Vanity is ubiquitous. Pomposity or an inflated sense of self is not avant-garde. For millennia, people have used the tale of Narcissus from ancient Greece to criticise this repugnant practice. A suave young nimrod looking for his ideal mate is the subject of the tale. Numerous women swoon over the hunter, but Narcissus believes that every one of them is prosaic and unworthy of his companionship. In the end, the goddess of vengeance Nemesis leads Narcissus to a pond, where he gets enamoured with his own reflection and dies all by himself. Freud formulated his psychoanalytic concept of narcissism by premising it on this story.
In his famous essay On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914), Freud (who regarded narcissism as “libidinal cathexis of the ego”) says
“Self-regard has a specially intimate dependence on narcissistic libido. The aim and the satisfaction in a narcissistic object-choice is to be loved.”
We are currently experiencing a narcissistic epidemic as a result of numerous aspects of contemporary culture. It’s simple to comprehend how our society encourages an attitude of self-importance and conceit. For years, the powerful entertainment and marketing sectors have piqued our wants, sated our cravings for power, and fostered a yearning for stardom.
When Helen Hayes said, “Stardom can be a gilded slavery”, she probably foretold the entrapments of virtual stardom that is centered on the constant need to be virtually visible. We have never had more opportunity to convey our need to feel unique than we have now compared to any previous generation. When a service or merchandise doesn’t measure up to our expectations, we can submit a caustic online review or painstakingly stage a selfie to flaunt any moment in and of our lives. In metropolises and cyberspace, where you can retain some detachment and treat others in the vicinity as dispensable and expendable, narcissism thrives. There is a widespread attitude sickness, an ‘ego-system’ that prevails.
Road traffic is a good place to see this. It seems like being overtaken is a big ego-problem for many drivers in India today, who will make it a point to be one ahead of every other car on the road, if they can help it, be it by overtaking from the left, or right, or center. Who cares! After all, it is their car and the road is their jagir (personal estate)! Red lights are just impediments and it is shameful how policemen are ignored or, worse, mocked. Not that some policemen are any better, with the arrogance that comes with one’s vardi (uniform), which should be a symbol of pride and duty. And how can we forget honking? Symphonies on the highest decibel scales are hardly taxable, so why bother? For some, being asked to wear helmets or seat-belts is as good as reversing the India Independence Act 1947 and all the associated freedoms that came with it. In COVID times, the funniest instance of this my-way-or-the-highway problem was seen when a middle-aged man was scientifically explaining to others why you should not wear masks, after being asked to wear one!
This practice is significantly more difficult to uphold in a rural community or tight-knit neighbourhood where anyone can know your activities and identity, and relate to it in a much more personal way. People don’t want arrogance to exist in such kinds of groups, consequently, it is driven out, as all will shun you if you are conceited because they will come to know about this aspect of your personality much more easily. However, even here, it is not entirely absent.
A fascinating work by Dr. Nilotpal Kumar of the Azim Premji University showed that the internalization of “manly” standards and the expression of male narcissism have been seen as significant factors in farmers making dangerous agricultural investments or attempting suicide in the event that farming endeavours fail. These men were influenced to take their own lives by a perceived erosion of hierarchical power within the ménage and failure in honor-related comparisons outside the home.
At a social level, honour killings are most often an expression of chauvinism and narcissism. The narcissism that comes with false righteousness. Narcissism that comes with valuing judgementalism and supposed ‘honour’ over and above human life. Khaps are many-a-times self-proclaimed extra-constitutional virtue-custodians, albeit with actions that at times are in contravention of basic human rights. Many have acted as kangaroo courts and even made infamous statements like ‘eating chowmein increases rapes‘. Ever since Rakesh Tikait, head of the Baliyan khap, called farmers to protest the Farm Law bill, khaps have seen a new-found relevance and vigor, with even a Jind khap Mahapanchayat being held by Tikait in February 2021. While the rights of the farmers should be central to the workings of any nation, any misuse of the representation of their interests must be prevented. Honour killings are not just an Indian phenomenon though. As per the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as many as nearly 5000 women die every year internationally in such cases! Highly at variance with the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
“Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions form our true honor.”
A full-blown narcissist lacks modesty. He has no concern for the people he harms and only seeks to boost his vanity. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is a quintessential narcissist whose singular pursuit of bodily gratification and violence is a metaphor for mindless materialism, showing how our modern, oft-Americanised, way of thinking promotes the narcissist. In families, parents and children both are sometimes seen to have a predilection towards narcissism, in trying to decide the right way of living, beyond and besides reasoning. It could also be the opposite, the tendency to disengage or choose to have little time with the other, which can foster a sense of abandonment, either in their childhood for children or in parents in their old age.
Even in office spaces, we see examples of bosses, like Miranda Priestly in Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, who find a sadistic pleasure borne out of narcissism to inflict misery on their underlings. One wonders whether it is the lack of evident repercussions of narcissism that makes individuals unleash their megalomania unchecked, like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray who found in his portrait (that withers even as he remains young) an escape from being punished for his actions, including murder.
The grim reaper eventually catching up with Dorian Gray should be a humbling thought, in that death exhibits the non-tenability of such narcissism. Taken to an extreme, we see a number of criminals who are inherently narcissistic, in self-judging their criminal actions to be justified. A toxic celeb culture that makes the individual unanswerable and beyond the normal bounds of societal propriety has made things worse. Be it Madonna’s exhibitionism in the 1990s, Kanye West calling himself the ‘Michael Jordan of Music’ or self-proclaimed film critic Kamaal Rashid Khan’s narcissistic rants, megalomania seems to have become a point of celebration.
