Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Narcissism considered normal?
This article is ostensibly about narcissism and its removal from the manual of mental disorders, but it seems to be more about the effects of celebrity. It may help you when responding to look up the Wikipedia article on narcissism to find out what the psychological pathology entails. Also look at the comments below the article, some of which are quite interesting. Three obvious questions come to mind. Should it be considered a mental disorder or just a personality trait? Are we really living in more narcissistic times than in the past? Finally, do the pressures of celebrity and fame and the unnatural nature of such lifestyles automatically lead to a deformed or distorted personality, or does someone seeking such fame already have these problems?
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Frankly I thought this article to be a little over exaggerated. Narcissism is and always was a part of our lives. Everyone is avare of that much. We can find it literally everywhere we look. I would even dare to say that it’s healthy to be narcisstic, but of course to a reasonable extent. We should like and support ourselves because when we do, life comes a lot easier for us.
ReplyDeleteOf course on the other hand narcissism can be a lot more complicated than that. I admit that in some rare extreme cases it really can be included as a mental disorder but otherwise it’s just nothing more than a personality trait. The celebrities are no exception because the reason behind their strange behaviour is usually money. And the same goes for the fame-obsessed people who’s only goal is to be recognized by preferably the largest group of people they can get their hands on. Let’s be real for a minute, they just want to be rich. Well most of them anyway.
I really liked one comment below this article which stated that there is a difference between mental disorder and a character flaw and that people are just putting a medical label on character flaws, so that they could excuse themselves and their behaviour even though they could change if they really wanted to.
Maria Dudakova