Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Narcissistic Civilization

1. 00:02 There is little debate among observers of contemporary civilization that we are living in an age that combines the clinical features of pathological narcissism with the unfortunate clinical aspects of borderline personality organization. This age is globalized.
2. 00:25 These sentences apply equally to China, to Russia, to the United States, to Israel, to Turkey, to Hungary, to Australia. It is wrong to say that some cultures and societies are immune to these impacts. They are sweeping. They’re inexurable and they permeate and pervade every
3. 00:45 aspect of our lives. We have constructed a civilization that is both global and utterly pathological. Not only pathological but pathogenic in the sense that it fosters and engenders mental illness in the individuals that are exposed to the civilization that
4. 01:08 that are subjected to it and that ultimately participate in it as its component components and ingredients. Today we’re going to discuss the narcissistic and borderline features of our modern civil postmodern civilization and we’re going to limit ourselves to one or two elements.
5. 01:28 I have much longer and more detailed exposees of the very same topic in the contemporary civilization playlist on this channel. Plus, if you want to learn more about the construct of identity and how it how it is connected to various aspects such as memories and so on,
6. 01:49 please go to the description. There are three links in the description, links to three videos, and I recommend that you watch them if issues of identity concern you. The identity crisis of Western postmodern civilization. My name is Sam Baknin. I’m the author of
7. 02:07 malignant self-love. Narcissism Revisited and I’m a professor of psychology. I propose that contemporary civilization, postmodern civilization, our age, the times we live in, is constructed on three elements. Fluidity, purity, and ahistoricity.
8. 02:31 Now to explain each of these concepts, fluidity seem simply means that there is no constancy in the parameters and dimensions and aspects and elements that characterize anything any single thing. Purility is the tendency to behave and think as
9. 02:53 adolescents as teenagers. So we have the concept of pietyus or pella in in psychology the eternal adolescent male or female. And finally ah historicity simply means that every day is a new day. There’s no past or the past is derided and rejected or reframed or rewritten or ignored
10. 03:18 altogether. Aversion to the past. It’s a kind of malignant mindfulness if you wish being embedded in the present to the exclusion of the past. Ah historicity simply implies that we are self-creating self-generating. We are not the outcomes of anything or
11. 03:38 anyone that has preceded us. We are we emerge whole and complete and we are the agents of our own formation and our own creation. We are our own gods. This harks back to Nichi of course and much further to the Renaissance. Okay. There’s no dispute that fluidity is a
12. 04:04 core as core feature core philosophical construct or dimension in modern civilization. Gender is fluid. Even sex which supposedly is biologically determined is becoming fluid. We regard social, sexual, behavioral scripts as completely fluid. Not context dependent
13. 04:28 but fluid in the sense that we are in charge. We negotiate our behaviors. We negotiate a consensus each and every time. There’s nothing dictated by society or anyone outside us. roles including gender roles are fluid and even age is fluid, 60 is the new 40
14. 04:50 etc etc. This fluidity, this constant flux, this indeterminacy, this uncertainty, this propensity for u reinvention by control, controlling the narrative, re rewriting ourselves at any given moment. this constant reactivity to um changing internal
15. 05:17 circumstances rather than external ones. This fluidity is a core feature of our civilization and it is coupled with purility. Purility, the tendency to act as or think as an adolescent. Purility of course is fluid by definition. Adolescence is the most fluid period in
16. 05:39 human personal development in the life trajectory in the lifespan. We we become most in flux in early childhood and then in adolescence. So fluidity and purility are two sides of the same coin. And both of them involve a historicity. If you’re fluid, your past is irrelevant
17. 06:02 because you can define yourself at any given moment or redefine yourself at any given moment. If you are an adolescent, if you’re purial in in in pural in your in your thinking, purile in your in your um com composure, purile in in your comport and behavior. If you’re purile,
18. 06:23 then you’re constantly in flux. You’re exploring yourself. You’re discovering who you are. at any given moment and your answers at any given moment don’t have to be consistent with your previous answers or with your future answers. Fluidity is just another name for
19. 06:39 purility and purility is an aspect of fluidity and both of them involve a historicity no history. Narcissism, pathological narcissism is ahistorical because it involves dissociation. Identity is the epiphenomenon is emergent from memories. There’s no identity without memories.
