Social Narcissism and Social Phenomena:

In the process of psychoanalysis both analyst and patient have to progress to when they will notice, in the associations, a fusion of wish and fantasy. A wish is a direct expression of the speaker, but the fantasies about the wish are referrals to the speaker. “I wanted to tell him off is different from I looked for ways to let him know how I feel". However, most of the time the speech of the patient does not show if he is aware of his wish or only capable of turning it into a fantasy that he could  act it out (or not capable of more than daydreaming that).The gradual appearance of that fusion in the patient's speech is the sign that the analytic work  has started. Gradually too, the analyst manages to distinguish between the patient talking to him or talking to the analyst about himself. Reaching that point is necessary for the act of interpretation to gain its therapeutic effect. [Within the limitations of my knowledge this issue is not always discussed as a theoretical issue, but is dealt with in in supervision].

Talking to express a subjective matter is different from talking about a subjective matter to inform about it. “I did not want to come to the session this afternoon is not the same as I was tempted to cancel my session. A wish expresses a sense of being: I wish I was there or I wish I am not here. This states the wish directly. But saying it is frustrating that I could not be there is talking about me the frustrated one and not of his wish. When the subject slips into being an object to talk about- even to himself- he is then in a state of narcissism. We should always keep in mind that narcissism is a problem in the relationship of the subject with his image (an object) as the case is in the original myth of Narcissus. The libido theory of narcissism is a fantasy about it (something called libido will explain things to us).

The sense of fulfillment or frustration of a wish instigates a process of fantasizing the wish. Thus, the wish and its phantasy constitute the typical duality of the narcissistic condition: I or me (my image) are fulfilled or frustrated. The core of the complexity of the narcissistic state lies in how the subject acquires his image (s). The infant gets his image from the way his mother (in particular) treats him. It takes few years and a good mother for the child to build his own identity and keep his image under his own  check and control. Mostly, the subject gets his image from others, thus the subject’s image, which is the basis of his identity, has a core of fallacy that has to be corrected by the subject over the years (or by a psychoanalyst for years). Living and believing in the reality of the acquired identity from the others makes the subject, in many cases, a stranger to his true self. The result- a universal result- is that people search for other identities that could confirm the individual’s identity and complement it. Those identities are social identities (Father, Analyst, Canadian, Moslem, Socialist, etc.) Therefore, my identity as a psychoanalyst is a social identity that provides me with a sense of belonging, when my identity is not enough to identify me. We should not miss that a social identity has its narcissistic quality too. What complicates matters- in that regard- is the degree of dependency on the social narcissistic identity to get from it a sense value. We differ in the social narcissistic identities that we created and added to our original identity, and mostly in the degree of dependency on them to build our fundamental narcissistic structure.  It has to be mentioned, at this point, that an unconscious process of identifying with certain characters (persons) who gained a reputation of fame in social sphere we want to belong gives social narcissism its positive or negative quality. The extreme example in that regard is the religious identity. It is the most irrational in all the aspects mentioned above.

Saying all that in the more familiar language of psychoanalysis I would say: the psychoanalytic process starts when the patient realizes that sometimes he talks about himself and sometimes he talks directly as his self, and that the occasional fusion of the two selves say something else to the listener.

Recognizing the fusion of wish and fantasy (narcissism) usually happens in an early phase in the analysis, but it depends on the patient and to a larger degree on the analyst's experience. They should both arrive to that point together. It is usually characterized by an increase in misunderstandings, frustration and anger, and the emerging of rich transferiantial material. The reason is discovering that many old believes are doubtful, rigid self-perceptions are questionable, erroneous understandings of certain aspects of the events of one's daily life, but most of all, realizing that continuing living the past in the future is not an option, i.e., psychoanalysis is not psychotherapy of few flaws in the person but a process of freeing the patient from his fixations of the past. It is a stage that is reached in different speeds and successes by both patients and analysts depending on their nature, and to a larger degree to the analyst's ability to "be the analyst of that specific patient".

