Tag Archives: malignant narcissism

FTAC – A Question Regarding Social Media and Realpolitik

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Politics

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I wonder what the relationship is between expression in social media and policy adjustment in state diplomatic and military operations.

Never before in history has the battle for “hearts and minds” been played through a global system linking individual minds in novel ways.  However, the old prediction that cyberspace will wind up looking a lot like real space haunts the conversation.

Are we making a difference, yet?

The theme topic contributing to this post involved a “Syrian Truth – English” (Facebook) plate featuring the slogan, “This is how we used to live” accompanied by a civil enough show of peace between the religious with Bashar Assad at the center of each photo-op, and “and this is how U.S. and its allies want us to live,” with that accompanied by images of beheading, crucifixion, field executions featuring armed soldiers wearing black hoods or black headscarves.

My response to that:

When power extends to power over information, that information becomes part of the control exerted by the malignant narcissist. For a catch-all, one may use the term “totalitarian propaganda”: such information either lies by omission, for example, here, the statistics approaching 11,000 children destroyed by state-side sniper fire, bombing, and torture. In the west, we can independently investigate claims made by journalists; in autocratic environments, one is helpless before presentations of factual data and their spin. The other form of lie asserts the presence of a reality that isn’t present, which includes the “threat” of the Jews (we’re out to drown the world in chicken soup and love is more the reality).

Related from this blog: FTAC – If Information is Power, How Much Greater Must Be Power Over Information.

My partner in conversation chatypes from Pakistan.

Together, we cover quite a bit of thematic territory quickly — about information, Wahhabi Islam’s expansion (and the barbarity expressed in its name), about minority security (he is a Shiite Muslim), about Israel, about values — but we neither of us know the effect on others whom we may know or on others who may be lurking over our conversation.

We’re chatting on an open floor hosting a substantial emerging global intelligentsia: how far up the chain do our thoughts go, directly or in aggregate?

While we’re having our conversation in the quasi-public space of a pro-Syrian page, we’re also conversing separately.  In that process, I noted the following to him:

This is the “back channel” conversation. The front channel may be feeding back to Syrian Truth’s wall, so we are “in it” in a sense. They’re reading about themselves, whoever they may be.

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What if the political reality of a place were not manipulated by state and anti-state operations and forces?

And the chat goes on.

Who’s lurking?

What are they thinking?

What is in their hearts?

What is changing?

What is not changing?

What do they believe about power?

Can they isolate or separate their own assumptive habits of mind and behaviors involving loyalties, fears, and accompanying contemptuous thoughts and hatreds and introspectively and in some helpful way — or will it be only to help themselves to what others have? — adjust their own position?

My correspondent said, “It’s world simply, you have check a lot of things.”

True, and I said, “It’s a foundering ship, no captain, not much of a map, and the sea is stormy (but its sailors are on deck in the rain making up their minds about directions). 🙂 ”

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Sometimes, and this a bit tired with age and other nonsense, including immersion in conflict news, I find myself resting with the windows open and the whole place sailing along in the universe with the local wind and rain providing only immediate atmosphere against that immense ineffable space.

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FTAC – Assertion Regarding the Malignant Aspect in Vanity

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology

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A note on narcissism and vanity: both are to be found universally in the human experience. The aspect of malignancy is social and transactional — it has to do with HOW we do our thing and what we might do to others to do it. The difference is that between fair dealing and mafia dealing; also between accountable and open democracy — if you can get it — and corrupt and thuggish tyranny; also between a president that preserves a democratic constitution and relinquishes power at the end of his term, and one who manipulates the law and his political surrounds to keep himself central to power and in power.

The subject of a sociopathic narcissism came up on a wall, and after putting in my two cents with “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” — now a hobbyhorse of a phrase — I thought to give just a little more thought to what is contextual, what might better suit Hollywood than Washington, what is normal — or we should be without air conditioning, golf courses, and Cadillacs — and what is malign.

A part of “malignant narcissism” would seem to involve “license”, i.e., absence of conscience in regard to others and no brakes on behavior associated with boundaries, propriety, and, down the line, sadism as a dimension in the capricious and ultimate control of others.

As much the treatment of Shweyga Mullah within the Qaddafi household (at the hands of daughter-in-law Aline) stands signal (with much else from that regime) as to how crazed and depraved that cruelty may become.

