March 22, 2023

"Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)..."

"... the label ['narcissist'] has been steadily spreading to celebrities, shitty boyfriends, and sometimes mothers. #narctokadvice is flooded with pictures of terrible exes whose faces are rubbed out and replaced with Johnny Depp’s. Infinite listicles describe life with a narcissist as a psychological war zone and explain how to spot the signs and fight back: 'How to Argue With a Narcissist' or '5 Ways to Weaken a Narcissist' or 'The 7 Lies We Learn From Our Narcissistic Parents.' On #narctok, the final stage of enlightenment is 'no contact,' meaning forever cutting the narcissist out of your life. Elon Musk is a 'narcissist' or sometimes a 'narcissistic sociopath' or a 'toddler.'... When sociologist Jean Twenge wrote in The Narcissism Epidemic about the epidemic of misery among post-millenials [sic], she mostly blamed cell phones, social media, and the 'culture of selfies' for the shift. Fifteen years later, the teens are still drowning in hopelessness. But calling them narcissists is about as helpful as calling them obese."

Writes Hanna Rosin, in "Narcissist and Proud" (NY Magazine).

41 comments:

wild chicken said...

Nonsense. The "narcissist" amateur diagnosis-du-jour was going strong before 2015.

When I was young the pop diagnosis was "inferiority complex" or "insecurity" but I say eff off with your useless labels.

Big Mike said...

#narctokadvice is flooded with pictures of terrible exes whose faces are rubbed out and replaced with Johnny Depp’s..

Lots of women seem to have difficulty accepting that the jury in Fairfax County — one of the most limousine liberal counties in the USA — reached the correct conclusion regarding Amber Heard.

Iman said...

TDS rules the roost as the chickens return home in Yew Nork.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)..."

LMFAO. Trump didn't perfect that, gays did. They just described the entire alphabet mafia.

rhhardin said...

Sad? The problem is happy people.

Achilles said...

The first step in arguing successfully with someone you are labeling a narcissist...



Is to go look in the mirror.

tim maguire said...

The problem with the therapization of our society is that disputes too often amount to little more than 2 people hurling diagnoses at each other.

wendybar said...

LMFAO. Trump didn't perfect that, gays did. They just described the entire alphabet mafia.

3/22/23, 8:38 AM


THIS^^^

gilbar said...

What's The MOST Important thing? For people to have in themselves today?
It's PRIDE!
Gay Pride!
Black Pride!
Womyn Pride!
Fat Pride!!!
Say it LOUD! I'm , and i'm PROUD!
We are ALL Taught.. That we NEED, to Be PROUD!

this is, a "little" different, from the way we Used To Think.
Pride is a deadly sin
Pride has been called “the cancer of the soul, “the beginning of all sin,” and “sin in its final form.”
The sin of pride is an excessive preoccupation with self and one’s own importance, achievements, status, or possessions.
This sin is considered rebellion against God because it attributes to one’s self the honor and glory that only God is due.
Pride is the opposite of humility, a character quality that greatly pleases God, and one He rewards.

Pride goeth before a fall.

Mark said...

Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)

Ha. Joe Biden perfected being Trump decades before Trump ever imagined being Trump. Joe Biden created the template. When was he ever not a center-of-the-room arrogant boorish ass?

RMc said...

Narcissists:
1. Her sh!tty boyfriend
2. Trump

Not narcissists:
1. Women
2. Democrats

Sydney said...

Everyone has a little bit of narcissist in them. It’s why pride is the root of most sin.

rcocean said...

The Left has always loved to come up with these pseudo-scienfific "pyschological" analyses of people they don't like. Hitler was crazy. Shirer in his book, tries to imply that all the top Nazis were homosexuals. Joe McCarthy was crazy. J. edger Hoover wore a dress. Nixon was "Paranoid". And Goldwater was famously diagnosed by 4000 pyschologists as "Crazy".

