narcissism

A Journal of the Plague Year Day 40

Sunday 26th April 2020

Donald Trump is a sociopath.

The more one looks at his behaviour, the classic signs of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder appear.

  1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
  2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
  3. Believes himself ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with other special or high-status people /institutions.
  4. Requires excessive admiration, regularly fishing for compliments, and highly susceptible to flattery.
  5. Has a sense of entitlement.
  6. Is interpersonally exploitative.
  7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling or unable to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
  8. Is often envious of others or believes them envious in return.
  9. Shows arrogant, haughty behavior or attitudes.
  10. Highly reactive to criticism and can be inordinately self-righteous or defensive, often reacting to contrary viewpoints with anger or rage.

Outta the way ProMo of Monto-nogo!

^That btw is also the 101 on standard business practice. Think about it: does a business apologise for bad customer service because it’s genuinely sorry, or a ploy to keep you spending, and unraging on Twitter? Does it give discounts/ deals because it genuinely wants to benefit you, by imparting a loss in profits? Does it ever cut costs from the top to bottom? And does its pay structure reflect this? Does it ever, ever give back to the customer if getting nothing back?

For that would be bad business sense -the lowest common denominator, the shareholder value, the constant demands for growth, and the pyramid schemes for those at the top they soon start to resemble, well until the next financial fall-out. They say psychopaths are 1 in 200, or 1 in 60 for those on the spectrum (so about 60 of the nutters running amok on your regular cruise ship). They tend towards positions such as doctors, surgeons, lawyers, the clergy and business. By the time you’re hitting higher finance management they say it’s as high as 1 in 7.

Trump appears somewhere between textbook sociopathy and narcissism. Tom Schwartz, the ghost author of his bestselling biography, The Art of the Deal, said if given a second chance he’d rename it The Sociopath.

Before all this applied to the dictators and aristocracy, then banking, then multinationals, the military-industrial complex, and now the US government. And it’s impossible to negotiate with this kernel of supporters behind the grand plan, not just for their vastly vested interests, but their condition. Everyone it’s said ‘has their heart in the right place’ -not so much this cabal. And neither is it them we should blame -they are after all pathologically inclined to behave as they do, and for most part cannot help it.

What we should be looking at are the enablers, and blimmin eck, what an army that is. The droves of downvoters, upvoters, voters, rallyists, tweeters, meme-makers and story sharers (which of course we are as guilty of in our own camp).

Thus Trump appeals to those on the spectrum, and frankly, the stupid, taken in by their visions.

What is interesting is those stricken with sociopathy, psychopathy and narcissism, are deficient in the same part of the brain as those who are a bit shit in critical thinking -the frontal lobe responsible for reasoning, decision-making, empathy and regulating emotion.

There was a time when right wing politics attracted normal people (having friends n everything!), who maybe preferred a different tax structure (notably paying less) or a different policy on say dentistry funding, park management, the way their local rep behaved, or simply envisaged a different approach to help others. Not so much now.

One can see as late as the 1980s the traditionally Republican heartlands today of the southern States and prairielands were openly voting for the Democrats. In short, sides were interchangeable, and not as partisan and set into stone as it is today, the age of the algorithm, social media and fake news.

1984 election results – blue centre left, red centre right. Heartlands such as Texas, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, the Dakotas and Virginias, all voting Democrat:

Today is another story entirely. Donald Trump’s 2016 win:

A word of warning: this does not mean all those who voted for Trump that year still currently believe in him, nor that they aren’t just voting for their ruralised or industrial sector interests as promised. Also despite the large blanketing of Trumpian red, more people actually voted for Clinton by 2.5 million, who was better represented by the smaller but more densely populated urban areas.

It’s just a strong shame so many don’t any longer hear the opposing side. It is how a democracy is not necessarily functioning as one.

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The current Benny Hill show that is the White House (the protagonists actually look alike) has given democracy a bad name, and increasingly invalidates it. It gives equal power to ignorance (if not more so) than facts, patriotism over charity, xenophobia over universality. The Dunning-Kruger Effect won the Nobel prize by showing that stupid people are more believing in their capabilities, and thus more vocal, while those with a higher EQ/ intelligence were less so -and adversely more liable to give platform to the belligerent and shouty. Listening politely and attentively -discussing, engaging, and thus allowing donkey kong views onto the table, and the vote. Dunning and Kruger won the prize as they showed how the world gets changed:



“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.”

“…voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Hermann Goerring 1946

In short our world has long been a shitshow of keeping the sociopaths and those on the spectrum in power, enabled by legions of the easily led and patriotic, and who lack critical thinking.

It can be summed up by:

Do not understimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

The great man also said: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

 

Yesterday

Tomorrow

 

A Journal of the Plague Year Day 24

Friday 10th April 2020

Another schizo day. Trying to relax yet structure it, while trying to work yet play. Swear I need to do a rota, like I did at weerk.

Spent far too long doing the forum surfing, and checking news bites (a delicious hour seeing the presented evidence on the Great Orange Dolphin’s behaviour -that he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder alongside growing senility), before launching into some book writing. Then a spot of gaming (Skyrim where I murdered a giant spider, Streetfighter where I spinning-bird-kicked E Honda in the head), which raised the guilt again, enough for me to embark on another round of book editing.

