The Life of I The New Culture of Narcissism by Anne Manne

I attended an Ideas at the House event 2 months ago where Anne Manne spoke about The Narcissism Epidemic.

It was fascinating.

She spoke of narcissism as being on a spectrum (like autism) with a high-functioning group at one end and a pathological extreme at the other.

Her extreme case study for the talk and her book, The Life of I; The New Culture of Narcissism was the Norwegian serial killer Anders Behring Breivik.

He ticked all the boxes for a narcissistic personality - unstable sense of self, high but fragile self-esteem, grandiose, sense of entitlement & superiority, willingness to exploit others, complete lack of empathy, distortion of reality, a belief that whatever is good for the self is good, that others exist for them, they are always right & never have to say they're sorry, savage retaliations for any criticism & a strong sense of victimhood when wronged.

The psychoanalyst Adam Phillips claims "to be unforgivable is to be unforgettable" for people like Breivik.

In the middle ground though, are all of us with our own biases, self-serving tendencies & faults. We all have the ability or the potential to be narcissistic at times. The difference between pathological and high-functioning is destruction - self-destruction and destructive actions towards others.

We've all known, lived with or worked with the compulsive liar, the 'awesome' person who is surrounded by a bunch of  'incompetent cretans', the boss who takes the credit and all the glory from the work of others, the aggressive vitriol when asked to explain or justify their actions, the charming sweetness as they try to get us to do something for them & the sudden cold drop when they get it, the person who will say or do whatever they have to to get what they want & their complete inability to see how their behaviour is affecting other people. They can be genuinely surprised to find that no one likes them.

However most of us are saved from the extremes of narcissism by fostering empathy, altruism, generosity, caring for each other and the planet.
We can learn to be self-reflective, self-respecting & self-correcting.
We can be self-confident, experience self-efficacy & feel justifiable pride in our achievements.
We can develop secure attachments & establish reasonable boundaries.

We can happily take selfies for our social media profiles as long as we appreciate that these profiles lack substance & authenticity. They are for show, they are fun, but we are so much more than our 'profiles.'

In a less narcissistic world we would shift from the "pursuit of attention to the giving of attention."

This post is part of AusReading Month and Non-fiction November.