20. 07:09 There’s an open question whether there could be memories without identity, but there’s no question that there’s no identity without memories. If the process of creating long-term memories is disrupted via for example dissociation as a defense mechanism
21. 07:27 and memory gaps and contabulations that are trying to bridge in an attempt to bridge these memory gaps. If the whole memory apparatus the whole memory machinery is compromised then of course identity will not emerge. There would be a state of fragmented
22. 07:45 identity, no core identity, no organizing principles, no explanatory hermeneutic principles. There would be what we call identity diffusion because all narcissists and all border lights, suffer from dissociation because all of them have compromised memories and
23. 08:03 impaired reality testing. Narcissists are ahistorical. They wake up in the morning and they are fresh. They are new. Nothing to do with the with yesterday. Nothing to do with the year before. Narcissists have no sense of personal continuity and contiguity. They are
24. 08:25 disjointed. Narcissist pathological narcissism involves constant self-creation and self-recation, constant reincarnation in vivo, constant reinvention, and the defiance that goes with it. I’m unique. I’m special. I have the capacity not only to mold myself,
25. 08:46 not only to shapeshift, but I’m my own creator. I’m therefore godlike. Borderline is very similar, but without much of this uh element of grand this particular element of grandiosity, but border lines are the same because both narcissists and border lines have
26. 09:05 identity suffer from identity diffusion. In this sense, border lines and narcissists are constantly in flux. They’re constantly fluid. And because they cannot settle on a single core identity which would be lifelong, which would afford a sense of
27. 09:23 continuity and consequently personal responsibility and accountability, the ability to plan for the future, the ability to recall the past. They have none of this. that renders them eternal adolescence. Pural pural pa eternos pa
28. 09:42 eternal and they are ahistorical. There’s no history there. That is why narcissists are shocked when they are held accountable for their actions. The consequences of their actions are alien to them because they don’t maintain a sense of continuity with who they were a
29. 10:02 year ago. If they have committed a crime a few years ago, they would be devastated and indignant that they’re being punished now because it’s not the same person and there’s no shared history and the dissociation is huge. There are no no memories and
30. 10:20 consequently no identity to bridge all these past, present and future. Narcissism and borderline are ahistorical fluidity, purility, ahistoricity. The core features, core structural elements of modern civilization are all key clinical aspects of pathological
31. 10:45 narcissism and borderline personality disorder. I keep mentioning identity diffusion. Identity diffusion is a lack of stability or focus in how one sees oneself in what we call self-concept. The elements of the individual’s identity are constantly in flux,
32. 11:04 constantly shapeshift, uh constantly transmogrified and transformed. As I said, this is very common in borderline personality disorder but also in narcissism. Eric Ericson in his ego psychology suggested that this is the possible outcome of what he called the identity
33. 11:25 versus identity confusion stage. The individual emerges with an uncertain sense of identity and confusion about who they are, their dreams, their wishes, attitudes, goals, values, beliefs, priorities, preferences. None of it is certain. None of it feels real.
34. 11:44 None of it is owned by an individual. The individual doesn’t regard any of these as attributes. It feels external, imported, something that is emanating from the outside. And therefore, the narcissist and the borderline are estranged. Estrangement is a key feature of modern
35. 12:03 civilization. People feel, as Markx had observed, people feel alienated. They feel divorce not only from reality, not only from others but from themselves. And this leads on the one hand to auto atomization and alienation or alienation and so on. But on the other hand, it
36. 12:23 leads to mental illness. There’s a it’s a great definition of mental illness. Being divorced from yourself, being alien to yourself, being estranged from yourself. There’s daylight between you and yourself. You don’t you’re not fully invested affected.
37. 12:41 There’s no psychic energy in your self-concept. It appears to be fiction narrative, a script, a movie, not really you. You’re not living your life. You’re living a story that someone has written that someone might have been you, but you have nothing in common with that
38. 12:57 person. There’s no continuity. Identity versus identity confusion is a phase in the fifth phase in Ericson’s eight stages of psychosocial development and it is also known as identity versus role confusion. It is an identity crisis and it occurs occurs during adolescence.
39. 13:21 During this stage, the individual experiences what Ericson called a psychosocial moratorum. A period of time that permits experimentation with social roles. The individual is this one day and somewhat something completely different the next day. And the roles
40. 13:37 could be mutually exclusive. The shift the shifts in beliefs in values and is is is disorienting is is vertigo vertigenous. It’s it’s very difficult to follow and very difficult to regard the adolescent as a single individual as a personality.
