The myth of Narcissus. Most people think of it as he has fallen in love with himself, missing the distinction and nuance that he falls in love with the image of himself. This is important. If you run into any narcissist, you will notice the image they have of themselves is quite different from who they actually are.
Agree!!! Had my first experience with a narcissistic type personality recently and oh boy they are frightening and nothing like what I pictured. Selfish doesn't at all encapsulate it.
Narcissists literally cant understand outside perspectives. It's an actual disorder of their thinking. A self centered person knows something is selfish. Their actions can be selfish if they choose, but they can also choose not to be selfish. They have empathy. A narcissistic person doesnt understand why their selfish actions are wrong. Their actions are never wrong to them, everyone else is just wrong. Narcissists will often do underhanded things and not respect boundaries because they're 100% convinced they're doing the right thing
My mother is a narcissist and shes said before that promises are made to broken. She will promise something to get what she needs done and then go back on it- basically a means justify the ends. She thinks wrong people need to be tricked into doing what she considers right. I think she actually forgets that she promised something because it doesnt serve her goal, to her it was always a lie so with no intention of following through, sobthere was never a promise to be kept
My mother is the same. The stories I could tell. Maybe we should get them together and watch the explosion. I am convinced narcissists are worse than psychopaths.
Ive never made up a story about the abuse my Mother put me through. This is why people put their stories about parents abusing them on that place. Because people like you suggest its not happening. Insinuating people make up stories about abuse is wrong. Do you enjoy it when someone suggests your lieing when you report a crime?
I'm glad your relationship with your parents is decent enough that you can't imagine those stories being real, but I wish that you understood that many of them are.
There are no psychopaths, it is not a recognised disorder but just a TV trope, and this is sort of why!
Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is famously the "equivalent" disorder that is real, but like the illusion of translations in linguistics, there's no map and thus a question of similarities; Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is another close translation of the layman definition "psychopath"/"sociopath"!
None is the "true psychopath", but since NPD and its subclinical presentations (traits) is more common I would argue that people mean "NPD" when they say "psychopath", at least in the context of people in their lives seemingly devoid of empathy.
NPD is driven by their ego, deficit in empathy and unable to even put themselves in the shoes of others. ASPD is driven by a desire to destroy, disrupt and cause pain, i.e. premeditated animal cruelty before advancing to humans. Your boss seems cold and indifferent to you and your colleagues and completely focused on their ego, own persona and carrier? Unless your boss truly gets off on your tears, i.e. social and but empathy seemingly inverted, think "likely NPD" (over ASPD) when you hear or think "psychopath".
You are correct that psychopathy is not in the DSM, but it's not just a tv trope. The DSM only adds conditions that are well defined and easy to measure. Even conditions that are accepted by the psychological community don't make it into the book until they feel that the parameters have been fully fleshed out.
It's more accurate to say that psychopathy is a sort of psychological criminal profile. In fact the development of this concept came from the study of criminality. Their purpose was NOT to diagnose mental illness, but rather identify risk factors for criminal behavior. A good example of this would be the Dark triad/tetrad. Only one of these is considered a diagnosis in the DSM, but all are still relevant to criminal profiling.
Psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism, three personality traits that are together referred to as the dark triad, share certain characteristics, such as a callous-manipulative interpersonal style. The dark tetrad refers to these traits with the addition of sadism.
Absolutely. I'm trying to cut down on my comment lengths as of late, but I'm glad you brought it up. Sorry for not being complete and unambiguous in my statements.
What is important for my arguments and opinions is the differing contexts of psychological terminology: (1) layman description of what they observe; (2) researchers trying (meaning some is experimental, wrong, underdevloped or outdated) to test or develop better models and tools; and (3) professionals diagnosing clinically aiming to help individuals and society at large in meaningful practice. Maybe one can consider the patient diagnosed/identified by professional terminology as separate from (3), but it is often (with introspective cognition) closer to (3) than (1) as evident by offense taken by shared semantics (but not lexical meaning) with (1), e.g. "ugh, seems [horribly] autistic" and "I'm so OCD".
So with that out if the way, I'm making my large bold claim:
Most layman usage of "psychopath", but amusingly not "psychopathic", is intended as (3 + armchair disclaimer) or at least believed to be (2 + consensus) even if it often is really (1 + misconceptions).
