Backwards Blog
Narcissism & Society Series 2/4.
The Power of Imperfection: Overcoming Loneliness in a Narcissistic World..
Hello again, dear reader. It is good to have you back! This post is the second in a four-part series on narcissistic values in Western capitalist culture. Why would I delve into the topic of narcissism in a podcast on loneliness? The answer is, because narcissistic values are EXACTLY what drives loneliness. Think about it — hyper-individualism, the lone hero narrative, image over authenticity, control over care, and masks over openness – all of that stops us from connecting. In some cases, it can stop us even knowing HOW to connect. The more people who internalise these values, the more difficult it will be to combat loneliness. (put video of spheres turning red in here for youtube) And yes, narcissistic values are at the root of capitalist culture – as philosopher Christopher Lasch points out in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. These same, narcissistic values, are the root of disconnection.
The last post centred on how Western culture mirrors a covert narcissistic parent — rewarding you for fitting the mould, punishing you for deviating, and training you to internalize blame and to strive for control rather than connection. If you haven’t read that one yet, I’d recommend starting there — because this post builds on that foundation.
We’re looking at the process of becoming a Self within narcissistic systems. Be they familial or societal, we will see that the kind of power involved pushes towards the same ends: disconnection – from each other, and our selves. BUT, before we dive in, I want to make something very clear:
Just because you were raised in a narcissistic family — and shaped by a narcissistic society — does not mean you became an actual narcissist.
The Rise In Narcissism
As Philosophers like Lasch, and psychologists like Dr. Durvasula point our, narcissism IS on the rise - because our culture pushes those values to us. But for all the disconnection and loneliness that it leads to, the majority of us still won’t develop actual NPD. OK, it IS likely we will develop some narcissistic TRAITS. Really, THAT is kinda unavoidable, but that isn’t NPD. When Lasch talks about narcissism being on the rise, he is actually talking in terms of values, rather than attaining the levels of these traits of that disorder itself. Not yet. The fact is, the majority of us are prevented from reaching such extremes by a certain , very trait. I will reveal what that is pretty soon. It amusingly unglamorous - a sort of anti-superpower - so I hope you’ll find it as refreshing and hilarious as I did. Stay tuned for the part where your foibles become what saves you.
For now, it’s enough to say this. On both the micro level of the covert narcissistic family, and the macro level of a covert narcissistic ideology, it is NOT the case that everyone exposed to it transforms into a self-interested, covert control freak who gets angry at other peoples joy, and is prepared to see them maimed for their own ends. There are many ways in which we adapt, and many degrees to each adaptation.
Of course, for those who DO develop either NPD or more severe narcissistic personality styles, we should keep THIS in mind - the system rewards narcissistic behaviour. That is not an excuse for harming others out of pure self-interest. Lets face it, many of us had BRUTAL childhoods, along well as growing up in this society, and yet manage NOT to do that. Even so, knowing the system rewards narcissistic coping strategies helps us understand why people DO behave badly, with increasing regularity. It also helps us, perhaps, forgive ourselves a little when we realise that we do have a few of these traits – like obsessing over our curated, social-media selves, or our appearance or our achievements, or how we experience some level of schadenfreude at a competitive co-workers misfortune. Schadenfreude. Seriously, the level of that one thing in a society could be used to assess how narcissistic that society is.
My point is, the self-focused, the ruthless, the manipulative — they succeed under the values we have discussed in all the posts so far – individualism, control, competition, etc. Christopher Lasch will come up more today, and he points out that narcissism is a survival strategy. In a society that devalues community, continuity, and authenticity, and promotes image over substance, performance over connection, and self-promotion over self-awareness, it makes sense that people who’ve adopted these behaviours will survive. For anyone who wants to chime in with “oh, then becoming a narcissist is the survival of the fittest” no. Any trait that leads to our disconnection will ultimately thwart procreation and end up like some global-level pub brawl over resources… oh. It already is.
Beck to my point. That society rewards narcissistic traits makes sense of still more of our modern horrors – for example, that people increasingly adopt the view that other people are merely things to manipulate. It also makes sense of why people opt to perform the sort of covert power we talked about last in the last post: in order to survive through control.
But not everyone becomes a narcissist. Some of us, even when we have a narcissistic system within a narcissistic system (meaning, family AND society), adapt in different ways. In both systems, developing a narcissistic personality style is the safest, most well rewarded option, but it is still not the only option. For many of you listening, you will know this, cos it’s not the adaptation you are living. That will be, in part, because of this anti-superpower we are going to get to. Keep that fact in mind as we go through the next sections, because otherwise you may well end up depressed, or enraged. I do not want that for you, dear listener. There is a happy-ish ending to this post. OK?
