The ravages of narcissism
Why should we consider narcissism a disorder? Why do we feel justified in judging it to be unhealthy or perverse? Why not just label it as an alternative lifestyle or perhaps a kind of religion (narcissists are self-worshipers; other religions have other gods)? Or why not say that it is just a matter of cultural difference whether we regard as “normal” the value that the DSM and I call self-importance, or, on the contrary, regard it as a false value, and regard the value that I call the real importance of persons “normal” and healthy? A general diagnostic criterion of personality disorder, according to the DSM, is “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture.”11 It is plausible to think that self-importance is a value that is expected in our culture (and indeed promoted, say, by advertising and by the selectivity structures of institutions).
If it undermines what we call friendship and love, then so much the worse for friendship and love! If it results in ignorance, let’s hear it for ignorance!I think there is a widely shared ethics or psychology, a normative anthropology, if you will, among us humans according to which love and friendship are a good thing, perhaps even close to being the meaning of human existence.Whether personality or character traits that trap one in psychic loneliness and self-ignorance and ignorance of the world are contrary to the good life is not a culturally relative matter.The ravages of narcissism are real, universal, and deplorable.
We might think that we “normal” people, who aren’t at risk of being diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, escape from its ravages.And we do escape, to whatever extent we possess the virtue of humility.The DSM-5, recognizing that narcissistic symptoms are widespread among human beings, offers two points of guidance to distinguish people who are clinically diagnosable from the rest of us narcissists.
One point is that a clinical diagnosis requires that the patient satisfy five of the nine criteria.This point is fuzzy, first, given the repetitions ((2) of (1), (9) of (5)) that our commentary has identified; second, given that each of the criteria can be satisfied in various degrees of severity; and third, given that virtually all of us satisfy all the criteria to some extent.The DSM's second point of guidance is this:Many highly successful individuals display personality traits that might be considered narcissistic. Only when these traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persisting and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute narcissistic personality disorder.12
We might ask,“How inflexible, maladaptive, persistent, functionally impairing, and subjectively distressing need they be?” It would be implausible to think that narcissistic personality traits possessed by highly successful individuals leave them entirely unimpaired, while suddenly, beyond a certain threshold of inflexibility, maladaptiveness, and persistence, they cause functional impairment and subjective distress. A “highly successful” person may have no close friends (or the friendships she has may be troubled) and may suffer from ignorance attributable to her narcissism that impairs her life and her ability to contribute to her community, or even results in international disaster. It is plausible to think that any degree whatsoever of narcissistic traits will make one subject to some dysfunction and subjective distress. At least this is so if we think that friendship, love, and respect are essential ingredients in a good human life. If the essential mark of narcissism (vicious pride) is concern for the destructive pseudo-value of self-importance, then it is a disorder whether or not it is clinically diagnosable.Almost everybody is on the narcissistic spectrum—that is to say, almost everybody is concerned about his self-importance, a destructive object of seeking and a false value.
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