simply agree with them that it IS indeed a pandemic that affects all of us. If you require convincing and believe, like I used to, that it's just a here and there, now and then kind of annoying fluke, please have a look at the book and see the proof for yourself. Out of respect for your time, below I'm going to present prescriptions first, cures offered at Making End$ Meet, and then, if you're interested, I'll also share some points that I felt were particularly noteworthy, and a photo of the epidemic's time line, showing how we got here. |
20 Prescriptions
- Instead of telling your kids they're "special", tell them you love them.
- Recognize that love emphasizes connection, not differences. Love.
- Set loving limits.
- Turn off the TV & video games, and do real things with your kids.
- Eat healthy and exercise.
- Reward achievement.
- Instead of flattering them for being generally awesome, praise them for specific feats and qualities.
- Instead of overlooking their weaknesses, lovingly help strengthen them.
- If you're living beyond your means, fix it. If necessary, get help.
- Practice virtue, and let esteem happen on its own - both from yourself, and from others. Realize that "self esteem" is not as big a deal as pop psychology has led us to believe. There are better ways of living.
- Cultivate warm, committed, respectful, deep, caring, compassionate relationships. Replace self-esteem with self-compassion.
- Eschew drama, media addiction, and celebrity worship. Get a life.
- Cultivate mindfulness or "Nepsis."
- Replace entitlement with gratitude.
- Instead of pride, pursue humility, the root of which is "humus" meaning empty, fertile soil that is prepared to grow whatever the Gardener plants.
- Free yourself from the endless "love myself first" trap by practicing virtue. Like the Nike slogan, "Just do it."
- Study eastern and Scandinavian cultures, which seem to be doing a better job of discouraging Narcissism and encouraging citizenship.
- Boycott "National Self-Esteem Day" and "National Boost Your Self-Esteem Month."
- Get beyond baby showers and birthdays, and learn to observe and celebrate holidays that are truly holy, meaningful, and sublime. (They occur every day.)
- Don't wait for a Great Depression or world war to wise up. Appreciate that the choice to end Narcissism and take the above steps can be made at any time. It's a simple choice. Act now.
Cures Offered by Making End$ Meet
Lifetime Savings Plan, Simple Plan, Investment Research - wise up, think long term, become a saver/investor.
Budget, Business Plan - Recover from psychoses and delusions. Work with constraints, be responsible. Get real.
Accounting, HWD app - recover from narcissistic fakery, focus on mature accountability, productivity, results.
Mortgage Payment, Mortgage Slam-Dunk, Get Out of Debt - recover from the financial ravages of Narcissism, the kinds of events that inspired the book.
Gumption, Improve Income - remedy Entitlement.
This is just a partial list. For more about how Making End$ Meet can help, please contact us.
Budget, Business Plan - Recover from psychoses and delusions. Work with constraints, be responsible. Get real.
Accounting, HWD app - recover from narcissistic fakery, focus on mature accountability, productivity, results.
Mortgage Payment, Mortgage Slam-Dunk, Get Out of Debt - recover from the financial ravages of Narcissism, the kinds of events that inspired the book.
Gumption, Improve Income - remedy Entitlement.
This is just a partial list. For more about how Making End$ Meet can help, please contact us.
Notes
- It's a contagious psychocultural affliction, an illness. When a few people are sick, everyone around them is affected - like reclining seats on an airplane. When one person does it, everyone else must accommodate.
- Insofar as it's a departure from reality, it's psychotic.
- Insofar as it's a belief that you're better than you really are, it's delusional. American children have high self-esteem and low math scores. They're not number one, but they're number one at thinking they're number one.
- Since Narcissists believe there's no improving to do ("How can one improve on perfection?"), Narcissism discourages improvement.
- It's fake: wealth, beauty, athletes, celebrities, economy, homes, grades, status, friends, even paparazzi.
- Narcissistic cultural changes: house sizes, plastic surgery, celebrity gossip magazines, debt, infidelity & cheating behavior, social media, photography ("selfies"), "My" and "I" prefixes on goods and services (iPhone, MyT-Mobile, "Army of One", etc.)
- Like trying to deposit a check into the same account from which it was written, self-esteem is invalid. It's a BAD thing. It's an effect of success, not a cause. In Asian cultures, it is so unrecognized that neither Taiwanese nor Mandarin Chinese have words for it. (In The Philokalia, the ancient fathers do name it, and universally denounce it as a precursor to the sin of pride.) It's subjective self-flattery, invalid and contrived. True esteem comes from others, and is received humbly (if at all), not boasted pridefully.
