Narcissism, Honor, and Social Control

Timothy Birdnow

We see this in the outpouring of love and respect for those thrill seekers who died in the Titan sub. Yes, they were brave. Yes, they did something that I would have done myself. But they are being treated as heroes and martyrs. Really?

Daniel Jupp:

I remember years ago Celine Dion was interviewed and gave what I thought was the most perfect expression of narcissism I had ever seen.

At the time her husband of many years was fighting cancer. Celine basically said it was wonderful in a way because it had shown her what an incredibly strong person she was.

That struck me as a more evil thing than any meme I’ve ever seen.

For most of us, thankfully, we have to wait for bizarre tragedies involving strangers in the news for the wonderful opportunity to show that we are better then other human beings and how marvellously pious and righteous we are.

I never knew tragedies were so great for asserting moral superiority over the rest of the human race. It must be how the Green Apocalypse people feel every single day. This type of narcissism is Greta Thunberg Goodness.

People aren’t in love with being good. That takes work, not words, and actions, not reactions. People are in love with the appearance of being good. And that’s easy. That can be signalled just by saying how horrified you are with people who don’t play that game, telling other people how horrid they are, and screaming loudly about how much you CARE.

In other words, doing what Celine did. This has shown me how good I am.

Never mind the pressure below the water line. That feeling of being more compassionate and A Better Person must build inside until the pressure to release it is just unbearable.

It’s perhaps the strongest psychological weapon that has been applied to modern times to make people so happy with pervasive madness. Better than fear. Better than lies. Just giving people the opportunity to Be Good without, well, doing anything about Evil.

I’m instinctively suspicious of anyone who proclaims that they are a Better Person than the mass of mankind, or the common man with his tasteless memes, or the too common billionaire and his nasty tweets, or the churlish Brexit voter, or the ‘selfish’ anti vaxxer, or the bigoted nationalist. To me the assertions of horror at how brutish the reactions to the submersible deaths are strike me largely the same way. Just opportunities to say I’m Better.

Rather like the ‘compassion’ of progressives for migrants who choose to get in dangerous craft to flee the war torn hell that is, erm, coastal France.

I instinctively trust the people with dirt under their nails or crude cruel jokes on their lips before I trust the Better People telling me how evil we collectively are. The bad jokes people, I find, are more likely to give a shit about me and my family, or someone actually next to them. It’s the Better People who generally have the stupid ideas that lead to avoidable tragedy in the first place, and the Better People whose sympathy only ever manifests for the distant tragedy, in ways that only ever tell us that they are Better, without actually doing any good for anyone.

Tim adds:

The Powers That Be, call them Ruling Class, the Left, etc. have created new forms of social control.

Times past honor was the primary tool of social control; people stayed in line to preserve their honor in the community. This is essentially that same mechanism, only the Powers That Be control what comports with honor and defines it's parameters. Times past Christian beliefs were the defining aspect of honor and a family with a promiscuous daughter, say, would face dishonor. Now that is just dandy but honor is about - other things, liberal things. Being a victim is now honorable.

(Also guilt is the modern social control mechanism; we are all guilty, guilty GUILTY! and must atone for our sins by implementing the programs that empower and enrich the Ruling Class.)

Now, don't get me wrong; being a victim does not make one dishonorable (necessarily - one can be a dishonorable victim) but it is in no way a recommendation either. But victimhood serves the Ruling Class, the Powers That Be, as it turns everyone into a needy, grasping client of the State, requiring government and the Rulers' protection.

So they encourage this kind of narcissism. If it's all about you then it's everyone's duty to support your narcissism - and in the process they must support the institutions and organizations that are there to give succour to the crybabies and navel gazers.

Children are easily led. That is what so many of us have become, and in no small part to the rising narcissism.

And to return to a Christian theme, narcissism was the first sin; Lucifer himself became a narcissist before he rebelled against God. It's the road to perdition.

It is a making of onesself a god, and becoming isolated. The really diabolical thing is such narcissism only makes the person more inclined to curl up into themselves.
It is self-reinforcing, and makes the person so infected miserable.

If I might add I see this in the kowtowing to the Titan Sub disaster. While it is very sad and tough luck for the deceased and I in no way am critical of them, they are being lionized by the media and called heroes and "intrepid explorers". They were nothing of the sort. They were people who essentially went for a joy ride and got burned. Like an amusement park ride killing a holiday reveler. But the point? Officially we are now supposed to tout them as the equals of any explorer who died. If you don't do that you are without honor and so everyone is falling over each-other to praise these people.

Again, this is about the power of the media and the Powers That Be to manipulate what people say and feel using honor and their control of the means of disseminating information.

The media could just as easily have painted them as villains, selfishly indulging their wealthy lusts for adventure and excitement at the expense of the taxpayer and the poor (since search and rescue had to hunt for the sub). The media chose to manipulate the public by making these people heroes. With all due respect to the dead, they were not.

At any rate Daniel is right on here!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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