An ode to 'Narcissus'
Aspiring to an ever greater need for compliments, prestige, and self-esteem, do we perhaps engender a want or need to become vain or narcissistic in our modern times?
As some of you may well know, Narcissus fell in love with his reflection of himself in a river and eventually starved to death. Nothing about him was spectacular in terms of cherished talents, skills, or bravery that were defining features of those in those times. He was no Achilles-possessed with an ill fate that made him rage. Neither was Narcissus anything like Agamemnon, possessed with megalomania over power and riches.
So, what was so special about Narcissus?
As some of you may well know, Narcissus fell in love with his reflection of himself in a river and eventually starved to death. Nothing about him was spectacular in terms of cherished talents, skills, or bravery that were defining features of those in those times. He was no Achilles-possessed with an ill fate that made him rage. Neither was Narcissus anything like Agamemnon, possessed with megalomania over power and riches.
So, what was so special about Narcissus?
Comments (70)
Yet, here we are so many years latter, reminiscing, about his purposeless life.
Isn't this absurd or is there some meaning to his life that I haven't yet understood?
The story is interesting because it can be read in other ways than a cautionary tale against excessive self involvement. Is the anger of Achilles only about his decisions or do they reveal something else?
What other ways can it be read in?
Quoting Valentinus
Perhaps, like most tragic figures of ancient Greece, he knew his fate, and saw it all coming to realize with the war with Troy, the death of his beloved, and the clash with Hector.
Priam strikes me as one of the most beautiful people of ancient Troy, and I still think about his dialogue with Achilles after Hector's death.
The reflection is not oneself. The resemblance is an odd accident. A glimpse of a passerby that is wrongly understood as oneself. The fascination is with another.
Yet, Narcissus took it as a reflection of himself. He was concerned with nothing more than his beauty.
The tale is simple and short. There seems to be no moral of the story other than the purposeless vanity in a reflection upon a still pond. It was a simple and easy life, as I would argue.
I am not sure you are being completely genuine in your responses. You asked me to explain how I understood the texts as well I could. I did that, as well as I could.
But now you want to describe those efforts as one argument against another. It would be simpler if you said what you thought was the case.
I believe, as simply as I can, Narcissus lived an unremarkable life in ancient times, fell in love with himself, and by psychologists got called a narcissist (the causality is clear), and this we remember him to this day?
This all strikes me as strange, or telling of our times. What do you think about all this, as stated, or am I missing something here?
The only person comparable who enjoyed such a life, would be, to myself, Nero(?)
If I can't be of value by measure of what the group values, in endless hierarchical ascension of competitive vanity, then I shall revel in the shallowness of self-love, as the remaining outlet of pleasure.
Alone in my mansion, bereft of others, I'll look into my exaggerated portrait and declare: "I'm too sexy for my shirt."
No judgement; but, narcissism seems like a common feature of humanity as we see it these days. (Not entirely sure about this.) What do you think?
Proceeding from this, what's so special about thinking of one's self as 'special'?
A morale helper, a support cushion, a superhero mask, a dream to keep oneself alive? Imagine the terror of the opposite: the self as a useless, ugly and bad powerless piece of shit. The way mythology/ideology helps to guide and sustain us in a sad, absurd, chaotic world. I don't know.
If you're gonna run the gauntlet (run in the rat race) you need a bit of a psychological bump (placebo) or a powerful anesthetic.
Nah, Narcissus was self-sufficient. He entertained himself in a reflection, felt happy with what he was doing, and deep down inside, while sitting there looking at himself... felt happy inside.
So, is this why we recollect about him to this day?
It seems that I don't know either.
It's a myth. You can just as well retell it how ever you'd like, like you just did.
How do you interpret it, then?
That is an interesting interpretation of the story. An alternative version would spell a story of insecurity.
There is noting to secure my vision of myself but the stories I write about it. This figure in the mirror is proof of that because one cannot own the instruments that make that possible.
What about celebs and influencers who keep posting selfies of themselves in the social media? Could they draw any lessons from the story?
There are two characters: Echo and Narcissus. Echo has been punished for some offense by being reduced to repeating the last few words she hears -- an echo. Echo's situation has been used as a medical term, too -- echolalia, where autistic children repeat whatever they hear. Some adults have this problem too -- Trump says something, and Republican dip shits keep repeating it.
