Lady Matilda writes:
I like the continuum indexing of the various symptoms of this common malady. Rick Dyer is not know to me (but I just looked him up and now he is!), but I would wager that some of our leaders may be quite high up in this ranking; when it comes to the career pathways indicated by their narcissism. It seems natural for someone so afflicted to crave and lust after the power of taking over an entire state.
The ranks and corridors of power are teeming with narcissists, often highly pathological ones. You know how when you are dealing with power types, the word ego keeps coming up over and over? “There are a lot of conflicting egos going on here. He has a huge ego. Massive ego conflict.” In people without narcissistic issues, there is generally no need to talk about ego this and ego that, ego clashes and conflicts, huge egos and whatnot because in healthy folks, the ego tends to stay in the background unless the person is under attack. Whenever you hear the word ego used this way, think narcissism!
And the entire town of Tinseltown/Hollywood is filled to the point of exploding with narcissists. Many to most actors are narcissistic (it’s almost a necessity) and highly pathological narcissism in Hollywood is not uncommon at all.
You know the old joke about the journalist interviewing the actor:
Actor: Well, enough about me already! We’ve talked about me long enough! Let’s about about you for a change. What did YOU think of my latest book?
I recently had some dealings with two men famous in the Science world. One is describes as one of the top science writers in the US. It’s rude but I may as well name him – Carl Zimmer. He even has a Wikipedia. The other fellows were two of the world’s leading hominid paleontologists – John Hawkes and another man whose name escapes me. But of these men are widely published and one has even published a number of books. Both of these clowns have Wikipedia entries.
I must say that in Hawkers, Zimmer and this other man that the egotism, narcissism, overbearing attitudes, condescension and wild arrogance were simply stratospheric. It was obvious to me that there were some crazy levels of narcissism along with egos the size of the Olduvai Gorge going on with these guys. Cocky, strutting, swaggering, bragging, shouting, blustering, insulting, demeaning, extremely unpleasant jerkoffs all of them.
And these men are world famous. World famous assholes I guess.
I now assume that a lot of famous folks have serious narcissism issues. Perhaps it just goes with the territory.
