The Narcissism of Differences Big and Small
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
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It is common to believe that the more marked the differences between newcomers and citizens, the more pronounced the resultant racism. After all, white Frenchmen, Americans, and Dutch hotheads attack black folks. The self-proclaimed liberal white often harbour averse racism (unconscious racist attitudes). But, this is only half the truth. The ugliest manifestations of racism (up to genocide) are reserved to immigrants who look, act, and talk like us. The more they try to emulate and imitate us, the harder they attempt to belong, the more ferocious our rejection of them.
Freud coined the phrase "narcissism of small differences" in a paper titled "The Taboo of Virginity" that he published in 1917. Referring to earlier work by British anthropologist Ernest Crawley, he said that we reserve our most virulent emotions – aggression, hatred, envy – towards those who resemble us the most. We feel threatened not by the Other with whom we have little in common – but by the "nearly-we", who mirror and reflect us.
The "nearly-he" imperils the narcissist's selfhood and challenges his uniqueness, perfection, and superiority – the fundaments of the narcissist's sense of self-worth. It provokes in him primitive narcissistic defences and leads him to adopt desperate measures to protect, preserve, and restore his balance. I call it the Gulliver Array of Defence Mechanisms.
The very existence of the "nearly-he" constitutes a narcissistic injury. The narcissist feels humiliated, shamed, and embarrassed not to be special after all – and he reacts with envy and aggression towards this source of frustration.
In doing so, he resorts to splitting, projection, and Projective Identification. He attributes to other people personal traits that he dislikes in himself and he forces them to behave in conformity with his expectations. In other words, the narcissist sees in others those parts of himself that he cannot countenance and deny. He forces people around him to become him and to reflect his shameful behaviours, hidden fears, and forbidden wishes.
But how does the narcissist avoid the realisation that what he loudly decries and derides is actually part of him? By exaggerating, or even dreaming up and creatively inventing, differences between his qualities and conduct and other people's. The more hostile he becomes towards the "nearly-he", the easier it is to distinguish himself from "the Other".
To maintain this self-differentiating aggression, the narcissist stokes the fires of hostility by obsessively and vengefully nurturing grudges and hurts (some of them imagined). He dwells on injustice and pain inflicted on him by these stereotypically "bad or unworthy" people. He devalues and dehumanises them and plots revenge to achieve closure. In the process, he indulges in grandiose fantasies, aimed to boost his feelings of omnipotence and magical immunity.
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In the process of acquiring an adversary, the narcissist blocks out information that threatens to undermine his emerging self-perception as righteous and offended. He begins to base his whole identity on the brewing conflict which is by now a major preoccupation and a defining or even all-pervasive dimension of his existence.
Very much the same dynamic applies to coping with major differences between the narcissist and others. He emphasises the large disparities while transforming even the most minor ones into decisive and unbridgeable.
Deep inside, the narcissist is continuously subject to a gnawing suspicion that his self-perception as omnipotent, omniscient, and irresistible is flawed, confabulated, and unrealistic. When criticised, the narcissist actually agrees with the critic. In other words, there are only minor differences between the narcissist and his detractors. But this threatens the narcissist's internal cohesion. Hence the wild rage at any hint of disagreement, resistance, or debate.
Similarly, intimacy brings people closer together – it makes them more similar. There are only minor differences between intimate partners. The narcissist perceives this as a threat to his sense of uniqueness. He reacts by devaluing the source of his fears: the mate, spouse, lover, or partner. He re-establishes the boundaries and the distinctions that were removed by intimacy. Thus restored, he is emotionally ready to embark on another round of idealisation (the Approach-Avoidance Repetition Complex).
In a study titled "War and Relatedness", published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the authors, Enrico Spolaore, Romain Wacziarg concluded:
"(T)he degree of genealogical relatedness between populations has a positive effect on their conflict propensities because more closely related populations, on average, tend to interact more and develop more disputes over sets of common issues ... (P)opulations that are genetically closer are more prone to go to war with each other, even after controlling for a wide set of measures of geographic distance and other factors that affect conflict, including measures of trade and democracy."
Nationalism vs. Patriotism: Narcissism vs. Self-love
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Patriotism is akin to the healthy form of self-love: it consists mainly of
pride in one’s self-identity and values based on one’s culture and shared
history. Patriotism is not exclusionary, but inclusive. The patriot, in constantly
seeking to improve his lot and that of his compatriots, is open to advice and
suggestions, and welcomes criticism. Patriotism is concerned with the concrete,
the here and now. It is grounded in reality.
Nationalism is very much like compensatory,
malignant narcissism. It rears its head when people stop being patriots,
when they are rendered by circumstances (usually of their own making) ashamed
of who they are: Nazi Germany
comes to mind. Nationalism is exclusionary
and oppositional: the nationalist’s sense of self-identity and self-worth
depends on the aggressive belittlement and devaluation of other collectives
(other nations, minorities, ethnic groups, or religions.) The nationalist
regards every hint of criticism
of “his” nation as an act of violence. Though he volubly professes to an ardent
love of his “Volk”, the nationalist is mostly concerned with the abstract and
the elitist: megalomaniacal,
grandiose fantasies of a utopian future occupy his time, not the concrete,
or the here and now.
Also Read
Narcissists, Disagreements and Criticism
Collective Narcissism in Culture and Society
Transformations of Aggression (Narcissism, Rage, Envy)
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