How We Adapt to Narcissistic Systems
Let us recall psychology. Oh wonderful psychology, provider of all manner of labels we can chose from for any kind of behavioural pattern out there. Psychology thinks in terms of “bad apples,” as if apples do not grow on trees. Psychology, particularly DSM-type psychology, forgets something sociology does not – we are ALL growing on the same tree, and that tree is seriously ailing. Hyper-modernised as we are, I am sure you have some experience of trees. What do you think happens to the fruit on ailing trees?
Well, they won’t actually ALL rot, unless that tree is utterly fucked, but they will have various kinds of, lets say, adaptations. It’s unlikely that any will grow particularly easily.
On that covert narcissistic tree that is western culture, some apples develop narcissistic adaptations, or even full blown NPD. They do it to survive, as we said. Others adapt differently. They might learn to make themselves small – or to minimise their needs. Or they might try to please the bigger apples, or erase themselves and become what others needed them to be. Ring any bells? I wish it didn’t, but if you are here, then yes, they likely do.
These adaptations differ from those that are classified as narcissism because they aim at connection, rather than control. This is the contrast between Alice Millers “false self” and Kohuts false self that we discussed in the last post.
Today we are going deeper into how we adapt to the systems we are embedded in. We are looking at how the tree WILL ALWAYS shape us, in some way. This is what’s called “the formation of the subject” in philosophy. Meaning, how the forces around us act to shape us into the people we become - with all our protective adaptations, all our so-called “issues,” and the masks we learn are our “best self” or are the “acceptable” ways of being. As Judith Butler points out, albeit without botanical metaphors, the kind of tree we are on makes certain ways of being possible, and other ways IMPOSSIBLE. If we’re on an apple tree, we won’t become bananas. Said Judith Butler. In a way more articulate way, and not about fruit.
The big deal and key issue is this - in covert narcissistic systems, be they familiar, societal or otherwise, we are NOT made who we are by personal choice. We are made who we are by the kind of power exerted on us.
The Self is the Product of Power
To start us off, I’m gonna to hit you with a quote from Michel Foucault:
“The individual is not to be conceived as a sort of elementary nucleus, a primitive atom… he is already a product of power.”
(Power/Knowledge, 1980)
This is Foucault saying that the self — and our idea of the self (what we’d call the ego) — is shaped by what he calls “power.” But lets look at what he MEANS by power. When Foucault says “power,” he doesn’t mean people with guns, or even necessarily in uniforms, or bearing official stamps. He means the institutions, ideologies, and systems that form our culture and society. Ideology is a key aspect of power, so a brief definition of that here -
Ideology refers to the set of shared assumptions, values, and meanings through which social realities are constructed and made to appear natural or inevitable.
So, ideology is not just a coolest-new-word-I-Have-learned-in-my-first-year-at-uni thing, that Rick Mayall from the Young Ones might bark at passers-by to try, thinking he is incredibly rebellious. OK, it IS that too, but it’s a seriously important concept. It involves VALUES, and how those values are made to appear natural or inevitable.
Important recap on some of the values that are part of western capitalist culture. I.e that are part of our IDEOLOGY:
• Individualism
• The lone hero narrative
• Control
• Competition
• Emotional repression in favour of rationality
Now let’s look at some of the mechanisms used to ensure these values are made to appear natural and inevitable. We talked about these mechanisms last week. Very important, so do go back and read that post, or this could look a little random. The tactics used to push western capitalist values are the same as those used in covert narcissistic families and include things like:
• Blame-shifting (onto the individual),
• Manipulation (into thinking we need or want things we do not),
• Exclusion (that is, rejecting those seen as varying too far from norms),
• Gaslighting (causing you to question your experience or reality),
As mentioned last week, these are all typical tactics for covert control. That is, for exercising covert POWER.
Back to the values that are pushed with these mechanisms though. The values of control and individualism offer a great illustration of how ideology works. Here we go:
Western Cultures big “We Are Free” Advertising Campaign.
Western culture puts a tonne of effort into convincing us that we chose to be as we are. That we have freedom of choice, and therefore control over outcomes. We’re trained to believe that we’re the hero of our own story; the central character who shapes everything themselves. An individual in control.
But let’s be real. Think about something as simple as shopping for clothes. You might believe you're choosing what you wear based on your personal taste and individuality. But, in reality, your choices are heavily influenced by trends, advertising, and the message that you should wear certain things to look successful, attractive, or fit in. Society subtly tells you what’s "in" and what’s "out." Here in Germany, more like “what is acceptable” and what is “not,” cos that a value they hold dear here is conformity – but it still has to be dressed up as you CHOOSING it. Coming from a far more expressive culture, in terms of clothing, the unavailability of any colour other than beige or tan was stark, obvious and resulted in bulk purchases of black dye.