Narcissus was out hunting with the boys. He apparently wasn't paying attention, or they deliberately slipped away. Meanwhile, Echo sees Narcissus and is stricken with love (or lust, or both) and wants to call out to him -- but she can't. Remember the curse on her? Fairly quickly it happens that Echo is able to come out of the bushes, and approach Narcissus. He's not pleased or interested. He's so uninterested that he tells her he hopes to die before he allows her to enjoy his (manly delicious) body.
So... what is it with Narcissus?
Maybe he is some sort of homosexual? [The sort of egalitarian relationships between men and women that are more common in the modern west were absent in Rome and Greece. To a large extent, "men composed society". The Greeks and Romans had attitudes toward sexuality that were somewhat different than ours.] A guy falling in love with the image of a male, his own or somebody else, seems kind of 'gay' to me. He's not at all aroused by the presumably beautiful Echo -- another gay feature. Gay guys usually are not excited by women. A lot of gay men tend to be attracted to men who generally look like themselves. People tend to eventually look like their dogs, too, but that's a different process.
Gay or straight, Narcissus is a sick boy. A sexual deviation that some young men (men in particular) experience is the self-involvement of excessive solitary masturbation. They apparently have a lot more than the average amount of tension to resolve--sexual or academic or something else. The main feature of narcissism is very excessive self-involvement, to the point of isolation. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism (escape from reality). Narcissists are not usually what one would call realistic about their own importance. (For many famous narcissistic people, realism would be the kiss of death). Donald Trump, again. He would likely find an objective appraisal of his talents and accomplishments devastating.
There are gay narcissists, though most of the raging narcissists I have observed have (presumably) been heterosexual.
Narcissus was insecure?
This research seems to support what you are saying:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325150223.htm
I believe that this is a much more complex phenomenon than what can be stated on a forum. You might like the link above.
I believe that Narcissus wasn't necessarily insecure. I mean, who isn't insecure nowadays? My understanding is that Narcissus was simply expressing self-love to a greater extent than route aggrandizement or excessive self-esteem. What do you think?
That was a nice read. It strikes me as odd that psychologists would designate the etymology of narcissism to Narcissus.
What do you think?
Well, apparently, there are different versions of the story so it's hard to tell how we are to read it.
You could perhaps say that he was in a way selfish or even self-obsessed. But if others fell in love with him I don't see how this was his fault. I think it would be silly to expect someone to love people back just because they fall in love with him. It would be like a kind of blackmail. And what if more than one person falls in love with you?
In any case, if narcissism involves "grandiosity" and "excessive need for attention and admiration", then I don't see how this applies to Narcissus who seems to have been interested only in his own attention for himself and did not demand anything else. I think the "excessive need for attention and admiration" is easier to attribute to those who fell in love with him. So, it's all a bit of a puzzle to be honest ....
Narcissus?
Bah! Nothing wrong with masturbating for eternity alone. The only tension resolved is the kind caused by a ceaseless and irritating horniness.
:eyes:
I wasn't myself granted such irresistible beauty that people were swooning at my feet. I'd find it tedious, pretty quickly.
But Narcissus was sooo beautiful, people could not resist him--even if he'd just as soon they go bother somebody else. Maybe such people are born for real who are irresistibly beautiful and who do not need the help of agents and PR to attract admirers. I think these characters are more fictional vehicles than real.
Hmmm. I've never thought of masturbation as a problem. The situation I was thinking of was a Roman Catholic college counselor who was concerned that some students were jacking off 6 or 7 times a day. How did he know that? That's only once every 2 or 3 hours. That leaves plenty of time between each round to read, take notes, go to class, sleep, eat, say a Hail Mary or two, and so on. Do Roman Catholics think that lost sperm is as bad as abortion? Maybe that was the problem.
Exactly. Besides, attraction isn't just about beauty. And, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Moreover, I think Ancient Greeks were prone to exaggeration and drama. After all, they invented theater.
So, I'm beginning to think that it could be just a Greek myth .... :smile:
Echo of the unthinking enthusiast for whatever propaganda, religious, commercial or political, happens to be the loudest.