Narcissism in politics and governance hinders the well-being of people, and yet it is seen across the board (read: ideological spectrum). It can go to a point where it involves a certain ‘my way or the high way’ approach. This is seen in international politics, particularly around the Russia-Ukraine war. Nuclear provocation is nothing but a larger-than-life manner of brandishing one’s proverbial sword simply to show one’s machismo and, well, mindlessness. The existence of living beings on this planet, nay, the planet itself seems to be secondary to the machinations of political one-upmanship and ego.
Closer home, we have a principal opposition party in the Indian parliament that is headed by a narcissist in Rahul Gandhi. Some say he did not serve as a minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet since he would settle for nothing less than being Prime Minister. How can one forget the infamous tearing up of an ordinance passed by his own government? Notwithstanding the topic of the ordinance and its merits, the larger picture shows an acute sense of entitlement from the Gandhi scion. He will not meet a Himanta Biswa Sarma or a Jyotiraditya Scindia after giving them appointments, only making them feel slighted and find greener pastures in the BJP. He will not accept his absolute lack of capability to steer the Grand Old Party of India to any attainment of note. As Emmy-nominated musical comedian Randy Rainbow described a narcissist:
“If he didn’t like the narrative he’d start gaslighting you.”
The manner in which Rahul Gandhi used the words ‘chowkidar chor hai‘ in the Rafale case for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only for his review petition to be rejected by the Supreme Court of India, shows how he seems to have perfected the art of gaslighting. His opposition to Reliance having got the contract is amusing given the Rs. 6000 crore project for the Delhi Metro Airport Express line which the Manmohan Singh government awarded the company under the PPP model in January 2008!
Speaking of Delhi, CM Arvind Kejriwal has also made a number of narcissistic moves over the years. In fact, he has displayed what I would call the Jekyll-and-Hyde narcissism, whereby humility is just a tool of political convenience. From bringing in police officers from Bihar into Delhi’s anti-corruption bureau to make a statement against Najeeb Jung, then-LG of Delhi, or wooing the Congress just to remain in power, Kejriwal’s megalomania led to fissures in the central AAP team. He went so far as to believe that he could defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in the General Elections! How can one forget Mamata Di, when it comes to narcissism? She was awarded a state award by the Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi for her book ‘Kabita Bitan’ for her ‘relentless literary pursuit’.
In the narcissist, there is vainglory and vehemence. In the narcissist, there is a bloated amour-propre. The contemporaneous world is not only dominated by grandiose narcissists; there are also plenty of vulnerable narcissists who still crave the limelight but are genuinely afraid of being criticized and receiving unfavorable scrutiny. A crucial aspect in which this gets expressed is identity politics. The frightening confluence of the biological and the political, the bundling up of the accidental reality of one’s gender, ethnicity, or sexuality with one’s political image, is the problem here, to the point that debate itself starts to be perceived as a sort of hatred, a ‘phobia’.
In the UK, electoral elements centred around identity, nay vote-bank politics, inherently bring a divisive conceptualization of electioneering and governance, hinting that identities create silos that must be largely if not only, addressed in isolation. Identity politics can be self-centered and needy, especially when it promotes sectionalism over universalism. The politics of identity, which encourages individuals to withdraw, turn inward, become fixated on their own selves at a rather shallow level, and surround themselves with a forcefield of rectitude to shield their perspective from any challenge.
In order to remind people that healthy political debate is not an act of violence against them, we need a new liberation politics that unfetters the personal from the political. One wonders how much of this is due to the vacuity inherent in vulnerable narcissism. As “Dr. Drew” Pinsky once said
“Narcissism is not about self love. It’s a clinical trait that belies a deep sense of emptiness, low self-esteem, emotional detachment, self-loathing, extreme problems with intimacy.”
Grandiose narcissism has a couple of dimensions: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. The first component, narcissistic admiration, includes lofty ideas, a need for idiosyncrasy, and self-promotional activities that seek social acclaim and strengthen one’s vanity. This is particularly seen in the financial sector and economics. We see instances of self-dealing and the creation of personal piggy banks as a result of company owners believing that they are above the law.
Today, we see company owners taking out loans to themselves using the company as collateral. We see insider trading and market manipulation in various countries. All of this is motivated by an exaggerated perception of one’s own importance and influence, an overwhelming need for quick (and tangible) gratification, and a lack of concern for the interests or emotions of others. In today’s markets, we have this idiosyncratic phenomenon called the ‘stock bubble’ whereby paper wealth can form an aura of invincibility, wherein narcissism can thrive.
The second element, narcissistic rivalry, includes devaluing everyone else, vying for superiority, and antagonistic acts aimed at reducing any challenge to the self-image, which can eventually lead to interpersonal disputes. We see a ‘crab mentality’ in many places, wherein one ascending individual is pulled down by others so that he may not be above them. Recently, Krishna Ella, MD of Bharat Biotech spoke on how nobody supported them, especially with a quick regulatory framework update over the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940, for the COVID vaccine. He said there needs to be an open mindset for local innovations, which have been traditionally taken with skepticism and even cynicism, which arise from a high level of unnecessary self-importance and arrogance of the community.
