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talking with wife about the different kinds of narcissism & had an odd thought: sometimes it can be āmore narcissisticā to be private than public, in the sense that one might want to protect oneās self-image from scrutiny Narcissism is a convoluted concept, needs disambiguating
The first thing I find myself thinking is that people have different bandwidths. A person can have a very large bandwidth and care a lot about themselves AND a lot about others, simultaneously. These people are often described as ālarger than lifeā
A person might also be āsmaller than lifeā - either ānaturallyā, or as a conscious decision - taking great pains to avoid scrutiny, avoid taking up space in public, avoid being seen or heard. This IMO can be part of a sort of narcissism in itself, though few would call it that
The other important variable other than self-concern is concern for others. Many seem to think of this as a balancing act - like we have a limited amount of concern and we have to allocate it say 50/50 self vs others, or 60/40 or whatever. It breaks down if you interrogate it IMO
Some people use their smallness and seeming insignificance as a justification for not having to care about others, not being interested or concerned about others. Just kinda anonymously ghosting and coasting through life with minimal fuss. (Not judging! Just observing)
Some people care deeply about others to the point of being self-sacrificial. If theyāre skilled about it, it can be a good life, but if theyāre not, this way of being also ends up leading to āunforeseenā problems and failures that *somebody* has to deal with
I think the global default good life script is something like... care about your family, care about your community, meet your obligations on those fronts, do a little extra for them if you like, get by, indulge in something you enjoy from time to time, donāt be a dick, die happy https://t.co/3mhAaQ4VU6
This is a sort of ābasic lifeā, and if you live a good basic life thatās genuinely something to be proud of, IMO. There is so much cruelty and toxicity in the world - if you manage to avoid giving in to that, and you help someone out now and then, I love you and Iām proud of you
Where I think all of this starts to get interesting is this: Everyone has some script or set of beliefs about what is appropriate, what is good, what is right And if youāre reading this, you are *certainly* going to run into people who have different scripts, different beliefs
So for example, a person who believes that life should be small and unobtrusive might see another person living large, and accuse them of being ānarcissisticā Even though the second person might actually do more and care more for others than the first person ever does!
And that isnāt necessarily āwrongā either; itās just that different people have different models and different ideas about what is good and what is right and what is an āappropriateā way to be; we are all projecting from our experiences + received wisdom + reflections and so on
A phrase Iāve found myself using repeatedly is ānarcissists ruin self-love for the rest of usā- ie there *are* people who are troublingly self-obsessed + troublingly indifferent to the needs of others, and their actions & behaviors can unfortunately be contaminated by association
I think the accusation of narcissism carries ostracizing undertones - ie āthat guy is selfishly self-obsessed, ew, people like us donāt do things like that.ā And I think people in general, being social creatures, are wary of being ostracized. Which is quite rational
So Iām increasingly convinced that people who are mean to themselves do it as a sort of anti-ostracization defense. Many people unfortunately apologise for promoting their own work &are wary of celebrating themselves lest they be ostracized as narcissists. (This is gendered, IMO)
If you possess talents and abilities that you want to use in service of others, you will quite probably find yourself in the confusing position of having to advocate for yourself. Maybe run for office, maybe seek a leadership role. Take on more responsibility, influence outcomes
Itās very easy to say āthat guy is great, everyone should hear what he has to say.ā Itās much more difficult to say āpeople should listen to meā. And itās interesting (& troubling) to consider how this social complication is a bottleneck that keeps out highly-qualified people
Put it this way: our weird hangups about narcissism perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy where arrogant egotists are often overrepresented, and thoughtful, doubtful folks are often underrepresented. And then we go āaha, see, only narcissists run for officeā (for eg)
One simple and effective way to sidestep this entire problem is to be a great wingman to your friends and peers. A group of peers who are SINCERE and HONEST about whatās good creates a scene that accelerates the production of high-quality output.
Actually no, sorry. This sidesteps the 1-to-many problem, but it doesnāt help with the 0-to-1 problem. Before you can create work that others rave about, you first have to create work. & this itself is something some people find narcissistic, which is an unfortunate inhibitation
Anyway Iām running out of steam and should get to bed. But as a closing thought, simply consider this frame: we should be honest with ourselves & each other about whatās good, and we should challenge + support each other (and ourselves!) to do great work. https://t.co/QADgdo1a83
The galaxy-brain take for those who want to go there: the self is itself an illusion anyway; we are but fleeting assemblages and all our work is necessarily derivative. Narcissism then is a sort of bug, a hallucination; a fixation on a thing that isnāt even actually there. š¤ https://t.co/anBe4UniEU
Related https://t.co/3FHwHEtULT
theory about loving your own writing: 1. people who are selfish narcissists are known to be self-obsessed and say that they love their work 2. most people would prefer not to be seen as selfish narcissists 3. most people try to avoid saying things like "I love my writing"
Yes! This is also true of the protagonist in Dostoyevskyās Notes from Underground, IMO. https://t.co/iSpCjVvNIi
Can one potentially overdo it? Yes. But people who are worried about being self-promotional are, in my experience, not within astronomical units of the line, and people who are over the line have not worried for a single second in their lives about whether a line exists.
@visakanv Yes. This was me for decades - shame drove me to self-censor, and I couldnāt even see any other way to be. This is called āmaskingā in the autistic community, you perform a normative identity to avoid incurring social consequences.
@mykola ā¤ļø https://t.co/H4zHneMWIJ
@visakanv Recently read Stranger Than We Can Imagine by John Higgs which is sort of, like: can we model cubist art, modernist literature, quantum physics and the end of empire as a social organizing force as different instances of the same thing? And itās all about this, ultimately.
@visakanv Sort of a tangent to the main thrust of your argument, but I think the collapse of the idea that there can be meaningful consensus around how to reconcile subjective experiences is what drives all of this. And I think itās actually wrong.