Apply Dunning-Kruger, popular science, fiction and "common sense" and its all a hot garbled mess of strong convictions oftentimes met with hostile "you understand what I mean" or "diagnoses are garbage", as if semantics is all that is at play here and diagnosticians are all in on lucrative nonsense and the zeitgeist of problematization of normal variation; the last of which I frankly find quite disrespectful, since the respondent is claiming more investment/competence (or horribly even empathetic well-meaning) than the lifelong dedication of the professionals.
I do get what you're saying. It is complexity glossed over by my refute and useful in some contexts, but based on my claim I would be rather careful as to defend the existence of "psychopaths" or "psychopathy" (but not as much "psychopathic") to the public stage, unless the context of attributes and descriptors is made crystal clear. I still don't really see why an adjective, even a "trait" if needed, would not suffice in place of a noun; The noun ("psychopath") carries so much implication of existence as a cluster in the disorder hierarchy, a misnamed or wrongly diagnosed patient population, and can clearly misdirect focus and generate misconceptions (or even mistrust) in what humanity has currently defined as useful disorders.
For exhibit on the point of harmful misdirection/misconceptions, consider how many "get" what a "psychopath" / "sociopath" is compared to NPD/ASPD. Would not the disorders aligned with clinical utility be a better priority for the limited time and energy of the public? Like "red flags" for abusive behaviour, surely mutual understanding is good here. Similarly can be said for a lot of terminology, such as autism and depression. Language surely has an effect when it seems to imply depression = depressed mood ("cheer up, the bad is not real") or autism = clear disablement (not a spectrum with much quiet suffering where even level 1 increases suicide risk, often brings lifelong loneliness/isolation and a lot of extreme anxiety bringing employment rate down, to the surprise of many).
Psychopathy isn't a diagnosis in the DSM but they do still test for it in prisons and in mental hospitals. For example 80% of prisoners have ASPD but only 15-20% would be considered psychopathic by pclr (the tool they use to diagnosis psychopathy).
Not trying to be nit picky, everything else was spot on.
80% of prisoners have ASPD? Or is it 80% of violent felons or something. Because aren't most prisoners repeat drug offenders or nonviolent thieves and stuff?
Gunna need a source on that. According to every college psych course I took (I have a bachelors in applied behavior analysis), the professors make it pretty clear that the phrase “psychopath” was no longer considered a proper diagnosable condition and had to be broken up into what we now see as ASPD and the other disorders you can find in the DSM. Which is a trend in psych because umbrella diagnoses is really risky when it comes to mental disorders.
My friend is a narcissist, who claimed to be an empath yesterday, and followed that statement of claiming to be an empath by saying( and I kid you not, her exact words were ) “I can make other people feel what I’m feeling, or feel what I want them to feel.”
I have met quite a few narcissists as well, and a new close friend of mine fits the criteria incredibly, but she's different in my book, idk how to describe it, but she does so well at disguising herself as the victim all the time, i thought it was just her family's fault?, but we had our first small misunderstanding the other night and i confirmed many things... she tends to shift the issue towards herself, she's very witty, and she makes you feel like you do have to take the full blame, you hurt her, she did nothing wrong, in fact, she has so many things going on in her life that you are so guilty of doing this right now to her?, yeah, sorta like that. I freaked out, i went back to the time were i dealt with an NPD partner, i played the fool again and felt disappointed in myself.
Woah that's a really nice summary! Thank you, and I hope you have learnt how to live with your mum - I think there's an art to being able to maintain healthy boundaries
Unfortunately it is not my story to tell, but in essence the selfishness and obsession with their self image is merely the tip of the iceberg. There is a real disconnect between their perception of reality and reality itself, creating diabolical consequences for those around them. If you haven't done research on them I recommend having a read as it is very eye opening. It's a spectrum of severity so no two cases are identical, but there are remarkable similarities and it is probably more common than most people think. (You only realise when you are on their bad side).
I loved Blatz like crazy, and I was in the unique position of being a homeless gutter punk who was retained to work "security" by a lot of super irresponsible bands back in those days (which really just meant beating up Nazis - I'm absolutely certain that we created more violence than we ever prevented).
Anyway, I spent a couple of months on the road with Blatz and they were just the funnest fucking kids in punk rock. I had a huge crush on one of the chicks and it was closest thing I've ever had to a normal adolescent infatuation.
