“ME,” “MYSELF,” and “I” are popular words in this age of narcissism. Where as once pagans killed people to worship gods, today we’ve killed God to worship people--OURSELVES. Consistently, upon the altar of self-deification, we have sacrificed the better part of us: compassion, morality, integrity, courage, charity and family, our history, the present and the future. And it is not the sweet odor of incense that hovers in the air as decency burns, but the stench of corruption, greed and mercilessness. As congressmen and senators serve special interests for self-aggrandizement and political survival, as Wall Street cooks the books while trusting investors risk losing all they have, as the news media panders to power instead of holding it accountable, the building blocks of our civilization are crumbling. Every day it becomes evermore easy to say, “Who cares about anyone else? I have to look out for myself.”
For many years the media and our culture have been nurturing and marketing to narcissism. Every advertisement we see today seduces us with promises of how to glorify the self to find happiness. Use this toothpaste you’ll have the nicest teeth; buy this car and you’ll get all the girls; use this mascara and bat your lashes to success; drink this Red Bull and you’ll have more energy to be a narcissist. But the problem is, it is ALL bull. I don’t remember seeing an ad that said, “If you want to be beautiful, don’t just use Revlon, but be a kinder more charitable person, it will show on your face.”
And today’s new generation is worse than we are. They are growing up with a sense of entitlement and are being nurtured in a cocoon of self-interest that takes nothing and no one else into account. Their apathy is the brazen garb they so fashionably wear.
It is little wonder then that things are falling apart if people think the world revolves around them instead of realizing that the whole world depends upon them.
In this week’s reading of the Old Testament, we read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, societies where people cared only for themselves and were heartless and callous toward others. Their profound egotism and lust for easy gratification led, as it always will, to self-destruction. It is written that they were so corrupt that even the earth cried up to God to step in which is ironic because the earth is the most selfish of creations as it is surrounded by a gravitational field that pulls all things toward itself. Yet even the earth is not so selfish that it begrudges the flower and the tree to grow upward and the seedlings to sprout. In the final analysis, the earth gives much more than it takes. Do we?
In the center of the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah stands the Patriarch Abraham, who asks God to spare the city if even fifty righteous people could be found. God said he would. Abraham slowly tweaks the number down to ten in case fifty could not be found. God consents. But we learn here not only about the failings of Sodom and Gomorrah, but also about Abraham’s, and Noah’s too. When God told Noah he was going to destroy humanity, Noah didn’t say a peep, he just built an Ark. When God told Abraham he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham’s best was to suggest that God should spare the righteous. But, when God told Moses that he was going to wipe out Israel because of the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses said, “Please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” Moses does not separate his fate from those of his people. He didn’t build an “ark” for himself, but was ready to go down with the entire ship—his nation. That is why Moses is regarded as the greatest prophet in Jewish history. His ego was nowhere to be found.
As today’s crises escalate, we too cannot ask “Will it be okay for me?” The only question to ask is, “Will is be okay for US?” If you have checked off “no,” then it is imperative that right now, at this moment, you do something to make a difference. Fax your congressman, protest loudly, cry as loudly as did the earth so that God and everyone in between will hear you.
Commentator Glenn Beck from Fox News is correct in principle. It took 56 great men to found this country, and now he’s looking for another few good men to re-found it before it’s too late. Unfortunately, God won’t speak to us to validate how many are needed. What if we can’t find 56 good men, just as Abraham couldn’t find 50 righteous men? Let us say we can only find 40, or 30 or 10. Or just let’s say it takes more than 56 men and women to save this great land. Will you, my friends, be among them? Or has our narcissism already turned us into pillars of salt as we watch everything we love and lived for destroyed from sea to shining sea?
By Aliza Davidovit
Sponsored by Wordsmithy Editing Services
I am very happy that you wrote on this subject. We see the corruption all around us. Not only the corruption in persuit of material things, but the corruption of our spirit of life and our soul. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing astute observation of society at large but how tragic it is we've come as a society to tread so far off the beaten path of righteousness. Thank G-d for people like you Aliza a mensch among the masses who chose to be an "us" instead of an "I" a voice for the underdog justice, among masses of people who have lost theirs to narcissism. Keep up the great work. You are proof to people everywhere that knowledge is the greatest power of all and that the pen can be mightier than the sword all depending who is wielding it.
