Liberal, Libertario, Libertino

Compartilho com vocês alguns trechos sublinhados do meu exemplar de The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement:

Narcissists don’t brag about how they are the nicest, most thoughtful people in the world, but they do like to point out that they’re winners or that they’re hot. ... People merely high in self-esteem also have positive views of themselves, but they also see themselves as loving and moral.

Ou seja, narcissistas tem orgulho das "coisas erradas".

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Narcisismo Faz Bem?

Is some amount of narcissism healthy? The real question is, “Healthy for whom?” Selfishness, for example, might allow you to get a bigger piece of dessert after dinner, but will hurt your longer-term relationships with your companions and might cost you a dinner invitation in the future. A narcissist would probably be on the first lifeboat on a sinking ship—adaptive, yes, but not good if he’s taking a place away from a child. Similarly, it’s great to eat when you’re hungry, but not that great if you’re snatching food out of the mouth of a baby. ...

There is one exception to the rule that narcissism doesn’t lead to success. Narcissists are good at individual—though not necessarily group—public performance. When narcissists can receive public recognition and admiration for their performances, they try harder and do better than non-narcissists.

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Auto-estima e Narcisismo.

There is a small correlation between self-esteem and better achievement, but it is almost entirely explained by better performance causing higher self-esteem. Self-esteem comes after success, not before, because self-esteem is based on success. ...

39% of American eighth-graders were confident of their math skills, compared to only 6% of Korean eighth-graders. The Koreans, however, far exceeded the U.S. students’ actual performance on math tests. We’re not number one, but we’re number one in thinking we are number one. ...

While only 18% of students said they earned an A or A-average in 1976, 33% said they were A students in 2006—a whopping 83% increase in self-reported A students. So, we have had less than a 1% improvement in actual learning over 30 years, but an 83% increase in A grades. ...

So the students who got a self-esteem boost felt great about themselves even though they failed miserably. This is not good news for a culture that emphasizes self-esteem as the route to success.

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Vida vs Facebook

Having more friends is a status symbol, and it’s embarrassing to only have five friends on MySpace or Facebook. In real life, of course, you are a truly lucky person if you have five true close friends.

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Narcisismo e Débito

The inflation in credit leads to inflation in self-image, helping the narcissism epidemic spread far and wide. Take a culture that promotes self-admiration and material goods, add the ability to realize this self-admiration through buying things you can’t really afford, and many people live the narcissistic illusion that they are wealthy, successful, and special.

It allows people to live like the royalty they think they are, even if they don’t make enough to pay for it—at least they don’t right now. Next month you’ll pay off the credit card bill. OK, maybe next year. “But I really wanted that TV,” you protest. “Everyone has a big flat-screen.”

Buying flashy consumer goods on credit in order to look and feel like a winner is similar to hitting the crack pipe in order to improve your mood. Both are initially cheap and work really well—but only for a very short period of time. In the long term both leave you penniless and depressed.

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Será que Somos Todos Especiais?

"Wouldn’t it be just creepy if 7-year-olds walked around saying, ‘I’m not special?’” asked the Daily Kent Stater in Ohio. When Jean did radio interviews on this topic, many callers were shocked when she suggested that feeling special isn’t a good thing.

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Peixes Narcisos Não Vêem a Água

We are a nation fixated on the idea of being the exception to the rule, standing out, and being better than others—in other words, on being special and narcissistic—and we’re so surrounded by this ethos that we find it shocking that anyone would question it. Fish don’t realize they’re in water.

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O Narcisismo Mais Prejudica Quem Mais Acredita Nele

It wouldn’t be fair to the other kids at Kate’s preschool if the teacher treated her as special. Frankly, it wouldn’t be fair to Kate, either. Even if she did think she was truly special, Kate would eventually encounter a situation where she was treated—oh, the horror—just like everyone else.

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O Melhor Conselho do Livro

Don’t tell your kids that they are special. Tell them that you love them. This is a double guard against raising a spoiled, narcissistic child: you have emphasized emotionally close relationships instead of entitled expectations of special treatment.

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Narcisismo e Serial Killers

As David Von Drehle put it in Time magazine after the Virginia Tech slayings, “It’s not about guns or culture. It’s narcissism. Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers.”

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Esposas Intercambiáveis

For narcissists, relationships are fungible: one trophy spouse can be exchanged for another, and as long as the narcissist’s ego is being fed the same amount of admiration, that’s fine. For narcissists, relationships and material goods are almost interchangeable.

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Imaturidade

One pattern of relationship behaviors is the “fear of settling” or “fear of missing out on the magic.” In the old days this would have been considered simple immaturity. You would have been told to “take the good with the bad” or “relationships are not all about you.” Today there is a different cultural message. In May 2007, a Chicago law firm advertised its services with a large billboard saying “Life’s short. Get a divorce” flanked by a picture of a large-breasted woman in a black bra on one side and a bare-chested man with great abs on the other.

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Destruição

If this person is truly narcissistic, he or she has left a trail of heartbreak, deception, or unmet expectations.

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Combatendo Narcisismo: Humildade

In the workplace, one of the best ways to combat entitlement is to have workers experience a job that gives them some humility. ...

Young people, especially from wealthy families, should be encouraged to do some difficult work in order to learn humility, compassion, the link between work and pay, and the value of the dollar. Such work would teach young people a sense of connection to those who make careers of these jobs, rather than a vague sense of superiority over them.

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Cinco Causas Principais do Crescimento do Narcisismo

Five key causes of the rising narcissism in American culture:

A focus on self-admiration, child-centered parenting, celebrity glorification and media encouragement, the attention seeking promoted on the Internet, and easy credit. The first four of these are continuing to grow and might do so even in a struggling economy; only the last, easy credit, is contracting.