In addition to self-absorption and snobbery, vulnerable narcissism reflects compulsive psychological disquiet and vulnerability. It has been observed that vulnerable narcissists have a weak sense of self-worth and resultant low self-esteem, whereas grandiose narcissists have greater self-esteem that is a lot more stable. As per Michael Howard Kernis, in his work Toward a conceptualization of optimal self-esteem (2003), optimal self-esteem is defined as-
“A stable, authentic feeling of self-worth, with a relative absence of defensiveness and an excessively strong desire to be liked by others, and which is not dependent upon specific correlates.”
A narcissist is an individual who cannot be empathetic. Some may ask: Why do we even need to have empathy and compassion? What’s the problem in merely looking after oneself? When you are egocentric, epicurean, and always do whatever you want, you become impetuous and imprudent. You commit transgressions and even malfeasance. Your relationships suffer as a result. Others grow weary of you since you’re constantly concerned about yourself. There are times when you have to compromise your individual interests and desires for the sake of the group or the household. As a result, you become part of a flock. If you’re exceptionally gifted, you might be able to get away with a self-centred predisposition for a while.
However, individuals will inevitably abandon you. It is about sacrificing part of your personal aspirations for the benefit of the collective. It enriches both you and the flock in the long term. This is a psycho-social expansion of Rousseau’s exploration of the individual-community dynamics. Rousseau came to believe in the prospect of a legitimate social contract, a covenant under which individuals would obtain a greater sort of liberty in exchange for their independence. This, he called, true political or republican liberty. According to Rousseau’s description in Du Contrat social (1762), such freedom might be achieved in adherence to the volonté générale (“general will”)—a will of the collective, so to say, that seeks the general welfare or the shared interest of its constituents.
This is traditional social theory – In order to acquire more, you must forsake certain things you seek or may enjoy. You receive very little if you exist for yourself. Today, we seem to have established a society in which everyone believes they’re stupendous, but in reality, the prospects of being phenomenal are still relatively restricted, in actuality. As a result, we have created alternative avenues where individuals could achieve prestige, such as on social media or in multiplayer gaming. These are now like full-time occupations with a lot of potential for advancement and, more importantly, glory. In these fantasy realms, individuals can satisfy many of their egotistical cravings. Data was gathered from social media profile pages in one recent study and discovered that egomaniacs utilized a variety of strategies to attract others to their social media accounts, including visual embellishments and strong language.
Narcissists appear to believe that others are genuinely fascinated by what they are pursuing. Recently, it was also seen that egotistical adolescents changed their statuses on social media more routinely. Egomaniacs are more prone to post status updates regarding their accomplishments. A recent study by Jessica L. McCain and W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia showed that grandiose narcissism is positively related to time spent on social media, frequency of status updates, number of friends added, and number of selfies taken (and shared).
One wonders how much of a true network a social network actually establishes. Stanley Milgram’s concept of `six degrees of separation’ (a phrase immortalized by dramatist John Guare) is now widely accepted. Today’s social networks are congeries of rather feeble ties. With the psychogeography of social networks having gone from virtual cities and alternate worlds to being quite decentralized and focused on the individual, we are seeing a deracination of epic proportions where the contextualization of the individual is secondary to the pre-eminence of the aspects of the individual personality.
Friendship itself has become like philately, you keep procuring friends in a rather promiscuous and yet bureaucratized manner, with machine learning guiding you on who is suitable to be friends with you. It is all about you, you, and you!
But what if I were to say that this trend is not a recent cultural development of narcissism but involves a much deeper rot that had its origins in the times of yore. More importantly, what if I were to say that there is a much more involved geopolitical and socio-cultural battle we face around the politics of narcissism, as we try to move towards a more sustainable tomorrow?
Almanac of Egomaniacs
Ahaṁkāra constitutes one of the Antahkarana (fundamental inner faculties) spoken of in Vedanta, the others being Manas, Citta, and Buddhi. The Yogasutra discusses about the false identification of the self that must be negotiated and addressed for spiritual emancipation, with the famous verse
दृग्दर्शनशक्त्योरेकात्मतेवास्मिता
in Chapter II, Sutra 6, which talks of how false identity happens when we believe the Seer and the instrument of perception are one and the same. The term `Asmita’ is an over-identification with something that is not our essence. In western psychology, this has been referred to as the ego. In Dharmic thought, the ego-self is believed to be observable and tactile, and it may be identified by its distinctive appearance and characteristics. It is a covering of contaminants or a shroud that forms around the life force, preventing it from having its natural effulgence. It makes one be replete with cravings, impulses, passions, perceptions, sensations, recollections, and other mental creations that cause fluctuations (vrittis) in our consciousness (citta).
Sri Krishna advises Arjuna in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita that Ahaṁkāra must be subjected to the Lord and, ideally, eradicated, since one’s actual Self cannot be perceived while imbued with Ahaṁkāra. In Chapter 3, Verse 27, it is said
प्रकृते: क्रियमाणानि गुणै: कर्माणि सर्वश:|
अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते||
which means that the three modes of physical nature carry out all operations and activities, even as our true self is misled by erroneous identification with the superficial aspects of ourselves and believes that those are responsible for our actions. A hasty reading of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita by a narcissist may make them believe that Sri Krishna propounded narcissistic ideas when he spoke of himself as the supreme being.