The historical reception of the literary character. There must be something appealing about Narcissus that catches people's attention. Which, of course, says a lot about the people.
He strikes me as the person of other people's envy, and the envied person.
The utter irrelevance of other people, envious or pitying is the essence of Narcissus. Self -concern and self-love, writ large, would be envied by those with equal self-concern, but without self-love. Self-harmers, anorexics, for examples - another form of addiction.
Is this a feature of Narcissus? That he possessed self-love? Does it translate to a positive of narcissism, rather than a negative?
That is actually a problem for people who are so attractive, the fascination of other people becomes a burden to them. The terrible symmetry of the story of Narcissus is that he becomes one of the spectators he hates.
Could you expand on that a bit. From which part of which version of the myth did you find this idea?
The obsession to attend the picture in the reflection is odd. From the version you cited, the fascination is no different from the one consuming Echo. The attraction here is being separated from who is locked into them. From that point of view, it is not about the "self" at all.
Your interpretation is a plausible explication of the psychological disorder of narcissism. The narcissist is less involved with his actual self than with his projected self -- the "image self' the real self thinks he or she is.
So Donald Trump, seriously put forward as an example of narcissism, is less infatuated the "real" DT and more infatuated with the DT he imagines himself to be. Egotists, who always put themselves first, may be more realistic about themselves than the narcissist.
A varying amount of narcissism seems like a normal component of personality (because nobody is perfect, save me and thee, and even thee is a bit crazy). Just speaking for myself... objectively I know that my long-term performance on earth has been in the middling range -- sometimes in the basement. Only once in a while have I peaked out in the higher ranges of performance, and then briefly. The image I like to see in the mirror, however, is more accomplished, suave, sophisticated, less of a clod. I have learned that most other people don't buy the suave sophisticate version, so I pretty much restrict it to private viewing.
All this is probably another feature of the normal personality, neuroticism is OK (but only in SMALL doses). The five features are: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Neuroticism affects emotional stability.
That darn mirror, whether held by Trump or Lacan.
Yes, Egoists do exhibit more situational awareness but are not trying to change what is happening beyond their own conception of fortune.
Macbeth goes on a killing spree after talking to three homeless persons in a forest.
Oedipus brings about what his parents feared as a direct result of their attempts to stop that result after having been warned against the possibility.
I don't know. A pattern is coming into view.
Viktor Safonkin, The Mirror Drinker, 2020
I don't think there's a substantive difference between egotists and narcissists. A narcissistic personality disorder is a continuum and comes in mild to sever forms, with or without some insight. Plenty of room in this space for Trump and, say, an instagram influencer.
That is one strange image.
The drinker isn't looking at the mirror.
The statue behind him seems to be watching.
And what is with the triangles printed on the hand of the statue?
But he was just a literary character. A literary construct, constructed by the author to make some point.
- - -
Quoting Bitter Crank
In highschool, I knew a boy who looked like Snow White: a pale, fair complexion, perfect skin, sparkly blue eyes, pitch black straight shiny hair, red lips, perfect white teeth, slim, tall, well-proportioned body. He was so beautiful that it was hard not to stare at him. (But he stopped being so attractive once he opened his mouth and sounded exactly like every other teenager.)
I met him about ten years later, I could hardly recognize him. The pale complexion turned reddish, his hair was already thinning, the lustre of his eyes was gone.
Time ... is a sobering agent.
Or the whole thing is a PR strategy and he's not a narcissist at all, he only plays one, as an actor. It's feasible to do so, because in our society, people tend to succomb to narcissists one way or another and narcissits can take advantage of that. Directly, by doing what the narcissist wants, or indirectly by freely giving them their time of day (instead of spending it on more productive pursuits).
In other words, shut up when you are ahead in the game.
Alas, vanishing youth.
The part you got wrong is that he actually did as he was described to have done or that it is at all relevant whether he actually did as he is said to have done. Such is the case with myths and parables.
Let's not spend time asking why the hare even thought it would be an interesting contest with the tortoise either. That would miss the point.
But back to point, consumption with self leads to destruction might be one way to say what it says. That's a most general statement at least.
I'm puzzled to think that this is true, regardless as to whether this was once thought as true.
