If they gave those "personality tests" to the French or British Aristocrats at any time up to the later 20th century, what you'd find would be identical to this theme:
5. Has a sense of entitlement
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
7. Lacks empathy
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
All the same features that Wall Street exhibits today. It's simply part of an effort by elites in all times and at all places to turn themselves into an aristocracy and to justify their greed and exploitation of the poor by believing they are separate.
The same, of course, goes for Versailles, as was particularly evident when AG Eric Holder's scrupulously honest dismissal of charges against Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct was egregiously misrepresented by all his Versailles buddies as vindication of his ahem! "sterling character". What better way to thoroughly blacken their own?
My earlier diary,"Narcissism, The Bubble Economy and American Exceptionalism--Part 2a", began looking at malignant narcissism via a weirdly exculpatory NYT Op-Ed from a British psychologist, Belinda Board, who semi-excused John Bolton, and "high-ranking business executives" like him who might share many traits with the criminal class, but managed to keep themselves from getting locked up.
But what happens when they don't keep themselves from getting locked up? That question is no longer a merely idle one, as the US abdication of its responsibilities under international law is now opening the door wide for foreign prosecutions of US war crimes and related violations of international law. As they NY Times now reports, "Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush-Era Officials":
LONDON - A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.
The case, against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, was sent to the prosecutor's office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was "highly probable" that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants.
That's what I want to explore here--the social role of malignant narcissism in America today, particularly in two regards: (1) The current economic crisis (in this diary), (2) American exceptionalism and the war on terror (in part 2)
.
This is Part 2, as promised. Only I've decided to break into a few different pieces. Here, I want to start off with a remarkable NYT Op-Ed column I've stumbled across from 2005. It's called "The Tipping Point", it's by British psychologist Belinda Board, who conducted a survey discovering widespread signs of personality disorders in the British business class, and it's about John Bolton--President Bush's then nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, who was up for Senate confirmation.
Her piece begins:
John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, has been described as dogmatic, abusive to his subordinates and a bully. Yet Mr. Bush has said that John Bolton is the right man at the right time. Can these seemingly contradictory statements both be accurate? Yes. The reality is that sometimes the characteristics that make someone successful in business or government can render them unpleasant personally. What's more astonishing is that those characteristics when exaggerated are the same ones often found in criminals.
What's more astonishing to me is how directly Board approaches the point of identifying Bolton--as well as large numbers of "high-ranking business executives" -as marked by personality disorders common among criminals, and then normalizes this rather shocking and appalling state of affairs. Board's attitude seems remarkable consonant with Obama's casual dismissal of massive and open war crimes as no big deal. It represents a desire for the complete normalization of the abnormal, the abusive, the bizarre, and the criminal, just so long as it "works."
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) defines Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as "A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy."
While Digby's focus is on malignant narcissism in the corporate setting, I think it's fairly easy to see how the focus can be expanded considerably. The argument here is not that everyone involved is a malignant narcissist (someone with narcissistic personality disorder/NPD), because such individuals make up only about one percent of the population. Rather, it's that the influence of malignant narcissists can spread dramatically under the wrong conditions.
That's what I want to explore here--the social role of malignant narcissism in America today, particularly in two regards: (1) The current economic crisis (in this diary), (2) American exceptionalism and the war on terror (in part 2). When we see the behavior of AIG executives claiming their outsized, tax-payer-financed bonuses as a matter of right, see them defended by some, and see figures such as Geithner more concerned with appeasing them than with the righteous wrath of those paying their bonuses, what we're witnesses is an entire culture that's been warped and disoriented by the influence malignant narcissism. That's not the only thing involved, of course. I'm a firm believer in over-determination and multiple causality. But just now, I want to focus on malignant narcissism.
(Note: Some use the term "malignant narcissism" only to refer to cases involving extreme abuse or violence. I feel it's more consistent with wider linguistic practice to distinguish more broadly between "benign" and "malign" forms, with the latter referring to any personality disorder of the narcissistic type.)