A true Yogi or Vedantin or one who has subsumed his ego into the vast expanse of reality would have a completely different take on this. It is in the paradoxical dissolution of the I-self or ego that the emergence of a greater Self comes to be, which is what is being spoken of by Sri Krishna in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita. His Self is indeed the supreme being, but it is the self that underlies all reality. This is the Self of the Upanishads, of the Dharmic traditions.
On the other hand, speaking of the Hellenistic traditions, Ovid recounted the Narcissus narrative in Latin in his Metamorphoses, and it had a significant impact on Renaissance and medieval society. The phrase employed here was
“self-love…Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel”
The significant role played by the nymph Echo in the Ovid version of the Greek story is frequently disregarded in discussions of narcissism and mythology. Echo is limited to only being able to repeat the last few words of what she listens to from others.
“She long’d her hidden passion to reveal,
And tell her pains,but had no words to tell:
She can’t begin, but waits for the rebound,
To catch his voice, and to return the sound.”
Echo stands for the fused hypervigilant narcissist who is forced to live her life through that of another person. To see the prominence of vanity in Hellenistic mythology, one only needs to think back to the myth surrounding the Trojan War, in which the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera competed for the distinction of “most beautiful of them all,” as inscribed on a perfectly thrown apple, boasting of their right to the honour. They gave the verdict to a shepherd they came upon caring for his cattle. Power, knowledge, and love were the three blessings that the divinities pledged to the young man in exchange for his goodwill. The boy, Paris, a Trojan prince, made the choice of love and gave Aphrodite the fruit. The most winsome and pulchritudinous woman in the world, Helen the Queen of Sparta, fell in love with Paris as Aphrodite’s prize. But the decision of Paris angered both Hera and Athena, and when Helen abandoned her husband, Menelaus, the Spartan king, for Paris, Menelaus called upon all the Greek princes and kings to battle the Trojans.
The presence of narcissistic narratives, which include within themselves commentaries on their own narrative and identity, is something that gives a sophisticated occurrence of narcissism from ancient times. This has happened on the levels of diegetic (related to story-telling) and linguistic (related to language) self-reflexivity.
For instance, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, Theseus could be seen narrating his own actions, such as the reading of Phaedra’s message, aloud. The narcissism of the storyteller is also seen in the prologue of Apuleius’ Asinus aureus, which states: “What I should like to do is weave together different tales in this Milesian mode of storytelling […] So let me begin! Who is the narrator?” By doing so, the narrator is qualifying himself as the one possibly undertaking the discourse on the narrative, thereby dissolving the distinction between the story and the discourse on it! Then, in the Adventures of Chaireas and Callirhoe we have the words:
“And I think that this last book will prove very pleasurable to its readers: it cleanses away the grim events of the earlier ones.”
So much for self-aggrandizement! The usage of anecdotes and narratives of antiquity majorly accentuates narcissism, as has been seen in modern classics like James Joyce’s Ulysses. The interesting insight into this is that the world of the ancient Greeks may have been a culture of narcissistic surpluses while contemporaneous society may have a culture of narcissistic deficits, which fuels vulnerable narcissism. While the former was disputatious, boastful, and quite infused with hubris, the modern man is sidelined, undervalued, and constantly struggling, and in that struggle, he seeks to find glory and self-importance in his spectacles, his virtual realms and social networks, his altars of consumption and materialism.
Only if Photoshop enhancements and plastic surgery could make a Narcissus out of the modern man, in form as much as in essence.
The leaders of the ancient Greeks exhibit quintessential narcissism as well. Alexander was a conceited young man who, despite being frequently characterized as a talented general deserving of adoration, caused a tremendous deal of misery for his own personal ambitions. Alexander was self-confident from the beginning and his vanity only intensified during his lifetime.
Troy was Alexander’s first stop after his army entered Asia and started moving toward Persia. He viewed himself as the new Achilles and wished to witness the battlefields where the legendary Greek hero Achilles had battled. Alexander’s confidence in his own grandeur grew as he battled the Persian Empire, which was considerably larger compared to his own, and started to secure victories.
After defeating the Persian Empire, Alexander switched from the more modest Macedonian style of kingship to the Persian one, where the sovereign was honoured with opulent rituals and obsequiousness. Alexander ruled over a large portion of Central Asia and gave his name to numerous cities along the way. Later in life, he moved against several of his closest comrades and killed them for lacking devotion or offering just moderate censure. By the time Alexander passed away at the age of 33, he had come to believe that Zeus, king of the gods, had actually fathered him and not King Phillip II of Macedon!
Nero, the Roman Emperor who reigned from 54 to 68 CE, had Alexander’s narcissistic traits. He murdered his stepbrother and mother after publicly calling his stepfather a “doddering old fool.” He devoted the majority of his energy ensuring that Rome’s citizens understood just how fantastic he was. Nero made people sit through long stretches of his shows because he thought he was a wonderful musician—which he just wasn’t. He organized a festival called the Neronia to compete for the greatest honours in music and poesy. Even though he wasn’t particularly able-bodied, he competed in the Olympics, which were moved up a year to accommodate him. In it, he competed in a chariot race in which his chariot was wrecked in a crash and did not complete further, but strangely `won’, along with everything he competed in.