What's amazing about Trump, is he's gotten attacked by the Left on all three fronts. He's "crazy" and "Stupid" and "heartless". Usually, the Left only uses one of these tropes. Ike was a dumb ol'General. Reagan was dumb actor. Herbert Hoover was Heartless. Nixon was "paranoid" and "crazy".

rcocean said...

The liberal/Left really hates Trump. More than they did Nixon. Or ChipHitler. Or even Joe McCarthy. Its probably because Trump fights back and never cucks. He doesn't act like a normal Republican. He doesn't care if the NYT's hates him. George Bush did. And Reagan - or least Nancy - was appreciative of praise from the WaPo.

As for Nixon, he's hatred of the liberal establishment was just unrequited love.

cf said...

Searching in here for "Obama", but somehow it's gone missing.

Wince said...

"Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)...the label ['narcissist'] has been steadily spreading to celebrities, shitty boyfriends, and sometimes mothers."

Didn't Rosin herself just deem Trump central to the phenomenon that she doesn't even causally link to Trump?

Jersey Fled said...

I'm guessing Hanna is a narcissist.

Temujin said...

Trump invented narcissism? What can't he do?

Interesting that the generation that spends it's entire day talking, thinking, and writing about themselves, finds narcissism all around them.

Greg the Class Traitor said...

But calling them narcissists is about as helpful as calling them obese.

IOW, both are very helpful, if you're not a psychotic monster who wants to destroy the lives of future generations, including current 25 and unders

cfs said...

https://beckernews.com/5-manhattan-da-49682/

"Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett on “Hannity” on Tuesday night revealed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hid hundreds of pages of exculpatory evidence from the New York grand jury."

Apparently, withholding exculpatory evidence from defendants is a "new and approved" method for the left and has been endorsed by practically all law professors.

Bruce Hayden said...

Contrary to the court case, my partner believes that Depp is really a nice guy. Or at least was, when they spent several long evenings talking together on a beach in Hawaii about 20 years ago. Yes, there’s an intensity there, that she liked, but wouldn’t ever consider marrying, or even dating, someone like him.

Critter said...

Trump bothers the Left that is led by NYC “liberals” because he embodies all of their characteristics. Can’t have people seeing the NYC “liberal” culture clearly. Must manipulate from behind the screen. Therefore must eliminate Trump.

hombre said...

Barack Obama was deemed a narcissist long before Trump came on the scene.

Of course, Obama was not "easily Wounded" since he was blessed with Democrat shamelessness.

Joe Smith said...

You can put all of the transgender craze down to narcissism.

Look at me!!! Look at me!!!

Lurker21 said...

"What do you do if you work for/love/live with a narcissist" books have been around for a while now. It's possible that in New York Magazine circles the topic really caught on with Trump, but this looks like a cheap way to work Trump into an article.

I remember hearing that Bill Clinton was a narcissist. Then Barack Obama. Then Trump. I suppose they -- like so many other politicians -- are narcissists, but of different sorts. Obama was a preening narcissist, Trump a "performative" or entertaining one. Clinton is harder to pin down. Thirty years ago I saw something very dark in him at the time. Maybe it's there, but with time Clinton looks more and more like another ambitious, power-hungry politician. Narcissistic, to be sure -- like LBJ, JFK, FDR were narcissistic.

Trump does need to be the center of attention a bit more than the usual politician (his opponents also apparently need him to be). He doesn't seem able to learn or to rise above personalities -- narcissistic tendencies -- but so far that's made him more of a danger to himself than to anyone else. And now we have Biden, who has to make himself the subject of every conversation, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

Were any of them truly "pathological narcissists?" None of them tried to become tyrants (the jury's still out on Biden, but the tyranny would be by committee, not a personal one). Did they show signs of narcissistic unraveling or implosion or self-sabotaging? It's hard to separate that from the usual problems that politicians get into. "All political lives, unless they are cut off at midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs."

