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1. 00:02 This is the channel where I introduce you to new words which are impossible to pronounce. Part of my sadism. And today's word is profilicity. Yes, you heard it correctly. Profilicity. My name is Sanvaknin. I'm the author of malignant self- loveve, narcissism
2. 00:26 revisited, and a professor of psychology. Presumably, you can pronounce psychology. Well, some of you, let us not be too optimistic. Now, today we're going to discuss profilicity and its connection to authenticity, narcissism, spectacle, and simulacum. Quite a mouthful.
3. 00:49 We take off from an article published by Hans Georg Mueller in 2022. The article is titled Beyond Originality: The Birth of Profilicity from the Spirit of Postmodernity. It's only one of a series of articles published by the aforementioned Hans Gild Müller. Here is
4. 01:10 how Müller defines profileicity. Profileicity is a technology for shaping individual or collective identity through the curation of profiles. In profilicity, the focus shifts from the discovery of an original self to the to the display of a profile and from the
5. 01:34 recognition by another original self to public attention, approval, and acclaim. profiles derive their value from public validation. While the original self emerges in its very originality in the mode of first order observation, the profile's
6. 01:55 visibility and validity emerge in second order observation. Okay, let me translate this to English. What Hans G Müller is saying simply is until recently when we wanted to learn who are we, who we are, what we did, we observed ourselves, we introspected, we became contemplative,
7. 02:25 we studied ourselves um in a variety of ways. And then having finally come to face to face with ourselves, we became authentic. At that point, we sought the company of other authentic people. That's the way it used to be until shall we say 20 years ago. In postmodernism,
8. 02:51 coupled with modern technologies such as social media, there's been a shift. Now when we ask the question who am I the answer is I am the profile that is seen by other people. And when we ask ourselves how do I experience myself? What is my inner experience? What is my
9. 03:18 experience of my self? The answer is I experience myself through the gaze of other people. This is second order observation rather than introspection which is a first order observation. And then what we do we go through life curating profiles.
10. 03:41 We improve the profile. We augment the profile. We redesign the profile. We market the profile. We introduce the profile to to observers and viewers and so on so forth. And all our identity is vested in the profile rather than in who we truly are. Now this obviously assumes
11. 04:01 that the connection between the profile and who one truly is is tenuous or even non-existence. Non-existent that the profile is some kind of brand or some kind of signal. um a bit a bit of a semiotic approach where the profile is a mode of communication of the content of
12. 04:22 that communication rather than a true scientific study of oneself. This also assumes of course that introspection is somehow objective or could be in principle objective or at least could yield factual discoveries and that introspection is therefore in many ways
13. 04:43 far superior when it comes to getting to know yourself. That getting to know yourself through the gaze of other people is inferior to getting to know yourself by studying yourself, soul searching, introspecting, observing yourself, contemplating yourself and
14. 05:03 learning yourself, studying yourself. Okay. So these are the basic assumptions behind the new idea of relatively new idea of profilicity. Miller says, Miller mentions what Nichi has said, become who you are, which is pretty ironic taking into account
15. 05:22 Nichi's narcissism. Okay, but he did say that. And Müller says Nichi's become who you are has been transformed into become who you wish to be seen as. So there's Nichi and there's Müller. Nature said become who you are presumably by studying yourself and and
16. 05:45 introspecting and so on. And Miller says become who you wish to be seen as by essentially putting forward a profile and then having people interact with a profile. That is of course very reminiscent of the object relations model of pathological narcissism where
17. 06:05 the narcissist puts forward a false self, a facade, essentially a profile. And that profile is completely divorced from who the narcissist truly is. There is a gap between the narcissist's implicit self-esteem and explicit self-esteem. Essentially inwardly the
18. 06:24 narcissist is full of shame and self-rejection and self-loathing to some extent. Outwardly the narcissist is godlike, a perfect entity, omniscient, omnipotent, brilliant and irresistible. So the nar narcissists have been engaging in profilicity long before Gob
19. 06:45 Müller came across the idea or the term. And narcissist narcissism is the exact opposite of authenticity, which is what I've been saying for many, many years. I have a channel dedicated to this, the Nothingness channel, and I have a actually a playlist on my YouTube
20. 07:04 on my main YouTube channel, which is the Nothingness playlist. What I've been saying is that narcissists have been profiling themselves through the false self and thereby therefore divorcing their potential for authenticity. The only way to counter narcissism, the only antidote
21. 07:23 to narcissism is to revert to authenticity. And the way to accomplish this is via nothingness. I'm not going to all this right now. So there is a crisis of authenticity according to Müller. In his work, Müller makes use of Nicholas Luman's social
22. 07:43 systems theory. Lumen L uh H M A N. And he suggested social systems theory. It was Luman who actually came up with a concept of second order observation. observing what and how and when and why others observe you. Observing them observing you. Again, exactly what the
23. 08:07 narcissist does. The narcissist elicits and solicits narcissistic supply from people. And it is this narcissistic supply, the act of observing the narcissist profile, the false self. This narcissistic supply serves the narcissist internal regulation. provides a
24. 08:27 regulatory function. All this has to do with authenticity. Of course, Miller's profileicity is the antidote and the counter measure to authenticity. It drives people away from authenticity. Again, there is an implicit assumption here. The profile is
25. 08:47 untrue, somehow, is unreal, is somehow removed from authenticity. we could in principle have an authentic profile. But then Miller's argument is that even if the profile were to be 100% authentic, 100% factual and real and grounded and honest and so on so forth, still
26. 09:12 in the case of authenticity, the sense of self is derived from first order observation, introspection. Whereas in the case of profilicity, relying on a profile, never mind how true it is, how honest it is, how authentic it is. If you rely on a profile, you're relying on other
27. 09:33 people's gaze, on other people's observation of the observations of the profile. So the source of selfhood or to be more precise the source of self-concept the source of the sensation of self experiencing the self is different in authenticity than it is in profileicity.