The logic was that he would have won had he not crashed! Nero erected a 100-foot-tall sculpture depicting him as a deity. To ensure that the populace of the realm adored him, he luxuriously squandered; taxes rose until the Romans in the provinces grew weary of needing to pay more in order for the king to be able to organize decadent `celebrations’. In the period following Nero’s eventual suicide, the kingdom was torn apart by a string of civil wars.
The Roman Emperor Commodus, who reigned from 180 to 192, had many traits similar to Nero and Alexander. His advisers soon saw that he wasn’t particularly concerned with the administration’s day-to-day activities and that he would be simple to influence with flattery. His was the way of raised expenditure on amusement and free meals, just like Nero, to win the people over. Additionally, he was a dedicated self-promoter. He proclaimed that he was Hercules reincarnated near the conclusion of his rule, and had to be referred to as such.
He participated in gladiatorial contests and donned lion skins like Hercules had in the tales. Naturally, he took precautions to ensure his safety. He protected himself from attack by fighting animals in the wild from an elevated platform. He ensured that the people he battled were bodily incapable of defending themselves. Commodus’ persistent paranoia and aggression gradually wore on others and ultimately, his mistress got him poisoned unsuccessfully. Subsequently, his wrestling coach Narcissus (ironically) strangled him in the bathtub.
The conception of organized religion too has been afflicted by healthy doses of narcissism. This is seen in instances where a specific populace is said to be preferentially bestowed the grace of God. For instance, Deuteronomy 14:2 says
כִּ֣י עַ֤ם קָדֹושׁ֙ אַתָּ֔ה לַיהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ וּבְךָ֞ בָּחַ֣ר יְהוָ֗ה לִֽהְיֹ֥ות לֹו֙ לְעַ֣ם סְגֻלָּ֔ה מִכֹּל֙ הָֽעַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָֽה׃ ס
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
One wonders what happened to all the other people on the face of the earth! Notwithstanding the number of unholy occurrences that happened with the agency of these ‘holy people’ in the land we now know as Israel. While still maintaining a comparison with other gods (unlike in Dharmic traditions where there is a fundamental reality – Brahman, which exists above and beyond all `gods’), the Jewish God Yahweh was regarded as the greatest of all the gods, as in Exodus 15:11
מִֽי־כָמֹ֤כָה בָּֽאֵלִם֙ יְהוָ֔ה מִ֥י כָּמֹ֖כָה נֶאְדָּ֣ר בַּקֹּ֑דֶשׁ נֹורָ֥א תְהִלֹּ֖ת עֹ֥שֵׂה פֶֽלֶא׃
“Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”
This element of exclusivism has been the cause of the ‘othering’ of those in the faith and those not in it. This behooves us to think, to wonder, whether the reality of all realities – the origin of all the Universe, in theistic traditions, could actually have such parochial biases, especially around geocentric considerations! Jewish precepts like the ones found in the Book of Isaiah, which states that Israel will serve as a “light to the nations” in order that not just Jews but Gentiles as well would engage in the coming messianic kingdom, helped to moderate the inclination towards narcissism in later Jewish tradition.
Nevertheless, this movement still indicated triumphalism and a sense of self-glorification, a belief connected to exclusivist tendencies. In accordance with this doctrine, persons who are ordinarily other-ed are given some degree of integration if they adopt the genuine faith or the bare minimum of its requirements. One of the effects of religious exclusivism is acts of bigotry. According to this perspective, all viewpoints are false and one’s faith is the sole path to deliverance and the truth. Such a religiously restricted political movement could lead to tyranny and absolutism in the name of faith if it is supported by such a religiously exclusive viewpoint, as was seen in the case of the Inquisition.
Whether or not Jesus actually recommended it is anyone’s guess, but the Christian church has emphasized that Jesus is the sole route to God since the time of its first teachings. Paul believed that only trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection was sufficient for deliverance and that neither careful observance of the Law of Moses nor other deeds of kindness and virtue could accomplish this. While it is a sentiment that can be respected as one of the various possible ways to approach the question of the truth of life and the Universe, by its formulation in such a way, it inherently excludes all those who may have ways other than through the name of Jesus to seek to realize God.
This exclusivist tendency was also seen in the early Islamic trajectory. We can see the description of a conflict with Pagan traditions at a fairly early stage, particularly on the concept of idolatry, in Al Anbya (21:52-67). The summary disavowal of the spiritual efficacy of alternate religious practices was later seen when Muslim iconoclasts destroyed temples and broke images of Hindu deities during the Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent primarily between the 12th and 17th centuries AD. It is only through cultural work and social communitarian activities like God’s Love We Deliver, a New York City–based soup kitchen, that any and all exclusivist tendencies can be cast aside to look towards a more inclusive, cosmopolitan worldview.
Unfortunately, the narcissistic creation of a religious order even when the one around whom it was created may not have sought was also seen around a luminary from a Dharmic religion – Buddha. Buddha never spoke of being the leader or initiator of an organised order or cult. In today’s age, Buddhism has changed from being a path of spiritual practice and an intellectual route reserved for the privileged to become a worldview that is widely accessible to the general public and where unfortunately consumerism, commodifying tendencies, and mediatization are all elements of the neo-liberal economy where mysticism and the spiritual truth is for sale.
