I think we’d all agree that self-absorption is an unhealthy characteristic and that we have too much of it in our social media-driven age. I heard it said that some people never have reflections unless they stand before a mirror.
“I may not be much, but I’m all I think about.”
How true. But today we’re witnessing something more sinister, a kind of malignant self-absorption that threatens our way of life.
We’re seeing an extreme form of narcissism which:
- so distorts reality,
- so warps the mind,
- so robs the soul
that nothing is left of the other. The only thing that matters is — ME.
Simply put, narcissism is a mental illness wrapped in a personality disorder in which a person inflates their own sense of importance, evidencing deep need for attention and admiration while exhibiting little or no empathy for others.
The term originated from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the story of Narcissus and Echo, Narcissus is a handsome young man who spurns the advances of many potential lovers, including Echo, so named because she was cursed to only echo the sounds of others. After Narcissus rejects Echo, the gods punish him by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a pool. Finding his reflection cannot love him back, he pines away and dies.
We’re living in an age of narcissism on steroids. It’s taken hold of the reins of power in governments across the globe, running roughshod over laws, established norms and individual rights.
One need look back to World War II to see what appears to be going on.
The story of that war might well be told through the prism of narcissism — how one man’s grandiose vision came to war with the world and how 80 million people acted as foot soldiers.
According to Hitler, it was “the sacred mission of the German people…to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements…and raise them to the dominant position.” “All who are not of a good race are chaff.”
One hundred million human beings were sacrificed as chaff.
The historian Peter Frische, in the book Homeland, studies the question of what drew so many into Hitler’s circle. Frische compiles personal correspondence between family members living across borders in Germany and Holland after the First World War.
The personal reflections make it clear many Germans felt shattered by that war. Shortages were rampant, revolts had broken out across Germany, raw materials were in short supply and the boys who made it home were a broken lot. They felt victimized by the terms of armistice and many seethed in anger and resentment.
Thus ensued the search for a scapegoat.
Hitler provided them one in the Jews, communists and ethnic minorities. He convinced the German people they were plotting to take over the Weimar Republic and cast himself as the avenging angel who would create a Reich of a thousand years. And they would be his army.
The letters show how Hitler found favor with this self-absorbed, aggrieved population and motivated them to engage in an even bloodier war.
The English philosopher Frances Bacon reminds us, “The man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”
If there’s any message from this story it’s how easy it is for a malignant narcissist to build an army of people who perceive themselves to be victims with scores to settle.
As we look upon the aggrieved world of today we need to ask ourselves:
- How might we prevent a similar outcome from raining down upon us?
- How do we bind wounds so as to not poison the world?
Perhaps it’s best we look to some of those who suffered the most — the real victims of man’s inhumanity to man — those who were able to shed the identity of victim-hood in favor of self-hood.
Victor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who spent three years living in a Polish concentration camp, shares these wise observations:
- I don’t forget any good deed and I don’t carry a grudge for a bad one.
- If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
- Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how.”
- Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
- What is to give light must endure burning.
- Life is not made unbearable by circumstances, but by a lack of purpose.
Just a thought…
Pat
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