Yesterday and today were almost totally dedicated to the Eulogies of Aretha Franklin and John Mccain. They gave some ideas and though they could be shared with others

In the last few days a great singer and a very distinguished politician died in the USA. It is natural that the whole nation felt sad for the loss. All nations feel the same in losses of that nature. Aretha Franklin and John McCain were, with no doubt, at the top of their areas of activity. They also exceeded the limits of their excellence and affected their country in general. This is expected of people with their gifts and character.  But, the degree and the way a nation mourns is indicative of other things than just experiencing the loss.

The USA has dozens of great singers, and among them at least a dozen with a different skin colour. In its house of representatives and the Senates there are tens of distinguished members who did not have the chance to shine because of the glare of other more popular members. The American nation is reacting to its loss as if the country is sinking and looking for straws to hang on to for fear of drawing. Is there any rationalization for those unreasonable exaggerated reactions to the country’s loss? Realistically, there is no reason for that sense of desperation that is mixed with adulation, especially that it is done with subtle and no so subtle narcissistic derivatives. This last observation is important to keep in mind.

Every citizen obtains some narcissistic support from his social affiliations as his nationality or his profession, etc. That portion of personal narcissism mixes with social narcissism to build a stable character. But if the main source of narcissism comes from social narcissism we will be facing a volatile identity (ies). Two things worth mentioning in that regard: the reaction to personal narcissistic mortification is not anger; it is rage. The mortification of socially based narcissism is social unrest that reaches in many occasions the state of war. Wars are only possible when there is social narcissistic sense of neglect and injury. It easy then to understand that some people join the Nazi party or the White Supremacy Clans. In the south of the USA most the members of those organizations are people who have little personal attributes to be proud of. The most seriously dangerous aspect in that kind of narcissism is mixing it with issues of ‘principles’, ‘history’ and ‘values’. They are the magical mirror that reflects an exaggerated sense of envy, impotence and importance too.

That is what is noticeable in eulogizing John McCain and Aretha Franklin.

The USA has been experiencing some difficulties with its social narcissism since the end of WWII, and in a concrete way since 1963 when Europe imitated the EU. As Europe was building its own social narcissism, and East Asia doing the same, the US was changing. The US was going through a significant and very healthy change that was getting her out of sick stagnation founded on self deception regarding ‘social narcissism’. Self deception is the remedy to failure of narcissism in providing imaginary superiority. The eulogies of the two departing great Americans were and are still full of seduction to regress to social narcissism.

This is where I believe there is a looming danger. Trump warned of “violence” if his status is touched. He is right. His base has nothing to be proud of except their defiance of the obvious incompetence of their leader. The forces of change are not announcing the reality of their intentions and the forces against change are denying the reality of change and its inevitability. Here I have to bring to the argument somethings that are never mentioned in their context: Violence in the US has been increasing steadily as social and not individual trends. The expansion of the right to own assault weapons, mass shooting, shooting helpless students, police brutality with some minorities, wars abroad that has been going on close to two decades and looking for new fronts to wage more wars, and the tendency of some unlawful ideological to be socially expressed under the first amendment umbrella. All that makes even Trump’s warning of violence has credence.

It is imperative and timely that the professionals in the mental health professions give most of their attention to social psychopathology even if they are not trained to do that. They are part of the educated American body and should forget their professional narcissism and be just decent American narcissistic intellectuals.