Enlightenment has never been simpler, as Gary Gach famously put it. Sometimes, even piety or an act of renunciation becomes a premise for narcissism! Even in Hinduism, there was a gradual development of narcissistic tendencies that possibly came from the grandiosity and pomposity that the political and religious elite ascribed to their domains of existence and expertise in the later Puranic and other literary sources, be it while describing Devraj Indra or in terms of speaking of Digvijay (conquest of all four directions) when the geographical expanse of the kings would be fairly Indic.
One of the most unfortunate byproducts of narcissism was seen in the destruction of the Vijaynagar Kingdom due to the megalomania of Aliya Rama Raya, which led him to underestimate the combined might of the Deccan sultanates at the Battle of Talikota.
We can think of presenting the, primarily European, colonial projects, over the centuries, in terms of a narcissistic dynamic, with the colonised being Echo while the colonising power is portrayed as Narcissus. We might conceive of imperialist relations using the contemporaneous depiction of megalomania, which alternates between sentiments of grief, wrath, and retribution. Subordinate populations may prove to be of great psychological value to their colonizers since they may be forced in a plethora of ways to mirror an exalted self-concept back to the colonist.
What we see in imperialist settings is a manifestation of the true narcissist’s compulsive drive to stifle subjectivity in the other. The myth of Narcissus serves as a foundation for not only depicting narcissistic grandiosity but, ironically, also a relational failure. Even after having lost many of its former colonies, England was unable to come out of its colonial hangover. By bringing up the Falklands War to resuscitate a latent imperial spirit that could ultimately determine who is actually operating for and against England’s future, Thatcher pulled England’s imperialist legacy into the arena of contemporary politics. The
British sense of identity was no longer postcolonial or postimperial in this expression of Thatcherism. She altered the timeframe of England in order to revive the idea of the country as a dominant imperialist and geopolitical force in the world. The fetishized reference to the colonial legacy that resulted was a prime manifestation of state narcissism and a residual of the narcissistic dynamics of the colonial project.
Colonial narcissism is a strange mix of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and comes with over-defensive tendencies to veil a fundamental failure. A failure to be able to relate, to be human; a failure to be able to love and be loved, apart from and besides the self-love that his high self-image induces. Colonialism’s anti-relational foundations appear to have driven the West to pursue the values of liberty and sovereignty incessantly, albeit framed in terms of political insulations, imperviousness, and invulnerability.
When India’s independence movement was being countered with the proposal for offering dominion status, it was a qualified offering that did not break asunder the larger composite construct of the British Raj. The very inception of the British East India Company was a result of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and a desire to capture the Far East trade from the Spanish and Portuguese. Till then the maritime capabilities of the British were scoffed at by the Spanish and other early European colonial powers. It was in this acute sense of having to prove themselves and finding their footing that the British establish the EIC. So much so for the Narcissus complex of being sans love, even as the proverbial reflection in the water seemed all so soothing!
A Modern Epidemic of Conceit
In today’s society, narcissism has taken centre stage in public speech and interaction. There isn’t a day that goes by when the citizenry of myriad countries isn’t thinking about the ramifications of the conceited tendencies of their politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats, and diplomats. Are individuals growing vainer? Why is megalomania on the upsurge? The growth of megalomania has spread across all cultural contexts and demographic groups, becoming a global issue. In the 1960s, Campbell and Twenge published The Narcissistic Epidemic, which sounded the proverbial siren. The media outlet Newsweek went on to explain the how and when of the narcissistic upsurge:
“…when people began to cast off societal constraints and expectations in favor of exploring their own human potential. This movement didn’t begin with a purely narcissistic slant, yet by the 1970s it had morphed into self-admiration, self-expression, and self-absorption. In the 1980s those qualities gave way to self-centeredness and self-indulgence, and it was all downhill from there.”
Over the last few decades, society has shifted from emphasizing the concept of an ensemble to emphasizing that of the element, in society. The self-esteem movement played a significant role in this. It found that the secret to accomplishment in life was having high self-esteem. Teachers and guardians began praising their kids for their specialness and individuality to instill confidence in them.
Instead of enabling their offspring to earn self-esteem via perseverance, families tried to “bestow” it upon them. It became increasingly difficult to satisfy the fundamental need for genuine interpersonal bonds even as the social fabric weakened. What is most beneficial for other individuals and the family has become secondary to what is ideal for oneself. The modernization of the societal structure appeared to place the highest value on reputation, fortune, and notoriety. All of this, along with the deterioration of social relationships, led to the development of a “bare ego, bereft of sociocultural context.” I am reminded of the narcissistic lyrics of Frank Sinatra’s song ‘My Way’
“For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself then he has naught
Not to say the things that he truly feels
And not the words of someone who kneels
Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way”
Speaking of popular culture, many believe that part of the reason for this modern epidemic of conceit is the pre-eminence of American society. How true is that? The recent occurrence of `just wars’ and the subtle imposition of the brand of materialism that affects people the world over possibly arises from the American belief that they and their country are indisputably better than all other individuals and societies on the planet.
When does patriotic fervour cross the line between good citizenship and dangerous jingoism? American ideas of supremacy have traditionally been rooted in myths about the special generative abilities of the land, in visions of being the chosen ones, in the enduring lore of frontier autarky, in a strong sense of America’s detachment and idiosyncrasy, in the awareness of abundance, and lastly in the idea that there is a certain universality that one can ascribe to the American worldview and ideology.