“License” — perhaps Muhammad would have applied the term “exceeding limits” — seems to me a late expression along a curve that may find a basis in language (from the uptake stage) and “narcissistic mortification” for its path that will, for the person so affected, inevitably lead to the dehumanization and discounting of others.

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To Be Abandoned and Betrayed by Politics’ Malignant Narcissists

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel

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“This is how I live, day in, day out, in Gaza. Most of the population is less privileged than I am. When poverty wins out and there is no work and no solution on the horizon, there’s nothing worse than losing hope.”

My sea, my day – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews – by Dr. Mona al-Fara 12/2/2013.

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” . . . . there are 1,200 millionaires in Gaza since Hamas took power… these people took advantage of the tunnels and the commerce of fuel to Gaza and took advantage of the people in Gaza.”

Gaza Strip full of corrupt millionaires, says Palestinian official – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz – 11/16/2013.

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Briefest Observation: for dictators — “malignant narcissists” — political space, locality to state, provides exclusively for their own aggrandizement and comfort through the accumulation of wealth and has otherwise no significance as regards the interests of other constituents in their immediate surrounds.

For such “kleptocrat” personalities and the systems they create around themselves, the achievement of murderous and thieving power would seem the main thing, and whatever holds together to sustain that “thing” — their thing — is the only genuine concern.

As much would seem as true for “Putinistas” investing their wealth and their lives outside of Russia, for the Assads who have decimated their constituent population in Syria — now one-third displaced or refugee, and for Gaza’s “tunnel millionaires” who have essentially forsaken those around them: all have in common the abandonment and growing impoverishment of those who had believed in them and counted on them most.

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FTAC – Introducing, Recalling the Ouroboros

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion

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One appreciates your resolve, would that the instructions, historically enforced, regarding dhimmi status for Jews and Christians were absent from the text. That one element alone lends dignity to the Muslim’s position at the expense of Christians and Jews, not to mention what’s in store for everyone else. It’s a flattering concept; it probably feels large (as in “living large”) but that seems to me a facet of an unbridled and untenable narcissism of a sort to which the world, Muslims first, must respond.

Islam shimmers with this aspect that may embrace and welcome in one part while also reserving to itself the mission to destroy others without restraint. That part today it wishes to cast off, which it must to save itself culturally and socially, but its head meets its tail in this again and again and again across time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

Civilizational narcissism and the Ouroboros would seem thematic kin.

With either, we may drown in our own reflection or, same thing, devour ourselves, such is the nature of all closed ideological and tribal systems.

A good architect would not only design in some path of retreat out of his magnum opus but also a gateway to other gardens and a window to other worlds.

Additional and Cited Reference

Ouroboros – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Force of Reason: Oriana Fallaci: 9780847827534: Amazon.com: Books — This volume starts with an overview of Islamic aggression in Europe.

Running in circles – latimes.com – by Ed Park – 12/2/2007:

In “The Origins and History of Consciousness,” he writes, “It slays, weds, and impregnates itself. It is man and woman, begetting and conceiving, devouring and giving birth, active and passive, above and below, at once.”

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A Long Way to Go! Anti-BDS Video Raps the Earth

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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▶ HERE IS ISRAEL – Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser – YouTube

Every complaint listed in the reggae is true but also a little more complex in etiology.

My day started with this on Ayatollah Khamenei’s attitudes toward Jews, Israel, and the west:

“Western countries allow no freedom of expression, which they claim to advocate, with regard to the myth of the massacre of Jews known as the holocaust, and nobody in the West enjoys the freedom of expression to deny it or raise doubts about it.”

What does Iran’s Supreme Leader really think about the Holocaust? – Telegraph Blogs – 10/2/2013.

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What we perceive as hateful speech, and the Ayatollah’s latest remarks are hateful — what else is new? — but we may also see them as centrally narcissistic.  The politics attending the peacocks of states can and do get quite Out There, but an axis in personality differs from one involving illness: these may have few limits to none in their own domains — I would think Evin Prison a good example of that — but they’re aware of external forces and adjust tactics accordingly.

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A Short Note on The Dictator, The Mirror, and the Fragile Surface

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Zimbabwe

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When Robert Mugabe dies — I predict peacefully, in his sleep — he will go believing himself the most beneficent and magnanimous of leaders, the champion of his state, black and beautiful, bountiful and good.