The point beings, even your choice of clothing is shaped by external forces. You may think you’re being an individual, but you’re still following a script set by larger cultural and economic forces. Often, in a very Butlerian way, because other scripts have been made unavailable.
This next part can make people angry sometimes: our belief in total freedom and control is actually the result of ideology. Remember, ideology in action is ideology being invisible. It’s not about making us consciously aware of what’s happening — it’s the illusion of choice that keeps us in line. Western capitalism spends a lot of effort making it look like we’re not shaped by its systems, ideology, and institutions. It uses tactics like advertising, social pressure, and even self-help culture to make us think we have freedom of choice because that perpetuates what capitalism needs: production, profit, and consumption.
The very fact that we believe we are in control of ourselves and our lives, that we’re choosing the outcomes, is evidence that the system is working. The illusion of autonomy keeps the wheels of capitalism turning. And when that reality hits — when you realize you haven’t been fully free in your choices — it can feel like the ground beneath you drops away. It challenges everything you thought you knew about yourself.
It’s not a criticism of you or me or anyone else though — we’re all subject to it. We live in a society where ideology is invisible, and it works by shaping our perceptions without us even realizing it. Here is an example I hope will make this clearer. In the last post, I talked about a choice I made at the age of ten. A choice that felt like my own personal revelation. I was sitting on a bus coming home from school, having had an awful day being bullied for being “fat.”
I decided to stop eating. I thought that if I just lost weight, I could solve all my problems. I believed it would stop Bertha from hating me and end the bullying at school. Sure, the former didn’t quite work out, but the latter did. In my young mind, I was in control. I thought I was the boss, making my own choice, asserting my own power.
What I didn’t know — what no kid really knows at that age — is that my decision was deeply shaped by the values of the society I lived in. The notion that my worth, my value, could be tied to my physical appearance, to how thin or ‘attractive’ I appeared, was an ideology that had been inscribed on me from an early age. This was the societal script I was unknowingly following, not realizing that this ‘choice’ I made was influenced by forces far beyond my small town in rural New Zealand. I would never have imagined being subject to culture and capitalism. The weight loss, the body control, it wasn’t just a closed issue between me, my schoolmates and Bertha. Even that was driven by the ideological message they had swallowed — that those in female bodies need to meet a certain standard of beauty to be acceptable, valuable, or even worthy of attention.
What felt like autonomy was just the illusion of freedom. It wasn’t about me asserting my independence or rejecting societal pressures — it was about me internalizing them so deeply that I thought they were my own desires. And that’s what Foucault is talking about — how we’re shaped by invisible ideologies. The power behind this isn't about overt control or direct coercion; it’s about the quiet, pervasive force of cultural norms and values, shaping our sense of self without us even knowing it.
Feeling betrayed when you hear that for the first time is normal. I felt that way too. It’s one of those crux moments when you can either keep swallowing the blue pill — or start accepting the very bitter red one. If you’re still with me, you’ve chosen the red one. And I respect that.
It can be very painful illustrating what ideology is, and the fact that we are not immune. The fact that it makes it’s values seem so natural and correct, means that learning we are are NOT in control seems inconceivable. It makes us feel powerless. With good reason.
The power is someplace else:
in ideology,
in the institutions and systems that uphold it, and that act on us.
THAT is what Foucault is talking about.
Now, thinkers like Marx go further, and actually put the power aspect INTO their definitions of ideology. Marx would define ideology itself more like:
Ideology is a set of ideas and beliefs that serves to legitimize and uphold the interests of the ruling class by masking the true nature of social and economic relations.
This definition already points at the MECHANISMS involved – and the fact that they serve to cover up what is really going on.
No One Is Immune To Power Or Ideology
Foucault and Marx are clear – they don’t say SOME of us are formed by power. They say we ALL are. Hardcore, but even then, it still does not cancel out the saving grace I mentioned earlier, OK? So bear with me. It’s coming.
Western culture trains us to think we are fully autonomous, so a lot of people really think along the lines of “society is out there and I can ignore it if I want.” However, thinkers like Bourdieu, Foucault, Judith Butler, and even the Daoists have all, in different ways, shown how society lives in us. It’s not actually a radical suggestion. Society pre-exists us. We are born into it. The adults who raised you were already shaped by the ideology, institutions, and systems they grew up in. They were subject to those values, and would have internalised them, more or less. Then, they brought YOU up within that set of institutions, ideologies and systems.