This makes Americans more prone to exceptionalism and a particularly overbearing brand of nationalism than practically any other contemporary country. It is not surprising, given the thoughts of its founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson (President of the United States, 1801–1809), who highlighted the value of the white settlement and economic growth in the West, and undertook radical egalitarian moralizing, even though he owned more than 600 slaves in his lifetime!
Teddy Roosevelt was another narcissistic American president. It is believed that he would always find a way to bring up the count of Spaniards he killed while “spearheading” the attack up San Juan Hill, during dinner parties. And then we have our most recent US President Donald J. Trump, who famously said, “I’m a most stable genius.”
The self-centered and emulous conduct of different interest blocs in society and politics, with a lack of the necessary empathy to rethink the world from one another’s perspective points, has intensified race-based and ideological antagonism, and as a result, certain tribalism. The conceited actions of bankers and customers alike, who produced a time-delay snare of near-term avarice over long-term reasoning, can be partially blamed for the financial catastrophe.
Debt-financed “ostentatious consumption”—items bought to improve one’s standing in the eyes of others instead of out of necessity—has widened America’s trade deficit. And the focus on self-sufficiency, rather than on connectedness, might be attributed in part to the lack of trust in the government. To resolve the local and global challenges today, it is essential to acknowledge the problematic links with narcissism. Additionally, policymakers need to give more thought to ways to advance economic and political advancement while keeping or fostering the qualities of a coordinated, self-critical collective.
Wokeism is a fad that has spread like wildfire. The presence of narcissism in the self-tagged Woke crowds is seen in their perception of reality, life, and God. According to them, God’s purpose is to help people “feel good and joyful about themselves and their lives,” acting as a Heavenly Chamberlain and Celestial Counselor rather than working toward one’s salvation and deliverance.
The White Woke individual is also seen to seek expiation of collective guilt of racism and historical discrimination again non-White communities by excusing the harmful effects of disruptive and even criminal actions by individuals from non-White communities, usually in retaliation to some limited provocation or cause. This is condescending and highly narcissistic, since it gives off this idea that the White Woke is always on a pedestal and can choose to excuse the wrongdoings of others to balance the historical socio-political scales in society.
The Woke regard themselves as not being homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist, or transphobic by default, and claim a moral superiority due to their sense of belongingness to the broad stream of Wokeism. The Woke seek their identity by negating – they are not certain things, even as they are glorified virtue signallers. They have found their herald in social media, where they go on and on about how righteous they are, often hypocritically.
So, you will have Woke internet personalities rambling about reducing carbon footprints even as they go around the world on jet airplanes. The narcissistic Woke must also know that it is not the duty of everyone else, particularly those from socio-economic minority groups, to update them all the time with the experiences of discrimination and thoughts thereof.
More broadly, there is a certain peculiar predisposition in and of the West which can be problematic and the primary premise for modern narcissism. Works of scholars like Jonathan Haidt and Joseph Henrich (with the seminal book ‘The WEIRDest People in the World’) take a keen look at Western psychology and how it arose from their history and geography. The acronym WEIRD, popularised by Henrich, stands for `Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic’, and is characterised as follows by Henrich
“WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. We focus on ourselves — our attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations — over our relationships and social roles. We aim to be “ourselves” across contexts and see inconsistencies in others as hypocrisy rather than flexibility. Like everyone else, we are inclined to go along with our peers and authority figures; but, we are less willing to conform to others when this conflicts with our own beliefs, observations, and preferences. We see ourselves as unique beings, not as nodes in a social network that stretches out through space and back in time. When acting, we prefer a sense of control and the feeling of making our own choices.”
Strangely, such people have been observed as being more hospitable and trustworthy toward outsiders than members of various other civilizations. In spite of the fact that our cultural movement has been towards what may be described as detached prosocial behaviour, this occurs in a pretty superficial way. People began to embrace impersonal regulations and unbiased standards that apply to everyone in their organizations or enclaves, regardless of social ties, tribal identification, or socioeconomic background as existence has become more and more characterized by dealing with strangers or non-relations.
We seem to have `outsourced’ our trust to large establishments, such as the state, in the hope that others would abide by the same rules and regulations as us, on the whole. But the key question is: what transpires when we start deconstructing those establishments? We are currently witnessing this. Political interest groups and parties, the journalistic fold, the entertainment business, internet corporations, and human resource managers all around the world are being eaten alive from within as postmodernism, reconstructivism, and social semiotics gain hold.
An essential progression is the need to critique and dissect. It aids in challenging established narratives, to begin with. Subverting inflexible edifices creates the latitude that culture needs to rejuvenate from the fringes it had been neglecting or undermining. However, this process must be guided by a higher ideal or goal in order to progress beyond endless disassembly.
Characteristics of the personality are intimately correlated with the cultural surroundings. Cultures can be categorized as aligning with either individualism or collectivism. Collectivism places more emphasis on the value of social ideals whilst individualistic societies promote, by definition, a larger focus on individuality.
Affiliates of individualistic societies may be more conceited than people from collectivistic communities since megalomania is characterized by a considerable concentration on oneself, a compelling craving for adulation, and extravagant illusions. In contrast to Freud and other prominent cognitive behavioural analysts, Karen Horney did not propose a primary narcissism and instead considered the narcissistic persona as the result of a particular early milieu operating on a particular predisposition. She believed that conceited desires and inclinations are not a part of the human condition.
