I found this article from Psychology Today, which is not terribly well-written, but contains a few gems. Here's the best part (cleanly expressed and totally persuasive):
In egocentrism, you’re unable to see someone else’s point of view; but in narcissism, you may see that view but not care about it.I'm beginning to question my use of the term narcisissm. I suspect I mean egocentricity.
People unable to register - much less consider, much less accommodate - your separate perspective might look narcissistic and act narcissistically, but they're a far cry from someone who clearly sees all the angles from all the perspectives but chooses never to budge to accommodate others ("Why should I?"). The terrific thing about Donald Trump is we all have a nice familiar case study for such a person. It's not academic; we've been soaking in it.
I'm talking about confused, muddled people, not simmeringly evil ones. I guess I'm talking about egocentricity.
I struggle mightily to bear in mind that awful people - including phenomenally egocentric ones - are not evil. They are a "5" at worst (on scale of 1-to-10). I wrote briefly about this here. Selfish, unreasonable, uncompromising, toxic, unpleasant, neurotic, dumb, crazy, people are acceptable even if they're not preferable.
This is, for me, so counterintuitive that every time I remind myself of it, I feel disoriented.
Relatedly, I still insist that Trump (who I despise as much as you do, despite friendships with several of his supporters) was a "5.5" president. Well, hmm, in light of January 6, let's demote him to a "4.5". Hardly the end of the world. If you ever experienced four years under Duterte or Erdogan ("4"s), or Putin or Lukashenko ("3"s), or Kim or Stalin ("2"s), or Hitler/Caligula/Pol Pot ("1"s), you'll reframe Trump, much as many of us now recall George W Bush (who visited a mosque the week of 9/11 to urge us to embrace our Muslim neighbors) as a statesman and a mensch. Who imagined, at the time, that George W Bush was acceptable (though not preferable for many of us)?
2 comments:
Still, djt is the worst president ever. The nadir of american history, so far.
Correct. But like so many "nightmares" and "unacceptables" in American society, he was akin to an unsightly crack in one of Mrs. Howell's vases. Intolerably excruciating amid an otherwise meticulous shiny lifestyle.
In other words, it's not that he's so bad. It's that we're so deluded by our wealth and comfort and good fortune that we feel entitled to ONLY being ruled by above-average leaders.
Trump's not Hitler or Franco or Kim or Pol Pot, nor even Erdogan. Not even close. He's about median in world history! But we're spoiled. So there may come a day - as was true of GWB - that we reframe into recognition of how good we actually had it with him.
A "nadir" isn't a nightmare unless we're so coddled and entitled that any deficit is a supreme indignation. Unless we need absolutely everything to be ABOVE AVERAGE.
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