Tag: Malignant narcissist

The Rape of America.

One of the most dangerous misconceptions about Narcissism is that it is about the lack of something. Author Bruno Bettleheim uses the metaphor of ‘The Empty Fortress’, to convey this idea, that the Narcissist is just a bunch of defences surrounding a vacuum, forgetting that the fortress is empty because its contents have been projected. Shakespeare seems to concur with Bettleheim in Macbeth, Act V, Scene V.

“It (life) is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Shakespeare is describing what life looks like from inside a soul that has destroyed its own moral centre. He seems to be saying that when you live as if nothing matters, the world eventually appears to mean nothing. Though this is hardly enough. After all, both Lord Duncan and the Queen lie dead…

In common parlance we speak about the Narcissist, ‘lacking empathy’, as though the problem was simply that they had something missing. Well wishers wonder if they could ‘learn’, as though what was required was simply a matter of corrective instruction.

Yet this is far from the truth and perhaps reflects the desire on behalf of said enablers to bury their heads in the sand whilst the malignant wrecking ball sweeps past their tail feathers.

In fact, the Narcissist is far from empty or beset by ‘lack’. The problem is not so much the absence of something positive, relatedness and connection, but the presence of something which regards such virtues as weakness and aberration.

The prime concern of Narcissism is to rid the fortress of unbearable feelings. It’s empty because its contents have been evacuated. The oft vaunted attributes of Narcissism, pride, arrogance, superiority, can only be had once one’s system is shot of vulnerability and human frailty. These unwanted feelings have to be projected onto some unwitting other which then brings the person into immediate conflict with his neighbour. In the special case of malignant narcissism, projection is not quite enough. Projections don’t always stick.

You might attribute your neighbour with weakness and stupidity but she is always free to disagree. Unless you actually make her feel weak and stupid. The malignant narcissist differs from his more common or garden cousin by the need to make sure that the projection sticks. It’s not enough to simply assert the other is weak and stupid,. You have to get them to agree. It’s called projective identification. I project my shit onto you and get you to claim it as your own, making you feel as though I am not merely insulting you but correctly identifying that you are indeed a piece of crap.

One of the most heinous manifestations of this is rape. Rape is not about sex, Rape is about the need to humiliate in such a way that the raped other is forced to carry and identify with the feelings of worthlessness and inferiority which so interrupt and interfere with narcissistic hauteur.

In May 2023, a New York civil jury found Trump liable in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation related to an incident in the mid-1990s. Because this was a civil case (a lawsuit for damages), the jury did not criminally convict him of rape though he was ordered to pay damages. Some legal commentary said the conduct involved ‘non-consensual penetration’. Trump himself confessed, in the Hollywood access tapes, to ‘pussy grabbing’… He qualified his behaviour, ‘when you are a celebrity, they let you do it.’

Even more disturbing are the multiple accusations from underage girls at the time of being raped by Trump and his best mate Jeffrey Epstein over many years, all of which Trump has done his utmost to keep concealed from the public eye, both by DOJ withholding and the various distractions of Venezuela and Greenland. It does seem rather ironic that this deflection from public scrutiny of his sexual ‘indiscretions’ should be the penetration of one sovereign nation and the threat to ‘have’ another, ‘whether they like it or not’, which of course is rapist language.

It’s not simply that the malignant narcissist does not care. Lack of empathy is the least of your worries. What is so dangerous is the ontological need to make others suffer so that he does not. The wish to make others suffer is not just sadistic. The enjoyment of the pain, exulting over the degradation of others is an existential necessity, the glue that holds the fraying threads of mental imbalance in some semblance of order.

Governance, logic, international relations, all play second fiddle to the self preservation of unloading inferiority and humiliation into others. The recent runway interview at Davos was a prime example. When told that French president Macron had declined his 1 billion dollar ‘invitation’ (protection racket) to the ‘Board of Peace’, his response was a shaming, ‘no-one wants him’. Of course, Macron’s refusal was on the back of a written invitation which he would not have been offered unless Trump wanted him. Logic and international relations simply go to the wall in the face of the urgent need to demean, rubbish and humiliate. Say whatever is needed to rid hated feelings of being unloved. Even if it makes you look stupid; those feelings too can be shed in time, as they were only hours later with his demeanment of China’s (successful) wind farm programme.

If only Trump’s pussy grabbing was confined to those he considers enemies or sufficiently unprotected to be inconsequential. Lady America herself is not safe from the ravages of malignant offloading. ‘Going in’, to maiden cities with national guards and the unaccountable and deadly violations of ICE agents, who are really extensions of Uncle Donald’s feverish paws, ensure the continued humiliation of millions so that he doesn’t have to be afflicted by his own painful feelings. Someone else can be made to feel the pain on his behalf, in their countless droves.

