Narcissism – Paul Hobus

We all know that the media does some shamelessly awful stuff just to keep our attention. Maybe it is a flaw of human beings that we don’t care about things unless they are so outrageous that they activate our fight or flight response to gain our attention.

This media manipulation has some major side effects that I have previously covered. But I want to reiterate it because of a particular side effect that I feel is very relevant to our society today.

We are making idiots wealthy and leaving the truly deserving people out to starve.

This isn’t good for our society. We all know children are impressionable, so showing them people who act like uneducated fools and end up making large amounts of money sets a bad role model.

Instead of showing off people who are achieving things and are truly worth aspiring to be like, the media panders to the lowest echelons of society and we eat it out of their hands.

It should upset you that the “cash me outside” girl is going to be a millionaire by the end of the year. It should upset you that someone like that became famous because everyone thought she was a joke. It turns out we are the joke, because we got played.

This is called a negative externality in economics. It is a cost suffered by a third party as a result of a transaction. In this case, the media company is transacting with their audience, who fund them through advertising revenue. Society is the third party. As a whole, society is bearing the cost of making stupid people influencers.

The reason why we have a surge of conspiracy thinkers who believe the earth is flat, along with other ridiculous anti-science mumbo jumbo, is because we allow uneducated people to have a platform with equal or greater strength than those who truly know what they are talking about.

So listen, we can’t take power away from those who are already famous. That isn’t how the first amendment works. I want everyone to have free speech just like me because I realize that if someone else can be limited, I can be too. I am completely against the de-platforming of a person just because of their beliefs. But if we are going to allow anyone to talk on an issue, we have to fact check them.

That means it is up to us to pass around useful information, instead of perpetuating stupidity and misleading others. This means that if you don’t have data to back up what you say, you’re wrong.

It is up to us to work in a better direction and help keep each other informed instead of allowing ourselves to be distracted by reality tv trash. We need to prevent the movie Idiocracy, not create it.

The great writer Issac Asimov once said,

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

As a society, we need to work against this. We need to push ourselves to be better instead of resting on our laurels and hoping the government will come to our aid. If anything gets you out the door for a solution it should be to realize that clearly President Trump epitomizes BOTH anti-intellectualism AND the truth that the government is not going to look out for your best interests.

It’s time for us to take action. Go out and follow informed individuals. Subscribe to Youtube channels like Today I Found Out and Vsauce. Start reading books. You’d be amazed at how much free time you actually have when you escape from the constant sales pitches of these professional plug artists.

Go outside. Read a book. Learn an instrument. Volunteer.

We spend way too much of our time cooped up watching idiots sell us things we don’t need and entertaining ourselves to death. There is a better way, it starts by taking the power away from people like this.

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.

As A millennial, I think I am the shit. Because, duh, I am. And I’ve been told that my whole life. But maybe this is a really bad thing.

Maybe the high self-esteem we have all cultivated is detrimental to the ways in which we communicate with each other.

Maybe we spend too much time looking at our bodies and neglecting our brains.

Maybe we blow our accomplishments out of proportion and stifle those of our peers.

Maybe we get offended so easily because we hold ourselves such high regard, that any mistake or failure of observation on another parties part becomes an insult.

Maybe we wouldn’t have a spray tanned idiot as our president if we were less narcissistic of a culture.

In his book “The Road to Character,” author David Brooks illustrates that this egotism has been growing consistently for a long time.

He states,

“Between 1948 and 1954 psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls.”

Imagine asking that question now. I would be shocked if two out of ten adolescents answered that they did not consider themselves very important. I bet their parents would take them to counseling if they heard those words come out of their child’s mouth, for fear of low self esteem.

Brooks goes on to say that,

“The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.”

This got me thinking about the way in which narcissism is viewed by our culture. Before we go any further, I want to define the term and give some examples, just so we are clear.

Google says,

“Narcissism — excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s physical appearance.

Synonyms: vanity, conceit, egotism

Antonyms: modesty

In Psychology — Extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.”

Then I saw this chart under the definition which shows the prevalence of the term throughout history.

Thanks for the comfort Google.

I also saw a post on Facebook about President Trump. In the comments, there was an image of a textbook posted with a list of examples of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Here are the ones I found most relevant.

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high status people.
Has a sense of entitlement.
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

Do any of those descriptions bring people you know to mind? Good, They do for me too, and they do that because we live in a culture that promotes self-expression and by default, cultivates narcissism.

This reminds me of a quote from the book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe.

He writes,

“I went to see the Beatles last month… And I heard 20,000 girls screaming together at the Beatles… and I couldn’t hear what they were screaming, either… But you don’t have to… They’re screaming Me! Me! Me! Me!… I’m Me!… That’s the cry of the ego, and that’s the cry of this rally!… Me! Me! Me! Me!… And that’s why wars get fought… ego… because enough people want to scream Pay attention to Me… Yep, you’re playing their game…”

That book was written in 1968. So this trend has been around for a while. Long enough to get noticed, long enough to produce a demagogue like Donald Trump.

But, what is really disturbing about this trend. What we all should really worry about, is how social media plays a role in this. We should care about it because future generations will grow up already immersed in this sphere. To say otherwise is to be a luddite, and we can’t make a better future by acting like that.

The problems with social media are systemic.

In his book “Ego Is the Enemy,” Ryan Holiday lays out the problem with social media.

He states,

“Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It’s more ‘Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.’ It’s rarely the truth.”

You have all done it. We take a picture and edit it just right and then post it on Insta and marvel at how important we are when all of our friends like the picture so we will keep liking their pictures. Its fake.

But we do things like that because we want to show others how important we are. It feeds our collective narcissism. It feeds the very problems we have in our society.

Do you think that the Berkeley students rioted about Milo Yiannopoulos because they felt that they were too important to have him as a speaker? I would bet that they did. (For the record I am not a fan of him, but I am highly disturbed by the de-platforming of speakers) I would bet that many of the problems we have with the Regressive Left are a result of the members of that side of the political spectrum being narcissistic and thinking that they are more important than debate and discussion of ideas. If you think that you are the most important person/group in the world, why would you converse with people you see as below you? This harkens back to the textbook page, an individual or group that, “believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high status people.” Sounds like the rioters to me.

This is an issue I do not see getting better any time soon. And I wish I could tell you how to solve this. I wish I had an infographic or a canned “5 Steps” article to help with this. But I don’t. I really do not know what will make this any better.

The only thing I can think that will help is this quote…

So for my new model of anti-narcissisim, I am calling you to do something that humbles you.

Volunteer.

Compliment someone.

Admit that you made a mistake.

Let someone else go in line ahead of you.

This is not a comprehensive list, and I am by no means an expert on how to be humble. But it is a start, and it is something to think about as we continue into the 21st century.

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.