If the children of Zimbabwe are starving or dying of the cholera he introduced to some parts, if the currency would seem to be forever foundering, if the cries of brutality, corruption, and injustice remain constant in the air and on the airwaves of either opposition or truthful radio, all of that would be no fault of his: he, Robert Mugabe, did what he could.

And he got away with it!

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Do dictators know what they do?

I don’t think they do.

At least they may not be aware of their effects with a depth in any way anchored in a human and sentimental heart.

In the Great Halls of Mirrors, the brightest reflections are of heroic men, each dictator alpha among others, struggling on their own behalf, their families (not really but it’s made to look that way, for image matters), and their people for place of pride against a world that would otherwise undo and enslave them.

Theirs is a fight for every inch and measurable Nth of property, business, and resource, while every reflection — the stuff of “narcissistic supply” — by way of paid and patronized advisers and associates, fawning (or faking it) family, and permitted controlled media agree with that outlook.

In the contempt and disparagement of others, in the inability to connect with a common humanity, in the abuse and intimidation of others, in the callous disregard of deep injustice and tragedy suffered by others directly or indirectly at their hands, there seems a surface ever ready to shatter, ever uncertain of its own basis in being that has long gone missing.

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I may slip from analysis to poetry to fiction here as the depth of what one witnesses in such figures eludes “observable-measurable” note making.  However, for this post, the following statement and the URLs accompanying it all report or reflect on what is known:

A power-sharing deal signed on September 15 aimed to bring together the current president Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, signaled a moment of hope for the future of Zimbabwe. Instead, it marked the start of the country’s most recent descent into chaos: water and sanitation services shut down; inflation skyrocketed; food shortages spread across the country; hospitals and clinics closed their doors; outbreaks of cholera, anthrax, and possibly malaria threaten lives; and in a country where where AIDS kills over 400 Zimbabweans a day, care for HIV/AIDS and opportunistic infections have lost priority. While innocent civilians fight for their lives the governing parties clash over the rule of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Health System Crisis, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, n.d.

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▶ Robert Mugabe Denies Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe – YouTube 12/12/2008

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Zimbabwe Economy

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Intensifying Government Bankruptcy (Page 1 of 2) 2/8/2013

Face up to reality and start talking to Robert Mugabe – FT.com 9/10/2013

allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe Sails Close to Economic Rocks (Page 1 of 2) 8/28/2013:

According to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation Act of 2007, foreign-owned companies are forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to local people. But economists warn that the indigenisation policy is driving investors away.

“Foreign investors are obliged to bring in 100 percent of the capital, bear 100 percent of the risk, provide 100 percent of the technology, and in turn settle for 49 percent of the equity and pay taxes,” independent economist Kingston Nyakurukwa told IPS.

China, whose labor has been keeping me in sharp western-designed clothing for a while, may prove up to burden of keeping the ever dapper Robert Mugabe looking equally as good.

Zimbabwe Gets Computers to Track Epidemics, Diseases 12/20/2012 — Still, the United States lends a helping hand.  However, notes this article, such aid, which admittedly focuses on HIV/AIDS control and contributes to the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) data base, arrives within this context:

As a result of bankruptcy, President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe is failing to meet the Abuja Declarations which recommends that African governments allocate 15 percent of their budgets towards health.

Saudi Gazette – Mugabe’s bankruptcy (near direct-to-print URL), n.d.

BBC News – Bitterness and unease in bankrupt Zimbabwe 3/6/2010

Zimbabwe Egalitarian and Equal Opportunity Measures

Robert Mugabe’s land reform comes under fresh scrutiny | World news | theguardian.com 5/10/2013

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa: Peter Godwin: 9780316018715: Amazon.com: Books (2007)

Mugabe and the White African | POV | PBS

Zimbabwe Food Security

Zimbabwe faces looming food crisis, says UN | World news | theguardian.com 9/4/2013:

Zimbabwe is facing a “looming food crisis” with one in four people in rural areas at risk of hunger early next year, the highest number in half a decade, the UN has warned.

The gloomy prediction was seen as a blow to analysts who have argued that Robert Mugabe’s widely condemned land reform programme is starting to pay dividends.