28. 09:56 Authenticity is largely identified with the work of Charles Taylor. He has written the seinal book secular age in 2007. Taylor suggested that there is a culture there was there's a cultural shift undertaking going on. He said that as of the late 20th century and early 21st century
29. 10:18 the very idea of individual self-discovery and personal except expression has been undergoing a transformation. He said that we came to value self-discovery and personal expression in the 21st century. I think is a bit um wrong about this being unprecedented.
30. 10:41 There was in the Renaissance there was exactly the same emphasis on self-exploration and self-discovery and self-awareness and self-consciousness and the elevation of the individual as the organizing principle of life and society. So I don't think it's unprecedented
31. 10:58 and yet it's quite accurate that starting more or less in the 1960s and well into the 21st century we have transitioned to selfdiscovery uh individualism personal expression as the overriding values. There has been a doxastic revolution, a revolution in
32. 11:19 beliefs, an axiological revolution, a revolution in values. Traditional norms, traditional author authority have been undermined. This age is consumacious, rejecting authority. There's a focus on expressive individualism where individuals are
33. 11:38 encouraged to find their own unique path and meaning in life even through emotional and aesthetic experiences. There's a shift from internal from external sources of validation to internal ones. There's an influence of romanticism and individualism, romantic individualism.
34. 11:59 There is expressive individualism and there's a critique of traditional authority. that all this is embedded in a secular context. A rejection of religion, moral relativism, a sense of isolation, and a lack of shared meaning. Authenticity doesn't sound so hot when
35. 12:19 it is put in these terms. That's why I have added nothingness to authenticity. Nothingness is essentially the rejection of so society, the rejection of socialization. When you couple authenticity with a rejection of these external expectations, external gaze and so on so
36. 12:40 forth, it's much easier to endure the unpalatable aspects, byproducts and side effects of authenticity. Again, I will not go into all this. You're invited to uh review my nothingness playlist or to join my nothingness channel where I post regularly. So authenticity is individual
37. 13:08 self-expression and self-exploration divorced of external authority and external normative influences. In many senses it's anomic. It's an anomic expression and it also has in my opinion very pronounced antisocial dimensions. But ironically, authenticity by itself
38. 13:32 gave rise to collectivist identity politics at the expense of individualism. It's as if one can find oneself only by and through belonging or affiliation with similarminded people which is a contradiction in terms and I call it collectivist individualism.
39. 13:56 Hans Müller wrote the following. Authenticity, however, is inherently paradoxical and its inner contradictions have become increasingly evident. If everyone pursues originality, this very pursuit is no longer original. In times of ubiquitous mass and social media,
40. 14:18 individuals learn how to be authentic by copying im images of others whom they perceive to be authentic. Advertising for instance has been marketing authenticity as a consumer good to the masses and thereby simultaneously proliferated and discredited it. He
41. 14:35 gives the example of brands as u authenticity signals. Authenticity I want to emphasize is asocial because it's it rejects the gaze of the other. It rejects the expectations and conventions and norms and mores of the other of of society. Authenticity is a complete rejection of
42. 15:03 social expectations because these the other and society society is the collective of others. These obstruct authenticity. Sarta put it succinctly in his play no exit. Hell is other people. But so did Haidiger in Dasman. And this this connects well with the
43. 15:28 concepts of concept of simulacum and the concept of spectacle. Simulacum is something that replaces reality with its representation. Jeambodria had this to say in the procession of simulacra. He defined the term as follows. Simulation is no longer
44. 15:51 that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality. It is hyperreal. It is no longer a question of imitation or duplication or even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of
45. 16:13 the real for the real. It's as if we decided that the only real thing is simulation. And he gives various examples of of such simulacra, psychosomatic disease, Disneyland, Watergate, whatever. Frederick Jameson uh provided a similar definition. He
46. 16:34 said that the simulacroom's peculiar function lies in what Satre would have called the derealization of the whole surrounding world of everyday reality. Of course, derealization is a dissociative mechanism and is a pathology pathological clinical feature
47. 16:54 in for example borderline personality disorder. In many ways we are becoming a narcissistic and borderline world. The spectacle is a central notion in what is known as the situationist theory developed by Gideo in his 1967 book the society of the spectacle. Much later he
48. 17:14 published another book by the way much less known called comments on the society of the spectacle. Be that as it may, Debo used the word spectacle to describe an overall social phenomenon that he says that the spectacle is where everything directly lived receded
49. 17:35 recedes into representation. He says we don't have direct experiences anymore. What we experience is representations of experiences, not the real thing. He said that it is a separate pseudo world that can only be looked at created from the rearrangement of fragmented images
50. 17:57 taking taken from every aspect of life. Fragmentation is a big thing in the spectacle because the spectacle has to break the world to create a schism, an abyss between directly experiencable reality and the experience of the representation of reality which allows for manipulation.
