Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Aeschylus’s axiom that ‘In war, truth is the first casualty’ rings as true today, as it did when he wrote it 2,500 years ago.  Wars begin with the lies, exaggerations, and distortions that make up the carefully-crafted casus belli, which continue throughout the conflict, and are often its most enduring legacy.  

To those with narcissistic personality disorder, their entire existence is a war that pits them against all others.  They see themselves immersed in a world surrounded by others as venal and opportunistic as they.  This world is governed only by the rules of war – including those that apply to truth.  For these people, there are no true friendships, only alliances – shifting alliances, directed at feeding their insatiable hunger for wealth, recognition, and power.  

To them, there is no objective truth – only what is useful.  Because narcissists are accountable only to themselves, even a story they invent extemporaneously—become as real to them as objectively verifiable truths are to the rest of us.  These fabrications are at once a convenience, and a new battleground to defend against a hostile world.  

To the narcissist, a promise—even a written contract—is merely a means to an end; once the end is achieved, the contract is no longer useful, and is ignored.  

They are as likely to violate marriage vows, as they are a written contract; they tend to be unfaithful partners in all realms.  Fine print, Intimidation, and a willingness to ‘out-lawyer’ any who trust them, work in concert to further the narcissist’s goals, and minimize the consequences.  

Psychiatrists say that narcissistic personality disorder is particularly hard to treat; partly because one of the key manifestations is an inability to trust – including the therapist.  Also, because the compulsive drive for gain resembles healthier forms of motivation, these people are often highly successful in business and in politics.  But, rather than seeking success as a means to promote security or the well-being of their family, or society, the success for the narcissist is an end in itself.  

These people are to be pitied; they know no peace, and live without real love or connection to others.  But they are not to be trusted; though they compulsively seek power, no effort should be spared to prevent them from attaining it.  They are incapable of the empathy that moderates the ruthless exercise of power, and are capable of great destruction.  

The West Bank and Sanctions

For decades, the United States and Israel have danced a well-choreographed pas de deux around the subject of the West Bank of the Jordan River.   Whenever a resolution came before the United Nations Security Council sanctioning Israel for planting colonies in these occupied territories, the United States would use its veto to scuttle the resolution.  Then behind the scenes, we would elicit promises to stop, or at least limit, settlement activity.  

The West Bank poses incredibly complex problems for Israel; historical, strategic, philosophical and existential.  They can't annex it without risking their identity as a democratic Jewish state; either Jewish citizens would become a minority of the electorate, or they would have to deny voting privileges based on ethnicity - neither of which is considered compatible with that identity.  There is a consensus among those whose goal is a just peace that there must be some form of a two-state solution, with side-by-side contiguous Israeli and Palestinian nations – divided approximately along the pre-1967 border, but integrating mutually agreed swaps of land.  At the best of times, this has reached a point where the only remaining questions were the details of which tracts go to which state.  This goal is shared not only by the international community, including the United States, but also by significant segments of the Palestinians and Israeli populations, who would be most directly affected.  Neither side’s extremists would get all they want, but in the view of those who seek justice, this is an exchange of ‘land for peace’.  

But there is powerful opposition to this, and always has been.  There are segments of Palestinian society who cannot be reconciled to losing any of their historical homeland – including the internationally-recognized territory of Israel.  And within Israeli society, there are those who dream of a ‘greater Israel’ that incorporates all of the West Bank.  Leaders from this segment of Israeli society have allowed, and in some cases, promoted the planting of colonies throughout the occupied West Bank.  Netanyahu is from this segment of society, and has promoted colonization at an unprecedented rate.  

Each of these colonies (often referred to as settlements) is surrounded by a broad ‘security perimeter’, and they are linked by a network of roads that Palestinians are not allowed to travel, or even cross, except at specified checkpoints.  What the people of this region are left with are isolated islands, with limited movement, within which they are always subject to unexpected, violent intrusion.  The humiliating conditions in these isolated enclaves in the West Bank closely resemble those of apartheid-era South African ‘homelands’.   

There is a virtual news blackout in this country about the conditions of this military occupation – so not surprisingly, there is little sympathy when a Palestinian acts out in defiance.  

Whatever the underlying conflict, it is made more intractable by the continued colonization of the West Bank.  Though Israeli politicians—even those like Netanyahu, who doesn’t mean a word of it—claim to seek a just negotiated settlement, these settlements make that impossible.  Palestinians sometimes use the analogy of two people sitting across a table, deciding how to divide up a pizza, as one of the people keeps grabbing slices and eating them.  It is Netanyahu’s intention to gorge until there is no pizza left to divide

This colonization of the West Bank is also promoted by arms merchants in the US and elsewhere, whose profits would be devastated by an emerging peace in this region.  The symbiotic relationship between them, American right-wing religious leaders, and the expansionist wing of the Israeli body politic forms an implacable barrier to any just settlement of this problem.  As has been evident this week, they respond in outrage even when the United States does not actively stand in the way of international recognition of the obvious problems posed by colonization of these occupied territories.  

