The Narcissus Society - call for universal coverage

NEW YORK — Where Oedipus once tormented us, it is now Narcissus. Pathologies linked to authority and domination have ceded to the limitless angst of self-contemplation. The old question — “What am I allowed to do?” — has given way to the equally scary “What am I capable of doing?” Alain Ehrenberg, a French author and psychologist, speaks of the “privatization of human existence.”

Community — a stable job, shared national experience, extended family, labor unions — has vanished or eroded. In its place have come a frenzied individualism, solipsistic screen-gazing, the disembodied pleasures of social networking and the à-la-carte life as defined by 600 TV channels and a gazillion blogs. Feelings of anxiety and inadequacy grow in the lonely chamber of self-absorption and projection.

These trends are common to all globalized modern democracies, ranging from those that prize individualism, like the United States, to those, like France, where social solidarity is a paramount value. Ehrenberg’s new book, “La Société du Malaise” (“The Malaise Society”) is full of insights into the impact of narcissistic neurosis.

Sometimes, it seems, we are as lonely as those little planes over the Atlantic in on-board video navigation maps.

I was thinking of this during a recent spell as a grand juror. Thrown together for two weeks at Brooklyn Supreme Court with 22 other jurors, I was struck by how rare it is now in American life to be gathered, physically, with an array of other folk of different ages, backgrounds, skin colors, beliefs, faiths, tastes, education levels and political convictions and be obliged to work out your differences in order to get the job done.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/opinion/23iht-edcohen.html?th&emc=th

It's like a cave man decrying the collapse of tribal ways.

Calling it "narcissistic" betrays the atavism. I'll bet you anything that person had to walk backwards through the snow uphill both ways barefoot over broken glass in his or her day, and the world is just moving too fast now.

Newsflash, "we" is a generalization either way you use it to a community-ist. Here's another newsflash - it's not all black and white, so to speak.

We can and should be intrinsically idiosyncratic and narcissistic and selfish (yes that's a randian concept but don't chip in unless you know something more about Rand than high school social studies) - because NOBODY but you is looking out for your personal interests, and if you don't then they as good as don't exist.

Take that IN HAND with you can be an individualist and part of a community that values social solidarity AT THE SAME TIME.

I'm offended this buffoon thinks that individualism is binary in society and that those people are selfish and narcissistic. As an exec I hear this shit from corporate shills all the time about what's good for the company doesn't require caring about what's good for individuals.

This is the COMMUNICATION age. The bridge is not to go gather back into our caves and tribes and chase out the strangers and anyone who doesn't conform. The bridge is to learn to communicate past our differences, to recognize our similarities and to honor our individual identities.

20,000 years ago, it was pretty simple for cavemen - Some hunted, some gathered, some watched after the children.

For us, it's a lot more complex. Some of us farm, some of watch after the kids, some of us manufacture things, some of us transport things, some of us entertain, some of us pursue knowledge, and so on, and so on...

At least most cavemen could feed themselves if they were caught alone. Most of us can't. If it weren't for each other, most of us modern humans would die off pretty quickly.

So claiming we're "independent" or "individual" sure makes people feel good about themselves, perhaps even in a narcissistic way. But in the grand scheme of things, we're not very individualistic at all, just cogs in a giant machine that we've constructed, or perhaps even cells in a giant superorganism that's consuming the planet.

Have a nice day.

It's not ONE or the OTHER.

Within any environment we depend on factors in the environment for our survival, even if some of those factors are other people.

If I lived in the far far northern wastes I would depend on what limited wildlife I could catch just as much as people living in the wilds of the urban environment depend on other people to build their abodes and staff their grocery markets. You seem to be marking dependency as the thing in undefining "independent", but it's not relevant unless you're talking about the four effs feeding, fleeing, fighting and fucking. We're much more than that - the identity we bring from our nature and colored by our environment is the "independent" thing, the "spirit" of who we are.

It is anathema to both high priests and high kings that individualists subscribe to neither.

If you want to complain about giant organisms that are consuming the planet that Innuit is contributing too. It's the numbers of cells - not the fact of cells. Now you're talking about population management and in the Communication age our tools are not priests or kings, but ideas.

I am having a splendid day, thank you.