ReplyDeleteIf Glenn Beck is the self-appointed guardian of national morality, heaven help us all...
ReplyDeleteit strikes me that the most profound thing about this nation is it's nickname...the US...it is not the I, nor the ME but the US. We are a nation of individuals...but we are US..there can be no ego in US...and like the tale of Narcisse, it ends badly...for want of his image, he loses his life...parables, fables and folktales are there to teach us about our own human nature, all it's foibles...it is best to learn from the lessons.
ReplyDeleteGod is not lost, he is in each one of us, he is each one of us. We are the human expression and experiance of God.
I am surprised that you did not complete or give a full description... following this paragraph, …perhaps as a writer you hold to certain ethics, but me known to rebuke
ReplyDeleteFollowing this paragraph...
And today’s new generation is worse than we are. They are growing up with a sense of entitlement and are being nurtured in a cocoon of self-interest that takes nothing and no one else into account. Their apathy is the brazen garb they so fashionably wear
I would have added….
…whatever seat they hold, be it a public official and their spouses, a clergy and his friends, including and not limited to their family members, All perform on the same toilet seat believing in their privileged privacy, only to be caught and humiliated by the lowest social elements in their circle.
Primary archaic narcissism is our state of being upon birth. There is no distinction between self and other, there is only primal ’self’ and the need for narcissistic supplies to ameliorate a very fearful primal existence. The dispensing of these supplies ameliorates fears, develops the super-ego, and indoctrinates the budding human being into responsible social and self-awareness in contrast to “other”. Developmental anomalies in this process can lead to pathological Narcissism.
ReplyDeleteSimplifying narcissism, it can be said that narcissism is a defense against Emptiness as it struggles to assuage the anxieties between Ego and Object. This severely truncates the maturation process and gives rise to all manner of psychological and social aberrations.
To understand this narcissistic defense as it manifests, we merely have to look at liberal world view. I think it fair to say that what liberals mainly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind—economic, social and political. This view is steeped in negativity and evokes their emotional response. Perceiving the external as wrong, strengthens the impoverished image of ’self’ as righteous. It only makes sense that given this perspective, what they see requires that America be changed or discarded.
In their infantile grandiosity and narcissistic dysfunctionality, they envision an America modeled after their own inner ideal ’self’ image that is projected onto the world around them, and then followed as if they were watching a movie that is totally disconnected from the source; the ‘projector’. This clearly demonstrates the mechanism of ’self-idolatry’ that is consistent with all narcissistic behavior. It also explains the push to a Godless America. The Ten Commandments states “thou shall have no other god before me”, and “thou shall not make for yourself any idol.” Interestingly enough, a narcissist would have a few problems following the other 8 commandments as well. Self-idolatry deems oneself the motor-center of the universe around which all other things must flow, and there is no room in the narcissistic mind for two Gods, for nothing can exist higher than ’self’ for the narcissist.
Thus, the narcissistic progressive liberal shouts “I deserve”. Rather than struggling with the maturation process of self-responsibility, they cry out from the dark womb of emptiness and ineptitude that has been compensated for with their false god-like nobility. They seek comfort in the same manner that an infant suckles at the breast.
When a person has not adequately matured within the family environment, they seek an over emphasized need from Society. Most psychological disorders can be traced to having their roots in an imbalance between Home and Society. Society is unfeeling. Society does not give narcissistic supplies to the individual. Society is largely neutral, a blank blackboard awaiting the individual to take the chalk and author their personal script for their life. Society bestows upon the individuals that inhabit it the self-deterministic ‘freedom of choice’. When there are aberrations in those supplies that spring forth from the home, then an individual seeks more from Society then its intended purpose. Society is then subconsciously perceived as the Mother’s Breast, and those that remain fearful of life want to suck Society dry. The tit of society becomes the pacifier against the fear of maturation and the responsibilities inherent therein.
We were all born liberal; just some of us grew up.