But still a lot of us think we are immune to its values. I worked briefly as an escort to fund my philosophy degree. Every single man I accompanied to anything said he “just happened to like thin women.” They seriously believed that their taste was their own, not formed by the fashion of the time, which was Kate Moss type bodies. The generation bought up with the massive-ass ideal likely think that those are what they “inherently” like.
This really illustrates Marx's point about ideology – it operates invisibly, hiding the very fact of it’s operation. If a culture reifies the individual as being in the drivers seat of everything, that same culture is going to say you can ignore, transcend or defy any and every influence if you so chose - including society itself. We’re not free-floating individuals — we’re shaped by the tree we are on, the soil it grows in. If the soil’s poisoned, we can’t just call the fruit ‘bad’ and expect that the rest will grow fine.
We mentioned this in the last post, but what we’ll cover now is the HOW of society coming to dwell within us; how ideology comes to implant itself into our selfhood. How the values “out there” in the world, get “in here” into the selves we become. I will be highlighting how this parallels power in covert narcissistic families as we go.
Power, Ideology and Covert Narcissism
I’m framing this by mentioning Christopher Lasch again. In his book The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, he makes the point that Western capitalism’s actual values are narcissistic. So when we’re dealing with how power plants values into us as selves, Lasch would remind us that those values being implanted are narcissistic ones. I’m adding to that my own argument from last post that mechanisms of that power mirror covert narcissism too.
Enter Althusser. Yes, a man of a controversies I do not have time to go into. Althusser tells us that we’re shaped by what he calls interpellation. Not interPRETation, interpellation. This is a process whereby we, as selves, are "hailed" by society into certain roles or modes of being. The classic example is the policeman thing. You are walking along, maybe innocently, maybe with a bunch of weed in your pocket, or stolen cabbages, who knows. Then you hear a policeman call “hey you!” Instantly you are aware of yourself as a subject of the law. You might politely answer, or you might run away, but you are, in that moment, a person whose personhood is FRAMED by the law – either as obeying it or not. And you know this. You also see YOURSELF in that way, in that moment, just as the policeman does. Society has “hailed” you into the role of a subject under law. You do not have a choice here, in that, having grown up in this system, you WILL see yourself in those terms. The “hailing” just brings that into full view, making it a reality.
In a narcissistic family system, children are hailed into roles too. The "golden child" or the "scapegoat" and so on. These roles are not chosen by the child. They are imposed by the governing power – the parent. Growing up in that system, you are called to see yourself this way too. As the scapegoat child, when my name was called – when I was hailed, (you know the tone “JordAN!!!”) - it dragged me immediately into that role. The role of she who is to blame: be that for a spoiled dinner, a siblings crying, a solar flare, a failed moon landing, whatever. You other scapegoats know the story. It is you being hailed into the role of problematic person.
Similarly, capitalist society hails us into roles—whether as patients, via some diagnosis, as types of workers, competitors, or even as a gender. And just like in the narcissistic family, we come to internalize these roles, believing them to be natural and inherent parts of ourselves. Being a “woman” is a good example here. Having tits, I am often hailed into the role of “woman” and the expectations that go along with that – like that I will know how to hold a total strangers baby, or be prepared to listen to a boring monologue from a person without tits who imagines they are interesting. This is exactly how capitalism operates: it teaches us to internalize the roles that keep the system in place, making us believe that our worth is defined by how well we perform in those roles.
Which makes me a pretty shit woman, by the way. Cos I suck at listening to boring monologues and I repeatedly drop children on their heads. If I really did consider myself a woman, I would have to conclude that I suck. But here is the other pain in the ass about ideology. Society does not give a rats ass about that fact that I do not consider myself “woman.” It will still judge me as such. That is kind of the point. The roles are pre-defined, based on societies values. So MOST people will experience me from within the framing of “woman,” even if I don’t. Cos really, this training, it IS insanely hard to break… human heads break more easily, so please never hand me your child.
Anyway, moving on to Foucault before there are any more casualties. As mentioned in the last post, Foucault takes this further with his idea of disciplinary power. Foucault explains that power is not just about authority or control; it’s about how we internalize control, and self regulate to the point that it feels like it is actually our own choices. This is the panopticon effect, which we have discussed several times both with and without pictures, but in case this is your first time, a brief summary.
