53. Narcissism

With this item I deviate, for once, from the task I set myself of not using more than 500 words. 

While in Romanticism (e.g. Rousseau) the self is seen positively as a source of the good, for Schopenhauer (1788-1860) the self is the seat of an insatiable, uncontrollable, egotistic will to exist, possess and consume. It were better if we did not exist. One should try to escape from the self and its will in a Buddhist-like ascetic discipline. One can temporarily escape in art, in particular music, as a contemplation of the universal, from the will-driven individuality of the self.

By contrast, there is also a line of thought in literature (Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Dostoyevsky) that wishes to accept darkness and depravity as part of the existential force of humanity that can manifest itself in a raw beauty. In philosophy we find this acceptance of humanity as it is, with all its passions, and the acceptance, even love of human fate (‘amor fati’) with Nietzsche.

Both Schopenhauer (2010) and Nietzsche (2006) emphasize the self-sufficiency of the self. They both make the distinction between pride, as the perception of self-worth based on one’s own conviction, which they approve, and vanity, as the seeking of recognition of worth by others, which they despise. However, pride is based on the assumption that the conviction of self-worth is valid and free from delusion, while both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche themselves exhibit such delusion.  

By this time we have strayed far from benevolence as part of a providential, God given nature, and we arrive at a demasking of benevolence as hypocritical and suppressive of human flourishing. Such honesty about human nature cannot simply be brushed aside in moral distaste. Nietzsche demands an answer, and later in this blog I will give it.

According to Lasch (1991) mentality has shifted from devotion to work as a contribution to both self-interest and the good of all to devotion to personal wealth and prosperity by achievement. Next it shifted to status and the winning of competitions with others as a goal in itself, a profiling of the self even without achievements, rhetoric above truth, opinions above arguments, glittering in public attention above grey, anonymous mediocrity. If one cannot achieve this by oneself, then in the reflection of the glitter of idols. This satisfies yearning for a heroism that was lost in modernity.

Our culture has regressed into narcissism. Narcissism is not a synonym for egotism or selfishness, an excess of self, not a manifestation of personality but on the contrary a lack of self, a collapse of personality, an experience of inner emptiness and senselessness. That must then be filled with delusions of greatness that must be mirrored and confirmed in the environment, or by images of heroes to whom one mirrors oneself. Lasch (1991, p. 37) speaks of a ‘sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong, admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported’. The inner voice of nature turned out not to have much to say. There turned out to be no sources of authenticity present.

Lasch ascribes narcissism to the inability to learn to live with one’s shortcomings and with the fact that others don’t only exist to satisfy one’s wants. That shortfall increases as one sets one’s ambitions higher, beyond one’s limitations, regardless of the interests of others, to satisfy one’s ambitions and longings. Advertising and other pressures to consume have contributed to this, with an appeal to a craving for luxuries, beauty, glitter, power, and self-realization. Lasch even ascribes our obsession with technology to a narcissistic urge to lift limitations in the satisfaction of longing and protection (Lasch 1991, p. 244).

According to Lasch (1991) we have strayed into widespread narcissism in which the self no longer has a self from itself but finds an emptiness in itself that it fills with delusions of superiority that it demands to see reflected and confirmed in its environment.