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Which in turn led to a spell on TikTok, which A is now getting seriously hooked into also. This is not good. I am feeling guilty for working too long, then relaxing too much. Like every addict who knows they’ve been busted.

J has been similarly at odds with what to do with himself today, finally settling on working on his antiques (writing up, researching their worth and stories, and selling them online). While A has done a bike ride, some cooking and not much else. I’m trying to inveigle everyone into sitting down to watch a film, which I may put on and hope they’re lured in.

I perhaps need this psychotic break. Like Trump at Christmas, who forgets what he’s saying mid-sentence. I almost pity him.

And let me begin by wishing you a beautifewel… Look. you remember this. Do you remember, they were trying to take Christmas out of…’

Below is pictured the actual turning point (indeed) of that sentence, exhibiting the behavioural tics of dementia, closed eyes, forward lean, open mouth, grasping/ flappy limbs.

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Yesterday’s showing was The Invisible Man, the kind of film that does genuinely suck you into the storyline -but heavily flummoxed by the internet slowing on the streaming site, creating new cliffhangers and ridiculously paused scenes, mid-gurn. Every 20 mins we had to load/ reload, a reminder of the golden days of terrestrial when adverts interrupted everything. The same again for Underwater, the laughable Kristen Stewart creature feature, where you can’t really make out the cast, dialogue or creatures through the murk, exacerbated by the infernal stop-start. This is Trump’s life at the mo, despite being at the helm, and someone needs to take those controls out of his flippers.

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Throughout, despite the cider and cake, J and I were non-committal to the point of monosyllabic malaise -I even mentioned it, how I was spending the day like a sleepwalker. Apparently, the lack of vitamin D does that to you, and at our latitude we have to wait a bit longer before we can get enough out of the sun, until mid-April at least.

980 died in UK hospitals today, for France 1,400, including those who died in care homes. The BBC new site has degraded into telling village notices despite the conspicuously unmentioned disaster – how Joe Wicks is doing PE classes, how schoolkids are writing emails to an old folks home, a skipping Sikh guy is entertaining his community and a woman is using her parent’s campervan as an office. Stop the fucking press. Oh and Kenny Dalglish has it, whoever he is. What next? Newsflash! How to spruce up your day by playing microwave bingo! The Warrington boy writing to Santa about a mask for his proud, nurse-mum. The new TikTok kitten sensation, jumping to the words: Social Distancing! How to spell zoonotic! It appears Kevin and Marjorie from the local church in Kippershyt village have taken over the BBC.

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There’s a fine line between honest reportage and propaganda methinks, between buoying the wartime spirit and censorship. And treating a nation as people entrusted with truths, or downplayed into sycophancy. Or maybe people just aren’t clicking anymore, and have had their fill of doomsaying, especially now the sun’s out.

CNN has for some time also started to stray into the tabloid news category, dangling other stories lasciviously that look little different from This One Trick clicks a rung removed. They tend to show a lurid pic, coupled with a half headline, coyly doing up its laces.

This nurse demonstrates how fast germs spread even if you’re…

(armless? breeding Pomeranians? Dave?)

The doctor in the viral photo with his son behind glass has lost his…

(other son? will to IG anymore? will?)

Jake Gyllenhaal crushed Tom Hollands handstand challenge…

(by doing a handstand? by doing it cowboy? by doing his laces?)

NASA astronauts estranged wife charged with lying about claim…

(on the moon? of Catholicism? over 2004 parking ticket?)

A Florida man dies days after hundreds exposed to…

(radiation? Trump briefing? his TikTok vid?)

A fire at a Florida airport destroys more than 3,500…

(mice? Floridians? photo ops?)

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Oh CNN, how far ye’ve changed with the times. Fast forward a few years and we’ll be forced into playing a round of flappy bird to access any article, as if an advert for the latest season of Marie Kondo’s Sock Drawer isn’t enough. If you’ve so caved into a landscape of sensationalism and sponsorship for clicks, as opposed to journalistic integrity, or dissemination of insight, your leveling of any field will be forever changed. As if the lobbying already wasn’t the most decisive factor. Like art being measured by how garish, or sullied the paint is.

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Good news (we hope) in the US, as infections seem to be leveling off and the lockdown starting to see results, though hopefully all that’s not in the vein of the BBC’s current picture painting. Tomorrow will be the worst day for fatalities according to the projections, with mass graves already dug in NYC.

The US does enjoy a certain serendipity in terms of its low density suburban setup for much of the land -detached housing and car culture ensuring people never had much physical contact with each other anyway. Part of the cultural handwringing, pointing toward how isolationist, untrusting and unempathetic the people can turn, but now reaping the benefits in terms of limiting the infection – albeit should they get it their higher rates of obesity, heart disease, asthma and diabetes will increase the chance of dying.

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A similarly low infection rate has occurred in Australia, the only country with larger average homes than the US, whilst NYC bucks the trend for obvious reasons, notably its high density landscape. Almost serendipitous for the nation, but tragic for the city. It is as if being social and societal has finally been punished, but such is the gamut that is life.

Yesterday

Tomorrow