The Panopticon, originally designed by Jeremy Bentham, is a prison where inmates are constantly aware of the possibility of being watched, by a guard they cant see, but who can, at least potentially, always see them. This uncertainty about whether they’re being monitored or not leads them to regulate their own behaviour. No guard required. Foucault used this idea to explain how society works—where we internalize norms and values, and begin to self-monitor and self-discipline without needing external control. It goes a step further too, when part of that self-monitoring involves telling ourselves that the standards we are trying to uphold ARE actually our own. This is the mechanism of gaslighting, but self-gaslighting, so society doesn’t have to.
As pointed out in the last post, this kind of power is very much how covert narcissistic families operate. Children learn to regulate their own behaviour to meet the parent’s expectations, much like how individuals in capitalist society are taught to regulate themselves to fit the moulds of productivity, efficiency, and success. This internalization of regulatory power makes us believe we’re making choices freely, but in reality, we’re just following the hidden structures of power, whether it’s the parent or the larger capitalist system.
Judith Butler offers us a brilliant crystallization of all this. Butler points out what this all amounts to: the self is not owned but formed in relation to power and recognition. Also, not nice to hear, right? – that our self is not something we own. That idea is scary and kind of beyond comprehension THANKS to how ideology operates - invisibly.
Its also the CLINCHER, cos it makes clear how western culture mirrors covert narcissistic family systems. Our Self is NOT owned by us. It is shaped by those in power, and whether or not those in power offer recognition and reward. As mentioned before, we are rewarded for doing what is held up as ideal, and this includes things like being the ideal woman, the ideal man, the ideal worker, or , as pertaining to narcissism, the ideal ruthless, self-interested fuck. They’re great CEOs, somehow, it turns out. Studies have shown. The mechanism in this becomes gaslighting and blame-shifting both at once, as our failure to measure up becomes something we really see as US failing to meet OUR standards.
Back to the recognition thing in Butler. In a narcissistic family, the child is constantly seeking recognition, either by gaining approval from the narcissistic parent or by fulfilling the role the parent has assigned to them. I wish none of you had experienced this first hand, but I know a lot of you DID. To spell it out for others: some of us were rewarded by one parent only when we vanished, cos ideally, for them, we would not have been born. You might also have been rewarded by another parent only for getting good grades, cos ideally, you would reflect what they consider their brilliance.
In western capitalist society recognition plays out the same way—our worth is determined by how well we meet external expectations, such as status, wealth, and success. People don’t necessarily choose narcissistic traits for pleasure, you see — they’re actually incentivized.
Finally, we come to the emergence of the Self in this system. The "self" that emerges is not an authentic one. It is a self built on the need for validation and external recognition. Whether consciously or not.
In a nutshell, whether you ended up with narcissistic adaptations, or other, just as painful kinds:
You didn’t actually choose to become this version of you.
You were recruited.
And survival meant saying ‘yes’ to the call.
Are you still worried that makes us all narcissistic? If you are, that means you are getting this. Don't worry though. The good news is up very soon, and no, we do not all become them.
The Emergence of the Self, OR, The Call To Become Who You Are Not.
Now, I always loved a particular idea from Heidegger, which you might have heard before. Heidegger says – Become who you are. It appeals, cos it sounds like a call to blossom into the person we somehow always were, at our core, from the beginning. It sounds like a call to nurture and tend to something that is truly ours. It sounds beautiful partly BECAUSE it is all about ME ME ME.
But this is not the solace I promised earlier. Why not? Because this idea is what Foucault is railing against. The idea, that we are here to become ourselves, poetic as it sounds, assumes there IS some core to us. It assumes some nascent character that COULD just become MORE SO as we move through life. As we have seen, Foucault holds that there is no such core. Instead, of some internal call, from you, to you, there is the call of ideology. We LOVE the idea of calls from us to us, cos of the whole individualism thing. The call of ideology seems horrible in comparison, but that makes perfect sense given our values.
In any case, the call – not from within, but from without, is a call to be a certain kind of “self” – one that fits within ideology, and that perpetuates it. Our selves are thus pruned and cut back when they don’t perform the things they are meant to – if our selves don’t conform to norms and expectations and condoned ways of being in the world.
As Lasch points out, under western capitalist culture, which is to say, under covert narcissistic power, we are CALLED to be a self that is NOT about authentic connection. A self that embodies narcissistic values. We are called to be a self that psychology would call a FALSE self. A self that is all about image.
A self that is all about control.
Because that is what is required to survive within the values of the system.
It sounds like we are fuckin' DOOMED, doesn’t it.
So it really is high time for that bit of good news I have been promising all this time. The first sigh of relief you might get, cos it means you DO have a certain kind of out. A small one. More like a sidestep than an out, if I am honest, but it can be the difference between total capitulation to all this and not. It can be the difference between developing what gets labelled NPD and not. So it’s a big enough deal.