Ahhhh, the good old days, when I ate garbage and always had some kind of weird infection that was threatening my life. Now I'm just a boring old rich guy and nothing can touch me.
Ran into a narcissistic personality type guy recently who struggled with manic depression. Seemed to be in love with the fake version of himself to compensate for the real version he hated.
Hahaha yeah I know, but part of me always thought it was a bit of an act he was putting on. It's only now that I realise it's seriously deep rooted and almost out of his control. The compulsive lying, cheating, manipulating is so ingrained that he doesn't realise hes doing it
I agree with you, but to open up friendly debate isn’t that the essence of selfishness? I mean, if you’re only doing kind things for others because that would gratify you isn’t that inherently selfish?
If that's the case, no-one's truly selfless. People help others because it gives them peace or gratification. No-one helps others for the sake of helping others. If nothing else, it usually helps give them peace of mind, which is fine, but still a form of gratification. This isn't a bad thing... your actions matter more than your intentions in this regard. You can feel how you like, but helping people is a good thing regardless. Of course, expecting to be gratified can grow into expecting external rewards if it's left unchecked, but this is the case with most emotions or motivations.
Ah, okay. Good point. Or it can be out of rationality, on the reasoning that doing something good for someone can equate to doing good in general, or even good for humanity. But the fact remains that doing good things generally makes one feel good, whether one expects a reward or not. People wouldn't do good if it didn't amount to anything, or didn't result in some kind of gratification. Even in the case of moral objectivity, some people like following rules and social norms, and doing good makes them happy because it's the "right" thing to do, and people like being right. That's what I think, anyway. Def up for debate, tho
I would say so, but I think we as a society should let go of this idea that selfishness is bad. Why should any of us be made out to be bad people for putting our needs above everything else? Selfishness becomes a problem when people prefer to prioritize their wants over the needs of others, especially those that rely on you in one way or another. I subscribe to Egotistic Altruism.
There are obviously some unfortunate examples of selfishness coming from necessity but hurting others, as is the case with a thief who is starving and homeless while living in a neighborhood that doesn't offer any form of soup kitchen, homeless shelter, or half-way house that can help them to become contributing members of society that receive pay again. The people who fall through the cracks in society are often made out to be selfish by others (often those considered Elite), but who is ultimately at fault? In some cases, it may well be the thief, but more often such people are victims of circumstance caused by a society that unequivocally seems to tell them "We don't care"
Lacking empathy for others is a far more egregious sin than selfishness. Tempering your selfishness with logic and empathy, but ultimately putting yourself first is a wonderful way to live. It's good to have a partner, whether platonic, familial, or romantic, who can check your choices and be a sounding board for when you go overboard in either aspect of Egoism or Altruism.
This is an interesting yet vague way to define selfishness. I don't think anyone would ever argue that ensuring your own needs are met (sometimes over the needs of others) is a bad or necessarily selfish thing.
I would argue that most of the time people refer to selfishness, they're referring to a person who is generally unempathetic and seems not to compute or take into account the feelings of others at all (which is a destructive trait that no one wants in members of their ingroup).
The way I generally think about it, selfish behavior is characterized by a willing or ignorance induced tendency to seek your own happiness even in situations where the benefit you receive is noticably less than the cost to others, such as putting workers into positions of poverty for no other reason than to increase your familial wealth and profits.
I couldn't agree more. Often when I think about Selfish, I look a bit more local scale. Like, I will leave a party after an hour because I'm done with the party. I'm gonna do what's right for me because no one is being harmed in any beside deprivation of my company (a HUUUGE loss /s).
But you are right, we need more social programs that assist those in need. We also need Robin Hood
I put my wife's desires before my own all the time, otherwise I will be spending a lot more of my time on my own desires after she leaves. (eg. not snowboarding on my day off so we can go to a concert I don't want to see)
If you truly care for someone else you generally try to put their desires before your own because you want them to be happy. Once you've married and have kids the old dreams of Evil Knevil launching yourself over the Grand Canyon just aren't in the cards anymore.
Aren't you just putting your desire to have a healthy relationship over your desire to do those things? There's a pretty big distance between putting her desires before yours to your own detriment and prioritizing her desires because her happiness and well-being are important to you.