Why would you think that, that is true? Is that a hallmark of narcissism?
Interesting insight, I think it is true that narcissism can be attractive, provided it comes in a reasonably attractive package. It doesn't always. We do like to believe in people who believe in themselves.
That does get to the observation in the story that noticed Narcissus was not conquering cities or promoting world peace but was paralyzed by an obsession with an image that turned all action into the obsession.
That other people could see whatever came from this as a principle of action is odd. Or, at least, worth a moment of consideration before accepting such a process as the normal course of events.
I guess we all bring our own perspectives to the art we encounter, and I admit that my personal belief is that happiness is related to giving to and thinking of others. The paradox would then be that selfishness leads to self-destruction, but I recognize my view of happiness places a low premium on self-aggrandizement. I don't know that Trump, for instance, would buy into my view of happiness and I'd be hard pressed to convince him that he'd be happier not being in constant self admiration mode.
I see that you are dealing with these issues as a professional trying to help people. Trying to toss around different meanings of an old story is not equivalent to that process.
Is the way that is done interfering with developing helpful responses to existing problems?
Narcissism, as a diagnosis, is different from the classical references made to refer to a certain activity.
In the clinical sense, if it is not one condition, it is another. The importance of making a distinction is for the purpose of being closer to what is happening rather than further away. People have problems. How does one get closer to understanding them?
Oh, I see. Of course. And I have separated the two. When referring to Trump - given he is an actual person - I was referring to the conventional diagnostic criteria - which is appropriate given what had been said. When I quoted Nussbaum, I was referring to the myth. Moby Dick is of course another instance of the Narcissist myth being taken in a particular direction by Melville.
I have heard this kind of critique often. I agree that personality disorders are over diagnosed and loose and often unhelpful. Narcissism being just one flavor. But having worked with those afflicted with prodigious narcissism - to the point where others suffer greatly - I have to accept it contains truth of a sort. Granted, that there are endless psychological interpretations and slants available to us for any human behavior.
I rather liken Nero to Agamemnon: vain, selfish and ruthless in his pursuit of power. Let us not forget that Nero had his own mother killed, upon viewing her a threat to his political position. Agrippina's famous last words, spoken to her assassin, at least according to the account of historian Cassius Dio: "smite me in the womb, whence came such an abominable son". Grisly stuff, that! Grisly man, Nero.
Let’s take Trump as an example, since to many he seems to evince an excessive self-infatuation and self-obsession. You may perhaps agree that his ‘narcissism’ is not likely motivated by high self-esteem, but rather a profound insecurity and self-doubt. Every time he boasts ‘I can’ and I did’ he is countering a mocking voice in his head(his father’s ?) disdainfully intoning ‘you can’t’ and ‘you didn’t’. If what we think of as self-concept isn’t about a solipsistic island of meness but a center of integration of experience of the world , then the fragmented , insecure self that Trump obsesses about is less a walled off preserve than a a process trying desperately to integrate the world coherently in a self-consistent manner. Without this self-consistency , our experience unravels into chaos. Thus , Trump finds himself constantly on the precipice of internal incoherence.
Donnie was reasonably attractive when he was younger.
Of course, and this preference is a potential vulnerability that others can exploit.
Hence: Nihil admirari!
Don't agree.
It's probably easier to think of some other people as "flawed" or "mentall ill", rather than to consider the possibility that humans are capable of this level of strategizing and play-acting, and more, that one is oneself capable of this level of strategizing and play-acting.
Having worked closely with people who live 'dysfunctional' and distressed lives - who suicide and overdose and slash themselves with broken glass and tend to be dead by 40 - I see little evidence of strategizing and play acting.
A sigh.
Duh. Not everyone who gets branded as a narcissist is one.
Of course not. Not everyone branded a genius is one, etc...
Our primate ancestors bequeathed to us both the physically bound emotions (the limbic system) and the capacity to think--about the physical, the abstract, the past, the future... The emotions are not reasonable, but they motivate reasoning. Abstract intellect is cool and dry, but it can cause pleasure when we realize we have solved the problem.