Your Imperfection Will Save You
It turns out that we, as human beings, are imperfect. No shit! You know already! Why is it relevant? One, cos it is obviously TRUE. Or once, I don’t think I need to spend 20 minutes backing that up. Two, because the fact of our imperfection means we are not perfect at internalising what society and it’s various institutions and power structures tell us to. Our imperfection can be the very thing that stops us from becoming incapable of connection – as those with full blown NPD are.
So let's expand on what is probably the opposite of what most teachers told you! The fact that you, me and the vast majority of people are SHIT at something is our saving grace. May it really hit home this time when I say “embrace your imperfections!”
This comes from Althussers’ work, by the way. Dodgy as he was on many levels, Althusser makes it clear that there’s always a gap between what society, it’s institutions and sets of values, ask of us, and how fully we actually manage to take it in. He argues that our imperfections — our failure to fully internalize the demands of society — can actually be a form of subtle resistance.
In his view, ideology – the shared values, beliefs and ideas that make up a culture or society– are not just something we absorb perfectly. It’s something we do internalize, but imperfectly, due to what he calls our “natural contradictions.”
I had to think about this myself for a while, but it’s a fair point. We value consistency, and strive for it in our system, but really, believing we are is another of the mirages of perfection we create to appear good enough. Personally, I have realised, I am a walking sack of contradictions, and because I am not that unusual, it is likely that this is typically human. I will even tell you some of them, in the name of not pretending to be perfect.
I rail against diet culture. I mean, I fucking HATE diet culture, and I yet I say “no” to fish and chips. I LOVE fish and chips, but I am worried I will put on weight. Contradiction!! I also HATE being interpreted as a woman – I like to remain unclassifiable as a reminder to people NOT to put others in boxes. But here - look at me putting in fuck all effort, most of the time, to dress in way that might make me more unclassifiable. Contradiction!!
The point is, our propensity to natural contradictions means we aren’t fully absorbed into the system. That gap between what is demanded of us, and what we are capable of getting right, is resistance via glorious fallibility. That fallibility can allow space for empathy, for connection, for authenticity. So say YAY to our incompetence and our lack of consistency. Seriously. And it might sound amusing, but to illustrate exactly the point of this podcast – as you know from the previous post, I grew up in a not one, but two NPD household. If I was a more COMPETENT person, it is likely that, by now, I would be a seriously massive asshole.
Thanks to our glorious ability to fuck things up, some of us can’t shut off empathy. Yeah, that societally disadvantageous knowledge that others actually have feelings too, and that they are actually effected by our actions. That thing that is really a deciding factor in whether or not we do develop NPD, or even psychopathy.
Empathy As Pathology in Narcissistic Systems
Someone did comment on empathy under one of my YouTube videos. What they said is a good example of how value systems operate to perpetuate themselves in our culture, so I will share this too. I’ll call him Sven for anonymity, cos I don’t have anything against him, and you will see why in a sec.
Sven commented that empathy was the result of childhood trauma. In other words, Sven wanted to PATHOLOGISE empathy. Now I’m fairly sure that Sven believed his comment sounded clever and risqué, and maybe it does. BUT, here’s the thing - Sven was doing exactly what one would expect in of someone who has internalised the values we are meant to internalise under western capitalism. He was protecting those values he had internalised. It’s something I posted about in my 6th post – how we label what is opposite to our ideals “sick” or “wrong.” Sven was labelling empathy sick and wrong. Given that rationality is valued and emotions are de-valued, and that needing others is seen as weak in narcissistic/ read western, culture, it is not surprising or new that Sven had come to see empathy as pathological. Sven had simply internalised the system somewhat more competently than others of us do. Sven helped me see where that system even leads – to a total pathologization of that which is vital to holding us together.
But I don’t want to digress too far. For those of us who are a bit less competent than Sven, you likely feel, on some visceral level, that being the lone wolf hero, in control, rational at all times and consistently non-empathetic... feels unfulfilling. Instead, you (and I) still search for connection.
Dear listener, that is what Althusser is talking about. It is that beautiful saving incompetence in a system that reifies individualism and the hero narrative, that condemns emotion and empathy. We are here talking about loneliness, and how to connect, cos we DIDN'T get it right in terms of what is being demanded of us.
There is also more good news. Well, good ENOUGH news. But first we have to revisit false selves – because that still is what covert narcissitic systems, like our society, produce and demand.
The Falsehood of False Selves.