51. 18:21 Uh there is a world view that identifies human social life with appearances not with substance and there is a perceived autonomous motion of commodities and images thereby negating actual social life pressing the flesh having sex smelling someone.
52. 18:44 It is a form of false consciousness. is a social relationship in which alienated individuals borrowing from marks are connected to the social whole through a spectacular pseudo world. It's a great description of social media by the way decades before
53. 19:05 it erupted on the scene. Coming back to professor Hans G Müller at the University of Makao at that time he characterized the spectacle as being composed of three theoretical components. The semiotics of how spectacular spectacular images signify
54. 19:25 reality. How they relate to reality. How the spectacle is connected to reality via kind of signification. signifying signaling the political economy that produces the spectacle. Spectacle has to be produced somehow. It's a mode of production. It is a manufacturing
55. 19:42 process and the ontology of what is really true in a society organized around the production of appearances. Gradually there's a degradation of the real. And of course we are it is reminiscent of Benjamin's um theory or Benjamin's observations about reproduction copy and original.
56. 20:05 So there is a problem with the ontology of the world. As we undermine reality, as we desert, abandon reality in favor of fantasy, in favor of this pseudo spectacular world, we are beginning to lose sense of what is real and what is not. I mentioned the book comments on
57. 20:26 the society of the spectacle, much less known, published in 1988. And in this book, uh, Debau suggested the idea of the integrated spectacle. He said that there's a new form of spectacle that has emerged and and it has both diffused and concentrated
58. 20:45 aspects or elements in the sense that we are living in this integrated spectacle and it allows elites and governments and institutions to manipulate us by manipulating the spectacle. Mind you, if our only only reality is a simulation, the simulation can be tweaked, the
59. 21:07 parameters of a simulation can be changed and we would think that it is reality that is changing. Um, Deborah and others came up with two basic mechanisms of manipulation. The detour meaning rerouting or hijacking. It's a um uh when the new the newly created
60. 21:31 work has a meaning that is antagonistic or antithetical to the original. So the new work which appears to be the original but is not actually the original media work that is hijacked this way that is rerouted is familiar to the target audience. It is perceived by
61. 21:51 the target audience as reality. So when the new work emerges which actually undermines the original work there's a huge confusion it is also perceived as reality and perceived as the original equivalent of the original. the artist or commentator making the variation
62. 22:13 reuse some of the characteristic elements of the originating work thereby misleading or deceiving us into believing that the new derivative work is real. And the second mechanism is recuperation in which originally subversive works and ideas are themselves expropriated and
63. 22:35 appropriated by mainstream media. The tour make it possible for the images produced by the spectacle to get altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning becomes changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositional message or
64. 22:55 to manipulate the masses. Reproparation is much more subtle, much more surreptitious and in this sense much more ironically subversive. It is the co-optation of subversive messaging and rendering it mainstream. You take radical ideas, avanguard ideas,
65. 23:19 uh defiant and reckless ideas, psychopathic ideas and so on, narcissistic ideas and you render them mainstream in the sociological sense. Recuperation is a process by which politically radical ideas and images are twisted, co-opted, absorbed, diffused,
66. 23:38 incorporated, annexed or commodified within media culture and bourgeois society and they become interpreted through a neutralized innocuous or socially conventional perspective. The sting is taken out. They've been neutered. So there's a cultural appropriation of
67. 24:00 any subversive symbols or ideas by mainstream cultures. Similarly, of course, ideas and and um beliefs and values associated with minority groups can be thus recuperated or appropriated. It's a world of shadow boxing. Shadow boxing. Nothing is real and it is
68. 24:24 the natural ambiance and environment and ecosystem and habitat of the narcissist. No wonder that in the society of the spectacle, it is a narcissist who thrives and rises to the top.