Why? Because hatred comes first; the target is constructed afterward. In so doing you get others carry and identify with all the loathsome emotions of worthlessness so urgently in need of disinvestment such that a polished persona based on the fragile ground of self congratulation can be maintained. The world must be shat on or incorporated, the sovereign autonomy of girls and nations violated, all so that the Emperor Baby and his minions can sleep easy at night.

Of Bears and Presidents.

You might have seen J K Rowling’s reply to Mr Trump’s recent tweet,

‘..are now fighting back like never before… blah blah ..DO SOMETHING!.’.

She says, ‘Nothing expresses calm confidence better than a caps-lock scream of ‘DO SOMETHING,.

which is nicely tounge in cheek, not quite sarcasm but more bite than irony, though it does beg the question of what he might mean, given that the order is not directed at anyone in particular let alone devoid of content.

My inner conspiracy theorist, who is is rather unreliable, says that he’s wanting to mobilise his base into open revolt, a call to arms for white supremacists, further doubling down of the police state.

The first bit conjurs images of beleagured trenches, the hand to hand kill or be killed of desperate combatants…’are now fighting back like never before’.. It is a call for backup, mobilising the Reserves…

and there are lots of them….

But the fact that the ‘DO SOMETHING’ is more of a bear growl than anything else is important. Bears are dangerous. They can swipe your head off.

They say that a grizzly’s personal space is 55 feet. If you’re that close it is gonna come at you teeth first. It’s a rather precise figure and makes you wonder how such data was retrieved. After all, the bear has to be sorely provoked in order to find out.

When I was a kid I really wanted to find out how fast I could ride my bike down the hill and still make the bend at the bottom. It never occured to me that finding out could be that painful.

Testing stuff to destruction seems to be a thing with us white folks, or perhaps better said, with any Single System System. The reason is that a ‘holier than thou’ attitude is rooted in First and Only, being so special that you lose sight of where you begin and end so great is your Wonderfullness, so seeped in They that I and Me no longer talk and know themselves thereby…

So boundaries have to be fortified, built and tested to destruction to claw back some sense of Self, even if you get scragged by the bear or come off your bike in the process.

Knowing where your edges are can feel more important than longevity, or a full term in office…

..which is why having leaders who are not magical and know enough about bears to go round them can be extremely useful.

You could also say that ‘DO SOMETHING’ is a kind of magical invocation of the breast by one whose symbiotic omnipotence with mummy is so great that her teat still constitutes personal property.

Since the spotlight is always fixed on the Narcissist in the equation, as you would expect, its often missed that Narcissism is a folie a deux, a game for two, a collusion of exclusive shared specialness whose fin you might indeed expect to see as it breaks the surface in stressful moments.

And you’d be right to scoff at a president who calls for his Mama just because the other kids won’t play nicely, but then what do you expect from a culture that idealizes youth and condenses it into a narcissistic value system built on the values of adolescence?

While we subscribe to fantasies of eternal youth, endless choice, perrenial summer nights and exotic destinies, how can our leaders not be petulant and demanding brats?

And you can’t really call the tyrant out for behaving like a two year old if you spend half your time playing by the same rules, even if its as petty as being ashamed of your ride or are losing sleep over what you don’t have.

A culture of Instant Gratification and bottomless pit must produce First and Only, all imbued with the feeling of having been cheated in some way despite being top of the heap.

Which is why, to paraphrase Socrates, Democracy must recind itself. The freedom to be a kid all your life is a burden, the endless sweeties, the eternal  preoccupation with goodies and treats wears thin. And so when you’ve everything of what you’re told and believe you want… and still you nurse a gnawing pit…

then that is the moment when either your paradigm collapses rather painfully or you reach down to that last resource, the promise of symbiotic omnipotence, the magical covenant that lets you be a bear.

Do Something. Make the magic happen. Make the frustration go away. We had a deal. I would let you pour all your expectations into me, be the golden child and long for nothing but would triumph over my enemies in return as promised.

Do Something!

Release the Behemoth of Zaldar!

Convene the Satanic Hordes of Gilgamesh!

Cast a binding spell with the sacred amythest of Middle Earth.

What is so scary about neo-Nazis is what motivates them, a secret fascination with power that can be conjured, something that sets the seal on any questions about supremacy and silences any quibbling at the back of the class.

The way you have to deal with both bears and malignant narcissists has its own kind of magic, an apotropaic gesture which has the power to stop a half ton ball of spitting fury in its tracks.

Don’t run.

You won’t get far.

The trick is to stand your ground, but in a very particular way. You have to face the bear and hold up your arms full stretch to say..

i am big and i am here…

but you also look down at an interesting bit of grass as if to say ‘I show you respect. You are the boss.’

a bit like taking a knee.

Gestures and objects that contain opposites are magical. They are both of this world and yet not. They confirm what you know whilst including something new, so change occurs, which is a kind of magic.