Dedication to Cause vs. Tranquility

We live in emotionally and ethically challenging times.  Particularly during political campaigns, it is easy to forget one of the most fundamental realities of human psychology. 

It is impossible to focus on what you hate and what you love at the same time.  Hatred has an addictive effect, which steals one’s attention and focus from those we love. 

We must set aside time to learn, and make informed decisions in order to have a functioning democracy.  But please set aside much of your day … much of your attention to the beauty which surrounds us, those we love, and who love us.    

Verdun

Think of France, and a hundred images flood our minds; excellent wine, delicious food (served in decidedly non-American portion sizes), art, history, the Eiffel Tower, skiing in the alps, and bicycle racing, just to name a few. 

But mention the French Army to an American, and all these images disappear: replaced by a cynical perception of an army that won’t fight, and surrenders at the first opportunity. 

This perception is so widespread that no explanation is needed. It’s just implicit.  Nobody questions it; nobody except for the one group that doesn’t buy into it at all—historians—who know that this bit of slander has no basis in fact.  It’s just one of those caricatures that has been repeated so often over such a long period of time that many people accept it without question.  There is a certain amusement to this caricature, enough so that many people resent being set straight. 

But for those who are willing to revisit this long-held belief with an open mind, we are at an historical crossroad. 

One hundred years ago the French, along with their British and Belgian allies were locked in a bloody stalemate, stuck in trench lines that stretched from the Swiss border to the English Channel.  Time after time, one side would try to advance, only to be repulsed with heavy losses.  Then the German high command came up with a planned offensive so monumentally huge that it would ‘bleed France white’, forcing them to surrender.

The fortress and area around Verdun were not an important strategic target, but held great value in the hearts and minds of the French.  The Germans chose to attack there, simply because they knew the French would spare nothing to defend there.  In that they were absolutely right. 

To get an idea of the scale of the violence of the initial assault, in the first two days of the offensive, The Germans hurled over two million high-explosive artillery shells into a seven-mile stretch of French defenses near Verdun, killing tens of thousands of French soldiers.  Pause for a minute to consider the sound of millions of artillery shells exploding all around you, for days at a time. 

Because of their incredible advantage of men, artillery, and airpower, the Germans were able to advance a few miles in the first few weeks.  But ultimately, they were stopped short of Verdun itself.  The battle continued for ten months, making Verdun the longest single battle in the history of Western Europe. 

In the end the French ‘won’ the Battle of Verdun – by the only standards that mattered in that war of wholesale slaughter fighting over feet and inches.  After their initial losses, the French defenders regained all the ground that had been lost.  But in ten months of fighting, as many French and German soldiers were killed in action in that seven mile battle front as in the Union and Confederacy combined in the entire four years of the American Civil War – even heavy fighting continued elsewhere all along the Western Front.

Verdun was the longest duration battle ever to take place in Western Europe, and, despite terribly lopsided odds against them, the French army prevailed. 

Hardly what one would expect of ‘surrender monkeys’.    

http://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Verdun

The Social Contract and Coersion

The political and social philosophers whose ideas helped form the modern concept of society and governance have long maintained that people consciously choose to live in society as part of an implicit bargain – a ‘social contract’.  Hobbes characterized life in nature as ‘mean, nasty, brutish, and short’, and said people live together, and submit to authority as a form of collective protection from the dangers of an existence in nature.  Rousseau had a more positive view of nature as a beneficial state, from which people are drawn – not out of fear, but by the promise of even greater benefits available within society. 

The implications of both of these perspectives is that participation in society—and the requisite constraints on individual behavior—are not coerced, but are negotiated; that society offers benefits not available beyond its bounds, which outweigh the restrictions one accepts as part of membership. 

But what happens when it doesn't?  What if members of society, or a subset of them, gain no benefit from their participation?  What if life for some is just as mean, nasty, brutish, and short within the pale as beyond?  What do we who enjoy the benefits of society and its institutions have the right to expect from those who don’t?  

In legal terms, a contract is only enforceable if there is ‘consideration’ for all parties – in other words, each party must gain some benefit in order to be bound by their obligations under the contract.  In that light, what are the implications for our Social Contract? 