IRIN Africa | Army worm outbreak threatens Zimbabwe’s food security | Zimbabwe | Early Warning | Food Security 1/14/2013

Zimbabwe Health

IPS – Rebuilding Zimbabwe’s Health System | Inter Press Service 6/19/2013:

Every day, eight women and 100 children die from pregnancy- and delivery-related complications in Zimbabwe, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most of them die of easily preventable causes and illnesses.

Kubatana – Archive – A call to the new government of Zimbabwe to prioritize the right to health and clean water – ZADHR- Sep 12, 2013

Zimbabwe Media

Media group says Zimbabwe police ban on hand-cranked, solar radios illegal ahead of polling | Fox News 2/22/2013

In Zimbabwe’s Media, It’s All About Robert Mugabe : NPR 5/13/2012

Zimbabwe journalists worried: Mugabe cabinet includes ‘media hangman’ – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 9/13/2013

Zimbabwe – Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s main Zimbabwe page)

Q&A: Zenzele Ndebele promotes radio in Zimbabwe – Blog – Committee to Protect Journalists 7/29/2013

Zimbabwe Refugees

Zimbabwean refugees: Between haven and hell – Features – Al Jazeera English 8/1/2013

UNHCR – Zimbabwe – “2013 UNCHR regional operations profile – Southern Africa”:

At the end of 2011, there were some 449,000 people of concern to UNHCR in Southern Africa, including 145,000 refugees, 245,000 asylum-seekers, 55,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4,000 returnees.

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When the day after comes, as it comes to all survivors, how will Zimbabwe remember Robert Mugabe?

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UNHCR Video: “Zimbabweans in South Africa”

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FTAC – Armor for the People – Perceiving the Malignant Narcissist

19 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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If it can be seen or perceived, there may be a word for it; however, one might ask, if there isn’t a word for it, can it, will it, be perceived or seen?

This short and off-the-cuff note associates with the theme I had wanted for this blog, far more than secondary coverage of the war news: i.e., a fair look into conflict and political psychology.

From The Awesome Conversation (FTAC) –>

” . . . how could a society allow the radical to run any sort of political business ?” There may be a form of moral and psychological weakness buttressed by stress plus challenges to personal and cultural self-esteem. Basically, The People Who Are Vulnerable may find themselves in want of a champion, a father, a demigod who can save them from their misery and restore them to (guess what) their former glory!

One does not have to relive the Battle of the Ditch to appreciate this.

The restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon might do.

Perhaps the (American) South WILL rise again.

Or a once sprawling Berlin — is it still sprawling? — could become the definitive capital of a civilized empire (http://www.historytoday.com/roger-moorhouse/germania-hitlers-dream-capital)

“Malignant narcissists” possessed of charisma and grand enthusiasm (or grandiose delusions — see this blog’s note on Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy) are inherently manipulative and without internal brakes as regards others (who exist to serve them — and supply them with adoration and love in infinite “narcissistic supply”).

The dictator of the day, at least Egypt’s day, is Morsi, and the language technology in play, at least in part, serves a readily angered population, and they too lose their brakes and take license; however, any may be invited to overview the “career paths” of other autocrats, present and past, and note the dynamic similarities across ideologies and purposes. Not all are awful, but from the junta in Burma to Mugabe in Zimbabwe, they are all thugs and their power is the power of the mob boss or malignant feudal lord.

It’s possible that in a language culture or society infused with “black and white thinking” that observation of the character of the dictator may add only to prowess in back-and-forth mudslinging.  Nonetheless, the possession of a concept universal in intent — i.e., the appearance of the autocrat in a social process, from board room to cabinet, from China to Cameroon, apart from legacy in culture, language, political system, and religion — may find a place in the political chemistry of constituencies engaged in conflict, in want of a way to the end of it and, through suffering perhaps, amenable to the adoption of an updating and progressive outlook.

It helps to know who really cares about you.

Not every leader with backbone or the inheritance, even, of a kingdom will prove a dictator in the depths of their psychology, but some, unfortunately, will, and they will always lead their people toward confusion and ruin, for what they most prize is their own aggrandized image and the comfort it brings them surrounded by sycophants and a visible sea of adoring loyal subjects.

Additional Reference

Fathali M. Moghaddam

Wikipedia.  “Malignant Narcissism”.

Wikipedia.  “Narcissistic Supply”.

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