Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"Narcissism and the Dynamics of Evil"

I came across this article two years ago and really appreciated its insights. I will share some excerpts of the article here and hopefully you'll be interested enough to read it in its entirety.

By Doug McManaman:

...evil is parasitic. Its host is always a good. And since evil is a kind of non-being or nothingness, pure evil is impossible. Pure evil would be completely nothing, and nothing is not evil; it simply 'is not'. Evil is a privation that requires a subject in which to inhere...

From a purely moral point of view, this is how the narcissistic character disordered are created. They are self-created, or better yet, self-decreated, and then re-created, although what is re-created is not a self, but a reflection or an image. The greater the opposition between his depravity or moral nothingness (and thus self-loathing) and his egotism (his injustice and his regard for others as mere instruments of his own gratification), the more pathological his narcissism, and thus the more grandiose and fantastic his reflected or false self.
There is much more as the author next goes into describing characteristics of the narcissist. His insights on how evil people cloak their evil so other people don't see it are quite astute.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I read the whole article. It is well worth it! Thanks for bringing this to my attention.