Rampant Narcissism in Society
Written By: Scott Compton
Let people have their experiences by using discernment, deeper listening skills and empathy. And then, look for what is reality and what is illusion. What I just said is the key to curing the rampant narcissism we face in society. Analytical thinkers, by definition, form beliefs in 1s and 0s. It’s typically harder for the analytical mind to see the nuances, smaller details and get past their indoctrination from their schooling to see other points of view. The bottom line, they won’t let other people have their own experiences.
Let people have their experiences by using discernment, deeper listening skills and empathy. And then, look for what is reality and what is illusion. What I just said is the key to curing the rampant narcissism we face in society. Analytical thinkers, by definition, form beliefs in 1s and 0s. It’s typically harder for the analytical mind to see the nuances, smaller details and get past their indoctrination from their schooling to see other points of view. The bottom line, they won’t let other people have their own experiences.
At the root of narcissism is gaslighting and dismissing another person’s experiences, rather than trying to decipher and connect with another to challenge a point of view that might be in opposition. Why would they do such a thing? In part, they are not able to empathize with what another person might be going through. By empathizing with another, they would need to access their own wounds and insecurities that exist in the same place… the narcissist would rather continue to be “in-illusion” about dealing with their own internal stuff, and keep themselves “propped-up” by telling themselves they are better than that.
I.e., it could be either too painful for narcissists to go into their own shame and guilt, or they gaslight themselves by believing they don’t have any internal work to do at all. So instead they’ll cast the blame on others to make themselves feel more powerful or ‘above’ another.
I.e., it could be either too painful for narcissists to go into their own shame and guilt, or they gaslight themselves by believing they don’t have any internal work to do at all. So instead they’ll cast the blame on others to make themselves feel more powerful or ‘above’ another.
Narcissism is also tightly associated with dopamine-driven biological pathways. The desire to want fun and seek continual rewards is a cover for deeper insecurities; dopamine addicts can stay in their fantasy worlds, not want to own responsibilities or how they treat people, all while they are looking grandiose to the rest of their peers. The reality of the narcissist is they elude and hide what’s happening in themselves. Everything must turn into a game to them, they’ll take on more identities to hide their insecurities, role-play from other perspectives, look like they are charming and accomplished to the outer world and our very society is at risk of turning very ugly, because our media by its very nature, is designed to omit real experiences. When we get a narrative or story from the media, it rarely presents all sides to a story. Omission of the nuances and details is their mainstream practice. If you’re a bit older, you probably saw when debates happened and then went-away altogether. This can also be seen directly in Presidential elections of the last two decades. The media has moved to a format of quick and bumper-sticker responses. Why? This eliminated the details and nuances that can paint an accurate picture over any topic or discussion.
We are literally living in a time when gaslighting and dismissal of real experiences is the norm. We saw this powerfully over the last 3 years was riddled with social gaslighting… pretty much each and every day, but we rarely hear people talk about what happened. Media cherry-picks science and encourages people to believe ‘science is fact’ when it never has been since the creation of the Scientific Method. The people who think in 1s and 0s from an overly analytical brain have closed off their heart space; their egos are in control “to be right” rather than putting cooperation as a higher value than competition.
There can be two or more positions held on any issue and even if someone doesn’t agree with another’s outcome, they don’t need to try to bully, shame, guilt or coerce another into believing their point of view. Anyone who attempts to do that is FEARFUL that they’ll lose enough control over their own beliefs and may need to change or adjust their position internally. After all, if a person’s belief is so strong and unwavering, there would be no need to convince anyone else of anything, because they’ll know in due time, the truth will come out. When the narcissist has an uncomfortable feeling, doesn’t work well with the narcissist’s psyche. They’d rather let their egos be in control and then gaslight others about the reality around them.
In other words, I see that society has regressed over the last 100 years because it has become more immature, like boys that fight with each other on the block and compete with each other, boys that bully others into submission, boys that always think they are right, boys that cannot calmly express themselves, boys that rub it into others with saying “haha” and normalizing what they believe to be real while calling others strange and weird.
Why do the boys do this? Fear is the root. They have a harder time accepting things and letting other things go. They have a harder time empathizing and using active listening to get into the shoes of others with a real desire to understand another’s position, point of view and experiences. And the style how the boys communicate, they throw testosterone tantrums, they are aggressive and throw hissy fits, they’ll be rude and arrogant if they hear something that might reveal something inside of themselves they’ll have to deal with. They’ll have a harder time respecting themselves over their dopamine-driven behaviors to have fun 24/7,… will they consider everyone’s inherent freedoms and rights in a dynamic situation or will they be self-serving?
One of the best analogs for gaslighting experiences would be in the Chronicles of Narnia. At the beginning of The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, Lucy finds Narnia for the first time and then comes back through the Wardrobe to tell her siblings about it. They all think she’s lying about the experience as their first knee-jerk reaction. How could such a fantastical thing be real? They all believe she’s just got an overly active imagination. Similarly, when a child says she saw a “ghost child” at 4am when she got up to go to the bathroom in the hallway, do we gaslight her experiences as a knee-jerk reaction to create more disconnection the next morning, or do we comfort her and connect with her about it?
When the scientist says, “The universe has to work this way and all of the theories say so”, but then a personal experience someone has doesn’t fit the theory, do we gaslight that person’s experience because we’re not recognizing our own “beliefs” we have about science? That’s right if we view science as fact, we are now using it as religion… faith and belief that the humans that created the theories in the first place were 10000000% correct in their thinking and there is no other possibilities that can exist at the same time… even though we know Scientific Theories continually evolve over time as new perspectives and nuances are discovered.
Ego, Spirit, Mind and Heart need to all exist together if we are to find the details, perspectives, relations and connections that make up the Human Condition. Otherwise, if we cast down or cast away the Spirit and Heart, we let the Ego and Mind process dominate over the others, and ultimately, we create a society of narcissists and psychopaths that are incapable of relating to others, because the over-thinkers and ego-driven-I-am-Righters have unconsciously removed their ability to relate to their inner-selves.