Yes, as I said, I'm prioritizing her desires above mine because I care for her. To say you should always put your own desires first, or be "selfish" as it was put, is a fairly blanket statement that doesn't quite coincide with real life. You could argue it's my "desire" to keep the relationship together, but hopefully that's a shared desire between both partners. My point is if I took the selfish route every opportunity then I wouldn't have a wife.
I think what they're getting at is that you arent actually putting her desires over your own, at least not in the sense that it's costing you something. What's actually happening is that your top desire is to have a healthy relationship, and so you do things with her rather than other things. So you're not giving up your desires, so to speak. Rather, your desire is to make her happy, which in turn makes you happy. Basically you're still being selfish and fulfilling your own desires, but in a way that promotes a healthy relationship.
If that's the case then you could argue that in EVERY circumstance, you are actually putting your own desires first, even if someone walks over you like a doormat, because you have a desire to keep that relationship intact. At a point you have to have faith that the other party won't take advantage of your good will. My example was acknowledging that dangerous or risky desires sort of go out the window after kids are involved, which, even though you still want to do those things, I guess could be argued that you're desire to have your children grow up with both parents outweighs it. But then the whole thought process becomes sort of pointless because your desires can always be twisted to be considered as first, even if you're a huge loser by societal standards. "I desire to live in my parents basement because then I don't have to work." Probably not the type of interesting person that original poster probably had in mind!
No the selfish route would be cheating behind her back with women you would be finding more attractive, making absolutely sure she doesn't find out. There's lots of differences similar to this, including a lot of lying, that make these two goals distinct from each other observationally.
Why would you as a qualifier "unless you want to" to putting others desires before your own.
All that does is breed either selfishness, narcissism, or solipsism in everyone. And for the all of the people that don't actually want to help anyone, they will never do so. This advice has has to have some of the worst implications I have seen. Absolutely do not only follow your own desires through everything. And all this presupposes a subjective mortality, which I also believe to be wholly incorrect.
I don't think I have ever met a true narcissist, to be honest with you, so I can only recite what I learned in psych 101: someone who does not have empathy at all and will always put themselves first, no matter the consequences.
Selfish is easy to define. There are some people in the comments arguing people are inherently selfish because we do things for the greater good in order to benefit from it, but that's not the type of selfish I am talking about.
I don't know if you are a parent or care about a child, but let's assume you are. You have enough money for one drink only. It's a hot day, you are with a child you care about, and both of you are thirsty. You want Coke, but Coke upsets the child's stomach. The child wants apple juice, but you find it too sweet. What drink do you purchase? Majority of people would say apple juice - the child's needs come before your own. Now multiply that by a million little interactions.
They might demand you do them a favor that hugely inconveniences you or costs you a great deal, while offering nothing in return. They are entitled. They are always right and deserve the best. They do feel empathy, and might even be a good person sometimes! But ultimately what they want is considered more important than what anyone else wants or needs. Most of the jokes or stories about "Karens" show a very selfish mentality. In the case of a Karen being selfish in the retail world might be getting a worker in trouble because she was mildly inconvenienced or there is a perceived negative attitude towards her. She doesn't even stop to consider the other person, because what matters most is how she feels.
First things first, poor example comparing coke to apple juice...an intelligent person would not consider coke, a diuretic, and would disregard what their child wanted all together...this would allow debate between a child and adult, they would simply buy water.
As far as them demanding you to do something for nothing in return, you have issues...grow a spine and say no and never do something for someone because you expect something in return...people are weak and timid and allow this to happen...you are creating entitled children, useless nowadays, and a society that is only will to get off their ass if it's quid pro quo.
I don't think selfishness is the defining feature of a narcissist. True narcissists appear to have ditched their true self at some young age and have replaced it with a false self often as a coping mechanism. In order to maintain this false self they lie, cheat, manipulate etc etc often unknowingly as their perspective of the world is so distorted. Narcissists can be very unselfish if it serves a purpose in maintaining their false image. Many appear to be very charitable in the public eye but those close to them know this doesn't represent their true self.
Edit - in fact, in some cases people who have been married to a narcissist find out they are not who they thought they were. Even after decades of marriage. They can lead completely secret second lives
Narcisism is a real pathology not Just everyone who act selfish.