As we’ve established, not everyone exposed to narcissistic systems becomes a narcissist. But, as Foucault and Marx would argue, none of us can really emerge as a “true” self. Foucault even suggests that the concept of a true self is a myth. To reiterate his quote:
“The individual is not to be conceived as a sort of elementary nucleus, a primitive atom… he is already a product of power.”
But therein lies the solace. If we can’t even BE a true self, under any system, as in narcissistic or lovely, why even worry about having a "false self"? To answer that, let’s first take a deeper look at what is even meant by false selves. I am going to argue that the main concern is not that we have a false self, because they are inevitable. The problem is when those false selves disconnect us from each other. This is about solutions to loneliness, after all, so that is the crux point.
The concept of the false self was introduced by psychologists like Kohut, Winnicott, and Miller. For them, the false self arises when narcissistic systems, both familial and societal, shape us into the roles they need us to play. It’s often described as a mask — a version of ourselves that we present to the world in response to external pressures. Given what Foucault says about there not being a true self anyway, I think that calling them modes of being is more accurate, but we’ll stick to “masks” and “false selves” for the sake of clarity. The kind of false selves power forms in us can have different motivations, depending on the individual.
Miller’s version of the false self is one that seeks connection, driven by a desire to be seen, validated, and loved. As this false self does seek connection, we are going to bracket why it’s deemed problematic for a sec.
Kohut’s false self is more aligned with what we associate with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and seeks to control. In that extreme case, for Kohut, the mask isn’t just a survival mechanism, it becomes a way of life. This false self becomes a protective armour to hide vulnerability and maintain an image of superiority.
Psychology argues that those with NPD may not even be AWARE they are wearing a mask. They believe the false persona they’ve created IS their true self. Meanwhile, Miller’s version of the false self is generally considered more self-aware, recognizing that the mask is a performance — something to fulfil external expectations, but with an underlying yearning for real, authentic connection. Psychology states that both versions of the false self share the same fundamental problem: alienation from the “true” self. That is, disconnection from the self – which is acknowledged as the root of disconnection from others.
But here is where psychology's’ own approach is problematic. Firstly, psychology sees the false self as a thwarting of some true self that we would NORMALLY get to become. For Foucault, we don’t get to be a true self in ANY system, cos the self itself is shaped by power, in whatever form that system adopts. But we will stick to the system we are in. In both narcissistic family systems and capitalist society, we’re still ALL expected to play roles — whether that’s the "golden child," the "scapegoat," the dutiful worker, the ideal consumer, the good father, the law abiding citizen and so on.
So having a kind of “false self” is NOT some rare, pathological event. It is something that happens to everyone. It is the required adaptation to the system. It is a universal process, one that all of us go through. So having a so-called false self is not pathological. It is the NORM – so it makes no sense to say some set of behaviours is pathological BECAUSE it involves a “false” self.
Now, psychology COULD suggest that the pathological aspect hinges on the fact that those with NPD don’t KNOW they have a false self. But this is problematic too. As we have seen, Millers “false self” IS aware. Quite apart from that, I know people who certainly do not have NPD, but who are none the less unaware that we are shaped in ways that push us to wear masks. They are unaware that many of their preferences are not their own, or that we are pushed to act out roles we may otherwise not act out. Also, if you kick around in the blog-space on narcissism, you too will know of people WITH NPD who ARE aware of what is going on with them.
In end effect, the fact of roles, masks, modes of being and false selves is unavoidable, so it cant be pathology. The real issue is actually DISCONNECTION. As Millers “false self” demonstrates this beautifully too. Millers false self is one that frames its actions SOLELY on what others want from them, in order to get “Love”. But, as opposed to those with NDP, they experience a deep longing for the kind of connection where they are being seen AS WELL. Those with NPD? Well, they are so possessed by the curation of their image that they cannot see outside of themselves, or acknowledge others AS others, with needs and separate characters.
BOTH of those false selves are cut off from intimacy, not because they ARE false selves, but because of the nature of those false selves. Think about the definition of intimacy – looking into one another. Being open TO one another, and curious enough to see into the other, whilst not losing sight of yourself. Millers’ false self only looks outwards, ignoring it’s own needs. Kohuts false self looks only inwards, tending to it’s image and internal narrative. NEITHER can get on that two way street that would lead to personal exchanges and intimacy.
THAT is the crux of the issue. When these masks, these so-called false selves, become all consuming enough that half of us are blinded to any other (those who develop serous self-centredness) and half of us ONLY pay attention to the other. There is only ONE WAY SIGHT.
If You Can't Be A Good Example, Be A Terrifying Warning.