In recent years, there's been a counter-current. Politicians benefit from their narcissism. It gives them a buoyancy. They never have to face their own limitations. Setbacks don't make them doubt themselves. Narcissists are "easily wounded," but their buoyancy can slough off insults and attacks. One needs to be something of a narcissist to survive and succeed in politics. Maybe the real challenge is to find people in politics who aren't deeply narcissistic and see whether they really ever rise to the top.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

With the courts and divorce law staked in their favor, almost always getting the kids and the house, men are the narcissists.

If they say so, it must be true.

Narayanan said...

RideSpaceMountain said...
"Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)..."

Mark said...
... Ha. Joe Biden perfected being Trump decades before Trump ever imagined being Trump. Joe Biden created the template. When was he ever not a center-of-the-room arrogant boorish ass?
=========
is it white supremacy ? why is Obama not model exemplar for this?

Narayanan said...

RideSpaceMountain said...
"Ever since Trump perfected the template (grandiose, manipulative, easily wounded, unable to tolerate even minor scenarios in which he isn’t deemed central or special)..."

Mark said...
... Ha. Joe Biden perfected being Trump decades before Trump ever imagined being Trump. Joe Biden created the template. When was he ever not a center-of-the-room arrogant boorish ass?
=========
is it white supremacy ? why is Obama not model exemplar for this?

Michael K said...

The narcissists at NY Magazine and their narcissistic readers are not amused.

Achilles said...

The real issue with narcissists is that every single one of us is a narcissist. What this person is doing with the word narcissist here is just espousing their dislike for Trump.

I make extreme efforts to remove personal biases from analyses and judgement.

It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.

And out of all recent presidents only GWB was less of a narcissist than Trump. Bush knew his limitations and knew who was really in control. He accepted his lot in life as a globalist tool and was self effacing about it.

You have to go back to Reagan to find president as selfless as Trump and Trump has taken way more abuse than Reagan.

Obama is the obvious example of an extremely self centered person. He was the most thin skinned person to exist in recent memory. He was vindictive. He lied repeatedly to get his way knowing he hurt people doing so.

Obama was just a piece of shit.

And if you compare Trump and Desantis it is clear and obvious that Desantis is the more selfish candidate. Even by Desantis's own words Trump is the incumbent and deserves his support.

iowan2 said...

This is getting embarrasing. Media has to put TRUMP in the headline. Even when it irrelevant.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

"But calling them narcissists is about as helpful as calling them obese."

Are they obese? If they're obese why wouldn't it be helpful to call them that--to correctly identify what they are? Seems like that's a necessary starting point for any "helpful" action!

n.n said...

Projections of a narcissistic handmade tailor.

n.n said...

The selfiesh conception. #MeToo

boatbuilder said...

IT’S ALL TRUMP’S FAULT!(

Butkus51 said...

explain King Clusterphuck Obama

lonejustice said...

Achilles said...

"I make extreme efforts to remove personal biases from analyses and judgement.

It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do."
---------------

Your posts on this blog show that you need to try harder.

Ambrose said...

Imagine not being able to express a single thought without starting from Trump

Achilles said...

lonejustice said...
Achilles said...

"I make extreme efforts to remove personal biases from analyses and judgement.

It is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do."
---------------

Your posts on this blog show that you need to try harder.

I agree.

Everyone should try harder to do this.

Have you ever looked in a mirror and thought about how your own posts would apply to yourself? You should look at your posts from the point of view of other people.

It might help you explain why people think you are stupid.

rwnutjob said...

Let's throw the term around so much it becomes meaningless like Nazi or racist. Dangerous. Ask anyone who has lived with a real narcissist.

Old and slow said...

Achilles, are you seriously suggesting that others need to take a look in the mirror the way you do? Next time you gaze toward the mirror, here is an idea: open your eyes.That's likely where you have been going wrong. Look, I agree with many things you say, but even a glance at your writing reveals you to be painfully lacking in self-awareness.