For members of a multi-generational underclass, who spend their lives surrounded by images of an affluent society, but are aware that they will never experience it – what do they owe to the maintenance of social order?  If they have no visible chance of escape, nor realistic opportunity to improve their lot through socially-acceptable means—and if the fabric of the social safety net is so frayed that even maintaining their marginal existence is increasingly difficult—how should we expect them to behave? 

Is our only answer to increase enforcement actions?  In the absence of an attractive social contract, must we revert to coercion?  

In many advanced societies, consistent efforts are made to so enhance the quality of life that the mere threat of even brief separation from society is enough to dissuade citizens from behaviors that might lead to incarceration.  But what if safety and security within one’s environment are little better than within confinement?  If there is no carrot, do we have to resort to larger, more intimidating sticks?

Societal responses to violations of the social contract may range from warnings, to exile, fines, imprisonment, and in some societies even capital punishment.  But what if these sanctions are imposed arbitrarily, based on ethnicity, poverty, gender, or any factor other than adherence to societal norms?  If one’s behavior is not the determinant factor for the imposition of sanctions, what incentive remains for one to inhibit?  

Our society has largely abandoned the inner cities, and those who now inhabit them – as it abandoned their parents and their grandparents before them.  In place of the reward/punishment regime within which most of us exist, these people have only varying, randomly imposed degrees of punishment.  To evaluate their behavior by the standards we impose on ourselves as part of a mutually-beneficial contract, is naïve at best, if not prejudicial and cynical. 

Laws must be enforced.  The most frequent innocent victims of lawlessness within dispossessed communities are those who share the same conditions that spawn the lawlessness itself.  And pervasive crime exacerbates the feeling of abandonment   Protection from criminals is a primary function of society.  But the way in which that protection is afforded is absolutely critical.  It cannot be perceived as being imposed from outside.  And, as importantly, it cannot be perceived as enforcing a social order from which the governed do not benefit. 

It would be nice if there were a tidy, prescriptive way to wrap up this little screed.  There’s not.  The problem is complex, and of long standing.  It is much easier to share a perspective on a problem than to honestly claim to have an easy solution.   Problems incubated over decades in abandoned regions of our society are held up as straw men for oversimplified problem statements, and bumper-sticker solutions by politicians and demagogues of all stripes.  We must, as a society, find a way to extend the benefits of the social contract to all whom we expect to adhere to its precepts.  How we do that is an open (and increasingly urgent) question, but to expect adherence without consideration relies solely on coercion.  And in the long run, coercion—more and nastier prisons, with longer and longer sentences—is likely to end up being the most expensive option.  

Gaze Into The Abyss

When we hear about something repugnant—whether it’s a mass murderer venting anger with a bomb or a semi-automatic rifle, or just a public figure or celebrity cheating to win, or using a repulsive term for other human beings—our first tendency is to put distance between us and the offender.  We become curious about them, but mostly to identify the ways in which we are not them.  ‘They did it because they’re a … Muslim Fundamentalist … crazed gun-nut … racist cracker … whatever; fill in the blanks.  The bottom line is that we feel some vindication in knowing that ‘we’ are not ‘them’, and could never do or say the horrific or objectionable thing that caught our attention. 

This is a totally understandable response, but is not productive.  As comforting as it is to distance ourselves from those we detest, insight is only gained when we look at how we are similar.  This is not the same as sympathizing with them – it’s just gaining knowledge.  When we deny our capacity for evil—whether in the form of religious or racial intolerance, uncontrolled anger, greed, or any number of other infractions—we erect a wall of cognitive dissonance, and through our willful blindness actually become more susceptible to manifesting evil. 

To borrow from Nietzsche, any claim on self-knowledge is limited until one is able to ‘gaze long into the abyss’, and honestly confront the specter which returns our attention.  

Junk Knowledge

Curiosity is the necessary first condition to wisdom, in the same sense that hunger is the drive that leads to nutrition. 

But hunger is also the first condition to obesity.  All depends upon how we satisfy the craving.  As with food, our society is rife with purveyers of ersatz low-fact junk ‘knowledge’.  When we choose these over more wholesome knowledge, we risk becoming mentally sedentary and lethargic. 

Unlike serious learning, junk knowledge is easy to digest, requiring no rumination.  Serious learning challenges us, and may detach us from our foundational beliefs and preconceived notions.  It is much easier to be spoon-fed predigested pablum – so easy that it’s addictive.  Once the addiction is set, the systems that process real knowledge atrophy, and it becomes nearly impossible to go back. 

The classical Greek playwright Aeschylus said, ‘He who learns must suffer’.  I would add that he who learns must suffer fools who opt not to.