First, the Internet allows individual narcissism to be reinforced. For example, you can have your own Web page, blog, YouTube channel, and movie company.

Second, the Internet promotes narcissistic behaviors. There is an intense emphasis on the self and self-promotion.

Third, some people become addicted to Internet use.

Fourth, standards of “normal” behavior are changing.

Thanks in part to the Internet, “normal” behavior now includes the public expression of private thoughts and moments; provocative and self-promoting public dress; and somewhat crude discourse (go read the comments sections to a YouTube video—they would make sailors blush).

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, the Internet has enormous reach.

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Narcisismo e Meritocracia

If you are so independent, he asked, who grows your food? Who sews your clothes, builds your house, makes sure that water comes out of your showerhead? How were you even born? The fact is, he said, we have not done one single thing alone, without the help of a small army of others, and yet we walk around talking about the necessity and supremacy of independence. It’s completely irrational.”

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Combatendo Narcisismo: Alteridade

There is a potential cure for narcissistic aggression if we can teach children how similar they are to one another. However, many schools, parents, and TV shows instead emphasize to children that everyone is unique and different. ...

One school program, called Roots of Empathy, focuses specifically on these skills. Designed for elementary school children, the program brings an instructor, a parent, and a baby into the classroom. By interacting with the baby, the children come to understand the baby’s feelings and needs, and realize these are similar to their own. Schools using the program report fewer fights and discipline problems, more helping, and better social skills.

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A Importância da Auto-Expressão

One option is to counteract cultural solipsism—you don’t need to admire yourself, and you don’t need to express yourself to exist. ...

The importance of self-expression is enmeshed in our culture. When people discuss taking an art class, or creativity, or voting, these activities are often framed in terms of “self-expression.” This is a new phenomenon. Art was not historically about self-expression, nor was creativity, nor was voting—but removing self-expression from the discussion will be met with resistance. Thomas Edison said that creativity was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, but today’s culture suggests that it is 50% inspiration, 10% perspiration, and 40% self-expression. Americans love the idea that they can express themselves, and it is difficult to convince people that this isn’t really necessary.

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Como Amar Seu Filho

You can love a child without thinking that he or she is by definition the greatest child in the world. In a way, that is the definition of mature love.

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Combatendo Narcisismo: Gratidão

One of the best ways to combat entitlement is to be grateful for what you already have. In one fascinating study, people were asked to list all the things they were grateful for once a week for ten weeks. Compared to a group of people who did not do this task, those who thought about everything they were thankful for reported a greater sense of well-being, enjoyed better health, and exercised more. They were also more emotionally supportive to others. Gratitude is the opposite of entitlement: you think about what you already have, instead of what you deserve to have but don’t.

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Amanhã, é dia de Ação de Graças. Seguindo esse último conselho, convido os leitores que desejem combater seu narcisismo a escrever uma lista das coisas pelas quais são gratos. Eu vou fazer a minha.

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Narcisismo Não É Megalomania

Leiam também esse fundamental texto do The Last Psychiatrist:

A Generational Pathology: Narcissism Is Not Grandiosity

Trechos:

The belief that narcissism is synonymous with grandiosity is, itself, a narcissistic defense. You are being lied to, by yourself. ...

When psychiatry wanted to stop being a Jewish/Marxist/elitist worldview and become a real science, it needed to pretend it had medicines and statistics, and a whole new DSM (III).
How do you measure the unmeasurable? Divide the unmeasurable into pieces, and measure the pieces. Too many pieces, too fine? Start with the obvious. We found a foot, an eyeball, and a liver. This must be a man. Or a triceratops. Or a... And now we come to consider that a man is something possessing of three attributes: footness, eyeballness, and liverness, with exclusion criteria of dinosaurization. Thanks, Aristotle, this helps a lot. ...

If it's not grandiosity, then what is narcissism?

Shame over guilt; rage over anger; masturbation over sex; envy over greed; your future over your past but her past over her future...

Imagine what you look like to another person. Now recall what you looked like in the mirror this morning-- that's really what they see. They are making instantaneous judgments about your personality based on that mirror image. They are hearing your voice like it comes form a recording, not as you hear from your mouth. You're the only person who experiences yourself as you do. ...

He's a man in a glass box, unable to connect. He thinks the problem is people don't like him, or not enough, so he exerts massive energy into the creation and maintenance of an identity: if they think of me as X... But that attempt is always futile, not because you can't trick the other person-- you can, for an entire lifetime, it's quite easy. But even then, the man in the box is still unsatisfied, still frustrated, because no amount of identity maintenance will break that glass box. If the other person is also in a glass box, then you have a serious problem. If everyone is in their own glass box, well, then you have America. ...

Sure, you can convince 5000 people you're anything. Then what? It is self-reinforcing. The type of person who withdraws into facebook is already stunted in their potential for happiness; and if you're spending all your energy on facebook then you're not spending it in ways that might actually work. The problem isn't facebook, the problem is you. ...

Shouldn't you be in a nice car? Nautica/Zegna/Underarmor/Polo shirts? Restaurants? The fact that you can't get them is someone else's fault; but if you get them, why aren't you happier? Meanwhile there are bills to pay.

And you can't make the connection between these things at all. Even as I say it, you resist: it's not that simple, you don't know her, you don't know them......................................... it can't be all me.

It is you, it is all you, it is always you. Isn't it odd how narcissism turns everything inward, except blame?

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Já está disponível para pré-venda a segunda edição (impressa, de papel, não é ebook!) do meu livro de crônicas Liberal Libertário Libertino. Mais detalhes aqui.

Liberal Libertário Libertino (2007), crônicas. (2ª ed.: 2010) Livro.
Preço recomendado: R$35 / US$20, frete incluso

Compre.