41. 13:59 The individual tries on different roles and identities with different groups before forming a cohesive positive identity that allows the individual to contribute to society. So the individual may identify with sometimes out groupoups and this forms negative identity. So individual
42. 14:22 may identify with extremist groups or radical groups or which exclude other people and by exclusion does negative identity formation. at any rate, be that as it may, whatever solution the the adolescent chooses, it’s never permanent, it’s ever shifting. The
43. 14:43 switching is common and they’re very confused about their sense of identity. And this is the typical condition of modern civilization where adults actually suffer identity confusion where adults are in the throws of what is known as an identity crisis.
44. 15:04 Originally in psychology, we we suggested that identity crisis is a phase of life marked by experimentation, changing, conflicting or newly emerging values and a lack of commitment to one’s usual roles in society, especially work, family relationships. Again, Eric
45. 15:22 Ericson claimed that this identity crisis is natural and even desirable in adolescence because they have to go through a period of identity crisis and then emerge from it with a cohesive identity. Greater maturity results from this experience because you’re able to
46. 15:39 discard many roles and identities which are egoistonic, which are ego inongruent, which you don’t feel comfortable with. The concept has been expanded to refer to adult midlife crisis in the 60s and 70s. Other periods marked by change and uncertainty. But we
47. 15:58 are in a situation right now where entire collectives and civilizations and societies and cultures and every single individual in them is gra grasped is consumed is conquered is invaded by an identity crisis. There are no stable identities anywhere nowadays. Nothing to
48. 16:19 hold on to. No Archimedian point. And this is a major major problem. There is something known as identity status model. It’s an expansion of the identity versus identity confusion fifth stage in Ericson’s eight stages of psychoso social development.
49. 16:39 The model was uh suggested by u Canadian psychologist uh James Marshia Marcy. It was in 1966 and the model is this. There are four possible identity statuses that an individual might assume particularly during adolescence and each one of them
50. 17:00 is characterized by different levels of exploration and commitment to any specific identity. So ideally development moves towards identity achievement status. That’s a phase a stage characterized by evidence of both identity exploration and commitment. This status is related
51. 17:21 to stable self-esteem, healthy psychological functioning. The other three identity statuses are moratorum status that I’ve mentioned before. uh is characterized by evidence of identity exploration but a lack of commitment. There’s the foreclosure
52. 17:38 status depicted by commitment to an identity that adults have set forth for an individual but failure to explore different options before that commitment is made. So your father tells you you’re going to be a medical doctor. You commit yourself to this course of action but
53. 17:53 you haven’t explored anything else. That would be a foreclosure status. And finally there’s diffusion status and it’s a lack of both identity exploration and commitment. Our modern civilization has has estued has given up on identity achievement status and even to some
54. 18:14 extent extent glorified and glamorized the other three the moratorium status um the diffusion status and even the foreclosure status. We We uh eulogize, we glamorize, we glorify people who followed the footsteps of their parents and created a dynasty. And we um tell
55. 18:42 young people and older people age in different advice that they should always explore and they should never commit too much to anything. And so this is really bad because the messaging in modern society is that commitment is suffocation. Commitment is
56. 19:04 prison. Exploration is a great thing, a good thing indefinitely throughout the lifespan. Fluidity becomes not only an observational factor but a value. The new value system in modern societies is you need to be fluid. It’s good to be purile or even childish.
57. 19:29 The inner child is, you know, a great thing. And it’s not too good to dwell on history, to dwell on the past. You need to be mindful. You need to be grounded in the present. The past can’t teach you much because rate of change is so enormous. You’ve got very little.
58. 19:47 There’s very little to learn from the past. You need to be a bit narcissistic. You need to be a bit selfish. You need to put yourself first. You need to forget things and forgive things. You need to self create all the time. Reinvent yourself. And it’s good to be
59. 20:02 defiant and consumious. Reject authority. It makes you unique to some extent. These are the values communicated by modern civilization. Regrettably in psychology we regard all these things past adolescence as pathologies. Anyone any individual with all all these
60. 20:25 features who is older than 25 years old is mentally ill and so to a large extent is the civilization we live in.