Of the two, the emotions usually have the upper hand. No thought is as powerful as a murderous rage (once ignited) or the prospect of sexual ecstasy (once erected). As the saying goes, a stiff dick has no morals and takes unreasonable risks. Hey, I've been there!
Later, rational reflection can parse the murderous rage, the ecstatic tryst; if rationality is good enough it will try very hard to make sure that those situations resulting in, for instance, murderous rage, are avoided.
Quoting Bitter Crank
“… we humans have long believed that rationality makes us special in the animal kingdom. This origin myth reflects one of the most cherished narratives in Western thought, that the human mind is a battlefield where cognition and emotion struggle for control of behavior. Even the adjective we use to describe our-selves as insensitive or stupid in the heat of the moment — “thoughtless” — connotes a lack of cognitive control, of failing to channel our inner Mr. Spock. This origin myth is so strongly held that scientists even created a model of the brain based on it. The model begins with ancient subcortical circuits for basic survival, which we allegedly inherited from reptiles. Sitting atop those circuits is an alleged emotion system, known as the “limbic system, ” that we supposedly inherited from early mammals. And wrapped around the so-called limbic system, like icing on an already-baked cake, is our allegedly rational and uniquely human cortex. This illusory arrangement of layers, which is sometimes called the “triune brain, ” remains one of the most successful misconceptions in human biology. Carl Sagan popularized it in The Dragons of Eden, his bestselling (some would say largely fictional) account of how human intelligence evolved. Daniel Goleman employed it in his best-seller Emotional Intelligence. Nevertheless, humans don't have an animal brain gift-wrapped in cognition, as any expert in brain evolution knows. “Mapping emotion onto just the middle part of the brain, and reason and logic onto the cortex, is just plain silly, ” says neuroscientist Barbara L. Finlay, editor of the journal Behavior and Brain Sciences. “All brain divisions are present in all vertebrates. ” So how do brains evolve? They reorganize as they expand, like companies do, to keep themselves efficient and nimble.”
“ Antonio Damasio, in his bestseller Descartes’ Error, observes that a mind requires passion (what we would call affect) for wisdom. He documents that people with damage to their interoceptive network, particularly in one key body-budgeting region, have impaired decision-making. Robbed of the capacity to generate interoceptive predictions, Damasio’s patients were rudderless. Our new knowledge of brain anatomy now compels us to go one step further. Affect is not just necessary for wisdom; it’s also irrevocably woven into the fabric of every decision.”
(Lisa Barrett, How Emotions are Made)
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Joshs
Absolutely. When we talk about our brains we divide it up as if it were a computer with very discrete parts--memory chips, logic unit, emotional fire box, etc. That's one of the many problems of brain as computer. Emotion may cloud thinking, but without emotion, we probably wouldn't think a whole lot. People burn the midnight oil because they WANT to succeed (at whatever it is they are doing).
A seemingly irrelevant anecdote: a Lyft driver told me about a Thai restaurant where he had a cooked salmon head. He apparently liked it--cooked, seasoned, meaty. This included the salmon brain which he described as about the size of a large grape. I do not have a salmon brain handy to look at, but it seems reasonable that a fish with a complex life cycle might well need a good sized brain to succeed.
Says who? The Holy Inquisition?
Because people need labels and the justifications that come with them. You can't just burn someone at the stakes; instead, you need to make it look justified, such as by saying, "She's a witch!"
Since the Holy Inquisition isn't particularly en vogue anymore, but people still have a need to scapegoat, to be intolerant, to lash out, to absolve themselves of the responsibility for how they treat others, they've invented labels that enable them to go on in those old ways.
The primary function of psychiatric labels is that they absolve the "normal" folks from any responsibility for how they treat those on whom they pin those labels. People apparently need freedom like that.
Indeed, this dichotomy is not universal. In some Eastern cultures, they don't distinguish between "head" and "heart" like Westerners do.
Personally, this dichotomy always struck me as strange, I never understood how people can draw a line between what they call "head" and "heart".
A lot of the people who have these labels pinned upon them are suffering and are the first to say they are. There are many problems with diagnosis and agendas of people making decisions in these matters is something clinical practice always has to deal with.
But to say the whole enterprise has nothing to do with trying to help people is more self indulgent than whatever you were imagining was going on amongst those doing the work.