It’s commonly argued that corporations tend towards, or by definition must exhibit, psychopathic behaviour.
While this is certainly arguable, there’s also a case to be made that “the system” in general, i.e. the power structure under mass consumer culture, behaves almost exactly like a narcissistic abuser, like an unpredictable, grandiose and manipulative attachment figure.
Narcissism, a theoretical construct from psychology, is basically a template for categorizing and addressing disharmonious behavioural patterns among human beings. It’s a model for interpretation, and does not identify any clear-cut category of human beings (there’s no absolute, permanent or definitive distinction between someone diagnosed as a “narcissist” and a typical human person), but even so, it’s a helpful tool for recognizing persistent patterns of behaviour that cause significant harm in human communities.
“Narcissistic personality disorder”
There are nine generally accepted criteria for NPD, “narcissistic personality disorder” stipulated by the DSM, and while there is very much to criticize about the APA, the mental health industrial complex, and the general psychologization of our culture and society, it’s nonetheless fascinating that all of these criteria are quite well applicable to the authority structure of modern society, especially if we consider that structure akin to an agent or significant other we relate to.
This is especially true during the last four years, which were characterized by both an increased dependence on our part, and more naked expressions of authoritarianism.
The following traits are suggested by the DSM-5 for use in the identification and diagnosis of NPD, and the idea is that when at least five of these are present in an individual, we have good reason to believe we’ve identified a pattern of behaviour and cognition that brings about the disruptive effects we can connect to NPD as a theoretical model:
A grandiose sense of self-importance
Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believing that they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requiring excessive admiration
A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
An important thing to recognize is that these patterns of behaviour, when expressed by human beings, are reponses to trauma.
They emerge as coping strategies within a context of severe and prolonged abuse, and they serve to protect the abused individual, generally a child or someone reduced to a child-like state, from the threat of death and/or from the catastrophe of ostracization in a situation of absolute dependency.
In a relational context, many scholars in the field seem to add the creation of a “false self”, an internal narrative of grandiosity, which serves to compensate for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that in the original context of abuse were perceived as lethal. And individuals attached to the narcissist, for instance through a romantic relationship or a parent-child type of situation, will in one way or another be required to play along with this narrative. You can do it willingly and detachedly, and minimize conflict by simply strategically appeasing the narcissist when it’s needed without actually buying into the narrative. You can also internalize this narrative, which will happen in situations of abuse or pronounced dependency.
The system as narcissist
And if we then look to the state and mode of relational attachment that the power structure of contemporary mass society erects between itself and the individual, it clearly has strong similarities to an attachment between a dependent and a narcissistic abuser.
The system is grandiose in its propaganda; it lies constantly and shows no remorse; it advertises power, beauty and success as the highest values; it has no empathy for suffering if it cannot be exploited for various political ends - and it's incredibly sensitive to criticism and will cancel, ridicule or suppress any meaningful dissent that undermines its fantasy, its preferred narrative of grandiosity. It’s locally envious in relation to any pretenders or foreign powers, and it will utilize any and all means to undermine their influence.
What’s more, the adaptive response of human beings subjected to this type of attachment, especially given the pronounced dependency and domestication we touched upon in the previous post, will arguably be much like that of a child subjected to prolonged abuse from its caregivers. Lacking a fully developed adult self, with its stability, independence and internalized sense of agency, people today are highly dependent on the system for supplying various resources, not only the most basic ones which we’re almost never competent to provide for ourselves, but in our atomized state, we’re also dependent on the system and its mediatic apparatus for our existential security and our sense of place in the world.
We need its propaganda narratives to make sense of who we are, and to feel safe and in harmony with the overarching power structure, the caretaking adult on which we’re complexly dependent.
And in a situation of increased pressure on the system, where its more naked abusive and authoritarian tendencies emerge, it stands to reason that its infantilized citizens will tend to exhibit the characteristics of children subjected to mental and emotion abuse, and that our socio-cultural dynamics will be coloured by such a response.
What would these characteristics be? Examples include the following:
Symptoms of depression, anxiety, withdrawal or aggression
Self-harm, suicide attempts, engaging in drug or alcohol abuse
Extreme compliance; too well-mannered; too neat and clean
Displays attention seeking behaviours or displays extreme inhibition in play
When at play, behaviour may model or copy negative behaviour and language used at home
But an important observation to make here, is that protracted emotional and physical abuse often generates narcissistic behavioural patterns as a coping response. This arguably holds on both the individual as well as the societal levels - in other words, we should expect to see an increase in narcissistic behavioural patterns among people in general, subjected to isolation, atomization, mass-media gaslighting, threats of catastrophic harm and an infantilized attachment to society’s authority structure. But the institutional behaviour of the authority structure can very well also be considered an artefact of a sort of complex generational trauma on the macro level.
The self hatred of Viennese men at [the turn of the century] bears a striking resemblance to the self hatred of the contemporary Westerner. As does the outward projected bigotry and prejudice. And every narrative trope for resentment and racial stigmatizing are in place, only Jews are now Arabs or Muslims.
In Vienna at the end of the century up until the outbreak of WW1, there was a gradual but inexorable intensification of anxiety and internal conflict — subjective individual ambivalence about identity and society both. The rabid (hysterical) anti semite Karl Lueger was elected mayor Vienna in 1895. And Hitler later studied at his feet. Lueger was in his way the Trump of Vienniese society. This was the city of both psychoanalysis and Zionism.
In an era, overall, in Europe, that saw remarkable optical inventions, and a sudden opening of science to fields of study previously deemed unacceptable in polite society. From Darwin to Galton, to Kraft-Ebbing and even the bizarre story of Otto Weinniger, this era was the laboratory for modernism. It created modernism. It largely laid the ground work for the 20th century, and that includes Hiroshima and Auschwitz.
John Steppling, “The Ugly Stick”
These problems aren’t new. They’re as old as civilization, and relate to primitive psychological mechanisms for the internalization and projection of trauma, collectively and individually.
Whether or not the primitivist analysis is correct, and that language itself on some level is merely derived from trauma, and a way to cope - when a culture such as ours today loses the ability to grasp complex narrative, it will no longer be able to make sense of, and come to terms with, its deep-seated wounds. Individually or collectively.
If kids stop reading, and we're limited to communicating via memes or snippets of 140 characters, of course the culture as a whole will tend towards exhibiting narcissistic patterns of behaviour, especially in situations of increased stress and compounded trauma in a context of infantilizing dependence.
Always some interesting thoughts here Johan. I agree with this. It is the nature of civilization itself. Darren Allen says the system is the outward appearance of the self informed self. He states at some point the self, a tool, took over conscious experience, specifically the male mind and began to experience existential fear, being cut off from the context. Millennia later here we are. Interesting ideas.
Do you play Shadowrun?