All of this means that NPD and false selves, as defined by psychology, have had the lesson they offer hidden. NPD should not serve as a commentary on whether or not you are your “true self” or not. What it SHOULD serve as is a warning. We miss the lesson in NPD if we see it as pure pathology. Like we can miss the lesson in stuff like wars and hate crime if we don’t recognise the fact that we too are capable of all that bad shit. We need to own “our” propensity to act in such ways. I say “our” in quote marks because this does not come from us, but from that emergent property of humanities clustering together over time that we call society.
Even though we’re not all narcissists, we DO all live in a society that pushes us toward that same kind of performance. Ideology permeates us ALL, and that ideology is itself narcissistic. Capitalism socializes ALL of us into roles: we become workers, consumers, competitors, the “ideal” man or woman. These roles aren’t something we freely choose. They are something we must take on in order to function within society. If we don’t? We risk becoming invisible, irrelevant, or even broken.
This is the lesson: if we do what those with NPD are said to, meaning internalize societal values too efficiently, we risk becoming consumed by the roles we perform. We risk blindness to a way of being that inherently alienates us from our ability to connect. Those with NPD are deemed unable to connect authentically because their identity is entirely wrapped up in the image they project. They are entirely possessed by the curation of their Self. They cannot let down the mask because they fear it is the only thing keeping them afloat. This intense performance creates a deep emotional isolation – for them, and for anyone around them.
In short, a key aspect in the solution to loneliness is recognising the extent to which we’re playing roles.
When we see that we are encouraged to form an identity based around a mask – and ALL Of us are - that awareness can mean our mask becomes just that – something we can drop when it is needed. That is resistance in itself. Falling into roles and condoned ways of being might be inevitable, at least in our time, BUT, knowing how it happens means those things wont completely define us. When we are aware that all this stuff is just part of what we present to the world, we can busy ourselves with looking beneath the tip of the iceberg – our on and everyone else's.
I say all this because feeling empty, unworthy, and desperate for validation is by no means exclusive to those with NPD. In fact, given all of what’s been said today, it would be kinda weird if someone DIDN'T feel any of that stuff, at least sometimes. Growing up in a narcissistic system makes those kind of feelings almost unavoidable. And remember what Lasch said. Wider society IS a narcissistic system.
RESISTANCE: Seeing the System Inside the Self
Psychology often labels us as "broken" when we don’t meet some idealized version of who we’re supposed to be. We're told there's a "true self" we're supposed to uncover. But the truth? That "true self" is a myth. We don’t just become who we are in some abstract, romanticized way. We become who we need to be — we adapt, imperfectly, to survive in systems that pressure us to fit into roles that don't allow for true connection.
These roles, whether in narcissistic families or capitalist societies, aren’t things we choose freely — they're imposed on us. Society demands we become workers, consumers, ideal men or women, and so on. These roles limit us, damage us, and disconnect us from our deeper selves and from others. But here's the transformative part:
Once we recognize that we’ve been shaped by these systems, we can begin to question the masks we wear. We stop seeing them as our identity and start seeing them for what they are — survival mechanisms. This awareness opens the door to authentic connection, because when we let go of the roles society forced on us, we can finally begin to define ourselves differently.
And the beauty in this recognition? It's our imperfections that give us the space to connect. Our failure to perfectly internalize societal ideals is the very thing that frees us. We’re not fully moulded into the roles we’re assigned, and that’s a good thing. It means we’re not trapped. The system doesn’t have the last word. We still have the power to break free — even if it’s only in small ways.
But here’s where it gets tricky: Society and psychology gaslight us into thinking we’re the problem. We’re told that if we don’t fit the mould, something’s wrong with us. But the real problem isn’t us — it’s the system that demands we conform. The "false self" isn’t pathological, it’s adaptive. It's how we survive in a world that leaves no room for authenticity.
The danger comes when we internalize these demands too perfectly. That’s the warning of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: if we lose ourselves completely in performance, we risk emotional isolation. But we don’t have to fall into that trap.
So, while we all wear masks, it’s not because we’re broken — it’s because we were forced to. And the more we recognize these masks for what they are, the closer we get to true connection — with ourselves and with others.
Finally, the other warning. Much as NPD teaches us a useful lesson, let it be taught from afar. As you have seen and heard from my own experiences in narcissistic families, and doubtless seen on other channels, those with the disorder are those who cannot and will not be able to offer you the connection you seek. They may become self-aware, yes, and all my respect to them when they do. But until they do, and until many years of work as gone into that, you will only perpetuate your disconnection by being anywhere near them. Leave. For support on that, check out Dr. Ramani and some of the other podcasts I will be posting in the note. For insights into it, check out Raw Motivations and Lee Hammock, two self aware narcissists.
Thanks for reading, and see you next post!