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  • 5 months later...
Posted

I'm not clear on what narcissism means.  From the dictionary: "extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type."

  There are some dilemmas created by that definition.

(1) Selfishness is in a class of alleged attributes that predate neuroscience and have no functional identity allowing for objective measurement.  Another is "greed".  This permits me to claim without opposition that all action is selfish by definition because the concept of human action flows from the concept of self.

(2) What if I become a millionaire and am fawned over for my talents?  If a grandiose view of one's own talents is narcissism, then anyone particularly talented and aware of it is for practical consideration automatically narcissist.  I.e., "narcissism" is merely an alias for "talented".

(3) A case can easily be made that craving admiration is a fundamental trait like hunger because admiration results in receiving benefits.

 

In summary, that definition can be reduced to: acting, being exceptionally talented and having desires. So while acting and having desires includes everyone, to me it seems like sour grapes against exceptionally talented people and also against beautiful people because beauty has the effect of talent.  So the question that arises for me: what rational difference could there be in non-narcissist beautiful people and narcissist beautiful people?

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Thank you a lot. There is a lot of talk about narcissism going on, but you give really detailed, practical advice. Can imagine where that comes from, you cleared up some essential questions I had lingering about my past relationship.

Gotta applaud on the "How to trick narcissists" series. I did that myself even though I hope I'll never get the chance again.

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