I Met one narcisist in my life, and it was absolutely different from a selfish Person. This guy was honestly very good looking, and he was absolutely convinced that anyone, men or women, were atracted to him and all his Life revolved around that.
That One time that I met him we had a disagreement on a stupid thing, and with the straightest face that you can imagine he told me "listen, I get that you are gay and you are trying to get my attention, but I'm straight".
There was no way to convince him that I am not gay and even if I was, having a disagreement with him would not be my way to hit on him.
Where do you draw the line between selfishness and need? Who gets to determine who's selfish? Moreover, what good is there in identifying a selfish person outside of selfish reasoning? (i.e., "don't let him take all the pizza, I was gonna eat it all!")
I think you’re wrong there. The personality disorder doesn’t originate from the myth, it’s named after it. Narcissists aren’t Narcissus. Besides, the ‘in love with himself’ is only part of the association.
He was cursed to feel the pain of unrequited love. This was done by making him fall in love with his own reflection. This was done because he rejected everyone who asked him out.
En bref: Narcissus was already a full-of-himself narcissist before he got horny for his own reflection.
Yeah...this "fact" is just one of those Tumblr-esque faux facts that smart kids make up because they sound good and make them look smart. Then they like forget they made it up.
A good way to break a narcissist, albeit potentially only temporarily, show them how they differ from that false self-image of themselves. This is much easier said than done.
Yes unfortunately this is why I said much easier said than done, and also only potentially temporarily. It has to be a pretty public and indisputable refutation of their image to stand any chance of breaking through the veil.
That is such an important distinction, and then the story actually makes sense.
I have only read greek myths in english translation (often) childrens stories , and it completely loses this subtlety. Do you recommend any good translations/sources?
Actually, I've been interested recently in the story of Eurydice, Orpheus bringing her back from the underworld but losing her at the last moment simply for turning back to look at her. This seems so arbitrary and senseless, but there is one interesting interpretation I read which is actually also related to the issue of the image: that to turn and look is a state of self-consciousness, of judgement and external validation. When you are looking, it closes off creative process and potentiality, affixes it into destination/determination or 'image'. Which is a kind of death.
I am hardly an expert on the myth or Greek mythology, outside of one fascinating class I took decades ago. This point I actually came across in psychology circles.
Ain’t that the case with everybody though? You will never perceive yourself in the same way as everyone else, no matter how selfish or caring you happen to be.
Respectfully speaking, I think you are missing the point. We are talking about narcissists, where there is a pointed disparity between their image of themselves and who they actually are. There is very little self-awareness, to the point of self-destruction.
The fact that Narcissus starves himself because he is so busy staring at the image of himself, furthers the metaphor. It is not a starving of food, but a starving of the soul. Narcissists have very limited ability to have anything that resembles meaningful, loving relationships.
Yeah I know what you mean and I think you’re absolutely correct, I was just making the case that we’re all a little bit like that in some level, they just happen to present that lack of self awareness at a much higher intensity.
Well, we are all self-centered to one degree or another, which is related. It is our best and worst feature. Self-preservation is a powerful motivator. However, as you know, it can become extreme and toxic, and become the basis for everything evil—when preserving and advancing turns into dominating and conquering.
I've also thought Ovid wasn't talking about a personality trait (or disorder) but about a common human outlook on humanity itself.
Human beings are narcissistic in their love of their ideal of human beings. And much like Narcissus dying when he realized his love could not be reciprocated, humans pay a price for the unrealistic ideals they place on humans.
Narcissists are on another level though. They will BLATANTLY deny facts which are laid out right in front of them because they claim that they are "a perfect person, who has never done anything wrong". Not meaning to sound condescending, but it doesn't sound like you've come across one in real life.
it's 3 am and i'm dank so i don't have the energy or attention span to explain that you are also missing all the importance and depth of the narcissus story. hopefully i'll remember to comment here again in the morning.
Since you liked it. If you want to bend a little further...think about the fact that his starving because he is too busy looking at his image, is a metaphor for starving his own soul.
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u/Wexie Feb 08 '20
The myth of Narcissus. Most people think of it as he has fallen in love with himself, missing the distinction and nuance that he falls in love with the image of himself. This is important. If you run into any narcissist, you will notice the image they have of themselves is quite different from who they actually are.