A Simple Matter of Fact

In my last post, I skipped a sentence or two that digressed while quoting Sam Vaknin. I did this partly because they rambled a bit, distracting from the point, and partly because I didn't want to have to deal with them in the middle of a post on something else.

Now let's look at that statement.

I compared Narcissistic Supply to drugs because of the almost involuntary and always-unrestrained nature of the pursuit involved in securing it. The narcissist is no better or worse (morally speaking) than others.

Then what does he go on to do? He goes on to state a litany of immoral things a narcissist does to cruelly exploit others as brutally (cold-bloddedly, unfeelingly) as a crocodile would eat them...ending thusly...

The narcissist has no time or energy for anything, except the next narcissistic fix, NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE AND WHO IS TRAMPLED UPON.

The emphasis is all his, not mine.

So, they do immoral things but are not immoral, eh?

In other words, here we have more of the same thing I was talking about in The Banality of Evil and the Banality of Sounding Smart, the same fashionable nonsense Norm Geras had commented on.

To wit: They do abnormal things but are not abnormal; they do cruel things but are not cruel; they do unconscionable things but have a conscience; they do inhuman things but are human; they do brutal things but have feelings - this never-ending parade of nonsense goes on and on.

Geras' answer: "What better definition of an abnormally cruel person than that he or she presided over or participated in abnormal cruelties?"

Exactly. Straight thinking: If you kill, you are a killer. If you lie, you are a liar. And so on. By definition, immorality is doing immoral things. Cruelty is doing cruel things. Brutality is doing brutal things. Inhumanity is doing inhuman/inhumane things.

What else could these things be? Some inherent quality in one's essence? like good breeding? Nonsense.

There is one exception to this - little children and the insane. Neither know that what they're doing is wrong. And they prove that by doing it right in front of everybody. It never occurs to them that they should sneak around to do it on the sly. Indeed, they often are surprised when they get censure instead of praise for what they have done.

They also have little or no self-control and prove that with their obvious lack of pre-meditation and cunning.

Do psychopaths and other narcissists behave that way? No! They not only sneak around to get away with their evil acts on the sly, they go to great lengths to carve out a false public image of themselves that makes them out to be the very opposite type of person. Thus they PROVE that they know what they're doing is something to cover up, be ashamed of = wrong.

Moreover, they only do wrong in the dark. They are angels whenever witnesses are present. They often take a long time setting up and cultivating a victim before the honeymoon is suddenly over and the abuse begins. That's premeditation and cunning. Most important, if they can control themselves while witnesses are present, they can crontrol themsleves when the coast is clear.

Hence psychopaths and other narcissists are not insane (most of the mentally ill aren't); they just twist everything in their Magical Thinking Machines.

Bottom line: If you know that what you are doing is wrong and if you can control yourself, you are responsible for your conduct. That is moral liability.

The drug addiction analogy is an apt one, and here Vaknin hits the nail on the head I think. It shows that narcissists are like us in that they don't like evil either. Like us, they can't bear to think of themselves as evil.

They don't do evil to do evil - that is, for its own sake. They do evil for the same reason an addict does drugs - for the good feeling he or she gets.

They thus put themselves in quite a fix - how to not think of yourself as evil while you keep doing all those evil things. No wonder they twist everything they think, see, hear, and feel. No wonder they are addicted to dragging other people's name through the gutter (tearing them down off that pedestal) to make themselves seem better by comparisson.

But unfortunately narcissism isn't a drug. It's hurting other people. If hurting people makes you feel good, you like hurting people. So, it's a moot point that narcissists don't hurt people to do evil: they hurt people to hurt people. Wanting to hurt people is malice.

No getting around that.

But narcissits and their sympathizers twist that too! They crybaby that acknowledging a narcissist's malice is malicious.

In other words, knowing the plain truth is an act of malice in their eyes.

It's always the self-righteous and judgemental who commit this absurdity, because they themselves never just face a fact about someone or something and treat it as a simple matter of fact.

They always have to make a moral issue of everything. I suppose that's so they can climb up on their moral high horse and withold sympathy from those they condemn. They thus become such Condemnation Machines that they argue themselves into a corner - condemning the victims of narcissists in order to prop up their fallacious assertion that narcissists aren't to blame for what they do.

Sheesh. And so their holier-than-thou sympathy isn't merely denied: it is MISPLACED.

Matter of fact: Narcissists are predators. When we see a little child or suffering humanity in need of protection and comfort, we see our own image and likeness and, in it, something to love. When a predator sees it, he or she sees nothing but lunch.

Knowing that changes everything. So, stay away from them. Well away.

There's no sense or value in hating great white sharks, tigers, polar bears, grizzly bears, child molesters, sexual predators, serial killers, and your garden variety malignant narcissist: just simply be NOT born yesterday = face the facts about them.

Yes, of course, the animals on that list are as innocent as children or the insane, but a predator's guilt doesn't matter to us except insofar as it proves that they are predators. What matters is that, predators WOULD LOVE TO EAT US.

And you aren't going to change them.

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