Heinz Kohut proposed that megalomania is a phase of normal development during which there is a strengthening of the child’s developing sense of self by reflecting his positive traits. If the parents or other guardians don’t offer their child enough, the youngster will mature with a fragile and imperfect understanding of who they are.
However, the final frontier remains that of parochialism and dogma. Narcissism percolates through the cracks and crevices of various levels of society, from family and community to nation and the global geopolitics in the primacy and absoluteness ascribed to constructs and ideologies. This is seemingly so integrated that modern society often does not even realise this tendency. As the `Prince of Paradox’ Gilbert Keith Chesterton once said,
“The special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it”
Scientism is one of the most apparent manifestations of narcissism in modern ideology. Scientism as an epistemological framework is a rather restrictive paradigm. Scientism considers science to be the sole credible source of conversance, opposing elements of subjectivity as well as supranatural modes such as cryptesthesia, transcendence, and what theists would call sanctifying grace.
Kurt Godel destroyed the foundation of scientism when he showed that any rigorously logical system of mathematics contains assertions that cannot be supported or refuted on the strength of the system’s axiomatic foundations. Post-modernism acknowledges that it is adrift in an uncharted ocean of uncertainties. We live in a hetrotopia, where there are no meaningful links between people, claims Foucault. The hallmark of post-modern society is the sense of being lost.
The future is uncertain for everyone. That is seemingly the zeitgeist of the age! It is in the momentary that we seek absolution. An absolution from any and all obligation to anything but oneself. This absoluteness and sense of hollowness have climaxed into apprehensions around mortality itself. Arrant intellectual and emotional affirmation of the truth that we are transient beings, and that the conceited libido-driven ego is a temporal construct.
This extraordinary achievement, in my opinion, hinges not only on the triumph of independent thought and absolute objectivity against narcissistic claims, but also on the development of a superior kind of megalomania. The luminaries who have attained the worldview that the Romans alluded to as existing sub specie aeternitntis do not exhibit dejection and despair but rather are quietly proud and oft harbour fairly benign derision of the riffraff who, unable to enjoy the spectrum of experiences that life offers, is still terrified of quietus and trembles at its advent.
In the following verse, Goethe beautifully expressed his antipathy for individuals who cannot embrace mortality as an inevitable aspect of life:
Und so lang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb and werde!
Bist du nur ein truber
Gast Auf der dunklen Erde
At the societal level, the introduction of nuance and comprehensiveness in view, and at the individual level, an embracing of one’s mortality and non-absoluteness are the only solutions to the chronic pandemic of narcissism that afflicts humanity today.
In ancient Indic writings, Ahaṁkāra is portrayed as self-sense, as in the Chāndogya Upanishad, which also makes the observation that individuals who are unable to distinguish between ātman and one’s corporeality will confuse the self-sense with the corporeal. The Viveka Cūḍāmaṇi of Śankarācārya contains ślokas connected to ahaṁkāra nindā, aham-padārtha-nirūpaṇa, and antaḥkaraṇa that explain the nature and purpose of ahaṁkāra.
In the 103rd śloka, Śaṅkara delineates ahaṁkāra to be the antaḥkaraṇa dwelling in the motor and sensory organ systems and the body as aham with abhimāna in the reflected refulgence of ātman. In modern terms, Śankarācārya is asking one to give up one’s sense of identity with bio-psycho-social aspects of human nature, which are part of ahaṁkāra, in order to realize the ātman, attain peace, and to realize everlasting bliss.
The paradoxical (and key) thought is that neither ego nor non-ego has any absoluteness that can be attached to them. However, since such a transcendence of the binary is not easy to understand or straightforward for all, the gross ego of the individual has been asked to be surrendered to a higher ego – of the Universal Self, in Dharmic traditions, which highlights that this surrender is attainable through self-inquiry, going beyond theism per see.
Since the self is part of the greater Universal truth, an investigation of the same through introspection and self-inquiry could provide a window into the beyond. More importantly, at an empirical level, this liberates one from the shackles of parochial constructs and ideas, from aspects of life that are ephemeral and conditioned, and from nuances of existence that are not quite fundamental or absolute. It is in that realisation, in that lived experience, that one is free from narcissism and attains peace and joy.
In Conclusion
The primacy of narcissism in the contemporary world is bothersome, even as I reflect on the state of matters after having been able to live (and not just preach) a personal movement away from narcissism, with an important aspect and academic milestone of my life not being flaunted in public view, while there would be many who would have not left a stone unturned in extracting every last drop of adulation on the same!
In humility, I am at peace. Narcissism hampers the evolution of the individual by entrapping humanity in a vicious cycle that relies on megalomaniac proclivities and, in turn, feeds the narcissism of individuals. The rise of crony capitalism, unchecked materialism, and a growing movement towards parochialism and dogma, all, speak of the rise of narcissism at various levels of existence.
What we need is the pursuit of emancipation at all these levels, from the clutches of absoluteness that we ascribe to both – our existence and our constructs. What we need is the use of agency and discernment to see what is the aim and nature of our existence and not the accoutrements that facilitate our shallow self-aggrandizement. For the latter paves a pointless path, a labyrinth of the illusory. As Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa said, speaking of the clouds of narcissism preventing even God’s light to light the path, in his words
“যদি তুমি মনের মধ্যে অহংকার কালো মেঘ পুষে রাখো,
সয়ং ইশ্বর ও আলোর পথ দেখতে পারবে না।”