- Narcissism is the underlying cause of bullying. People measuring high in self-esteem and narcissism are the most aggressive bullies. Tragedies from Columbine to "slap-cams" arise from the narcissistic quest for fame at any cost.
- Narcissistic Christianity teaches a false, dead-end, "Love yourself first" doctrinal trap that says, "If you don't love yourself first, you're not going to be able to love others." The truth is that practicing virtue yields self-respect.
- One consequence of loving one's self first is that one might never get around to loving others. As a result, volunteerism has become paradoxically redefined, from being truly voluntary to being compulsory. Now, especially in schools, we have "involuntary volunteering."
- Religion can help alleviate Narcissism, yet Narcissism has affected how Americans do religion. "Relevant seeker-friendly" churches cater to it, and Narcissists are attracted to positions of religious leadership.
- Volunteerism has adapted to Narcissism by allowing volunteers to do what they want (fun), versus what's necessary and needed (dirty work).
- Schism has resulted in denominations that compete to please narcissistic preferences ("ear-tickling") instead of teaching hard but edifying truths.
- Like disintegrating rock into sand or dust, Narcissism has eroded our understanding of Truth itself, denigrating it from an absolute, objective non-negotiable thing that applies to all ("The Truth"), to a relative, subjective, negotiable mutation that can be tailored to individual preferences ("my truth, your truth", etc.), creating an irreconcilable "agree to disagree" culture.
- American narcissism offends Muslim sensibilities; like gasoline on a spark, it inflames radicals' hatred. To the rest of the world, it makes Americans look like contemptible fools.
- Social networking sites encourage it.
- It's childish; it "juvenalizes" the culture. Youthful appearance trumps dignity. Middle aged and older men now dress like boys. (See this 2006 New York Magazine article, "Up With The Grups.")
- It's ineffectual. Despite obsession with youthful appearance via plastic surgery & Botox, obesity is at epidemic levels.
- It's the underlying cause of "Affluenza."
- Emphasis on uniqueness, individuality, individual expression, or "being special" actually impoverishes by alienating, isolating, and discarding economies of scale. Teens with a "personal fable of uniqueness" suffer unnecessary alienation and isolation, believe that no one understands them, and are more susceptible to depression and suicide. By contrast, successful businesses achieve volume by focusing mainly on commonality or popularity, supplying high demand by providing common solutions to common problems.
- Differences emphasized by Narcissists tend to be trivial and even silly, while the commonalities they overlook and, in their quest to be "special" fail to appreciate, are serious and profound.
- Narcissism is unprofitable. It discourages teamwork, worsens turnover, alienates customers, sunders economies of scale, and is short-sighted.
- The authors argue that Narcissism has been the cause of major macroeconomic crises like the mortgage meltdown of 2007-2009, which appears to be one of the major things that motivated them to publish the book when they did. I believe it.
- "Work-life balance" is bunk, arising from a narcissistic sense of entitlement to undeserved rewards. The truth is, rewarding achievement requires dedicated focus now mocked as "OCD."
- Broken language can be a Narcissism indicator. The Narcissist's attitude about language is contemptuous: "I'm too busy and important to bother with writing well. Why follow all of those arbitrary rules just so it's easier for other people to read it?"
- Narcissistic contempt exacerbates workplace conflicts and accounts for a lot of so-called "irreconcilable differences."
- Narcissistic relationships are shallow, lacking intimacy, gratuitous, & unsatisfying. Promiscuity and infidelity are narcissistic.
- A facet of Narcissism is Entitlement: literally, acting as though you had a title or a right to something that isn't really yours - like pretending to be royalty.
- Entitled people often confuse efforts with results.
- Narcissists lack empathy, feel no shame, and do not confess or apologize when they are guilty.
- The biggest obstacle to understanding Narcissism is its wide array of symptoms.
- Narcissism is a destructive trait in old age because it corrodes relationships and is based on (deteriorated) outward appearance. After they've burned all their bridges, narcissistic people eventually become isolated.
1969
The best video I've seen so far on Narcissism.
Best, because it's done from a position of wisdom, strength, compassion, and emotional intelligence.
J.P. uploaded it on 08/31/2015. I noticed it on 06/05/2016.
Best, because it's done from a position of wisdom, strength, compassion, and emotional intelligence.
J.P. uploaded it on 08/31/2015. I noticed it on 06/05/2016.