It is relevant now to mention here something is usually bypassed: analysts, whatever their experience, develop (unintentionally) some wishes and corresponding fantasies about their therapy and patients. They have to keep autoanalysis parallel and active to the analysis of each patient to avoid or minimize the interference of those wishes with the status of neutrality required for good psychoanalysis. This point was not highlighted enough in the discussions of the problems of the training analyst last year. In personal analysis the candidate -the presumed patient- has an undeclared wish with its own fantasies related to becoming an analyst. This wish conflicts with the wish for a therapeutic process. The training analyst could unconsciously be in that same boat and ignores the candidate’s idealization of him and do not analyze the neurotic nature of that idealization. 

The gist of the matter is that in any process of change, social or individual phenomena, we encounter "resistance" to change, because change is experienced as conflict between two wishes: one demanding immediate gratification and another requesting delaying that gratification. Although the psychology of the individual- deceptively- seems good enough to apply to the psychology of the social, it is a mirror image of it: it is its exact opposite (what is on the right in one is on the left in the other). In individual phenomenon, the personal identity with all its narcissistic qualities mobilizes the social identities to services it, while when the social identity is narcissistically injured it feels as if the personal identity is the one targeted. 

So, keeping in mind that the social phenomenon that makes Trump and mass shootings possible in the USA has a psychological interpretation but it is not related to our usual conceptions of motives, drives, and psychical mechanisms. Therefore, it is imperative to give the background of those social phenomena that are possibly acting behind the scene in that case. My summary of that social phenomena is likely to be unagreeable to some; I hope that people will not forget that I am dealing with social narcissism.

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 It is almost a universal phenomenon that individuals find in the identity of their countries a good support for their individual identities and their other minor social identities. It goes without saying that the dynamics of a national identity will not be stable and permanent because it reflects the historical phase the country that is going through. A country that build its identity on its military abilities and provide its subject with narcissistic support based on that distinction, is likely to lose that attribute either with changes in the importance of military strength in a later period of history or the emergence of other military powers.  The social identity of Germany before WWII was different from after the war. Nevertheless, some Germans remained identified with their country in the same manner regardless of the changes to its image. 

 The world entered a new era of evolution since the end of WWII. Political, social, economic and racial conflicts are no longer resolved by wars. The existence of the atomic weapons is a factor in that reality, but there is a new factor to consider. War was justified by the creation of enemies and the existence of imaginary competitions that usually lurked somewhere in the wrinkles of history. A good example of such old competitions and their irrational continuation is an old book (1835), by Alexis de Tocqueville (French Sociologist), entitled “Democracy in America”. He compares in it the two systems of governing in the USA and Tsarist Russia. He concluded that democracy the USA will prevail over Russia’s system. The competitions between the old empires (Russia, Hapsburg, British and the Ottoman) was the secret hobby of the politicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and they played-with them- the games of enemies and allies and created the first and second world wars.

In spite of the international nature of that war it still settled- mainly in the Western World - on the exact concept of an old Russian empire replaced by the USSR, and the USA replacing the empires of the West (Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, etc.). Russia was a dangerous enemy before but was an ally in the WWII. Nevertheless, she was given back its status as an enemy (having or creating an enemy is a way of identifying a country: opposites!!). Churchill’s famous statement that 'We should build an iron curtain around the USSR to stop it from invading our world with communism" shows that social identities were founded on fictitious animosities and childish senses of superiority. The same thing happened in the East where there was a similar paranoid attitude that the Capitalists wanted to drown the great socialist revolution. Our great politicians, East and West created for the world very confusing narcissisms and insisted on imagining that they will continue running the world according to their personal identities.

However, societies change without the permission of the individuals. The Iron Curtain was supposed to protect the West from the East, yet growing up in the post WWII environment I witnessed the gradual change in this formula to be totally reversed by the early fifties of last century. The Iron Curtain was said to be built by the Russians to hide their terrible ruling of the USSR, and to stop the west from tempting the poor eastern oppressed people of revolting. However, social change happened in the East and West equally and concomitantly. The language of animosity between the two camps changed from ethnic and nationalistic attributes to ideological and moral identities. Instead of the usual love and hate of being German, Balkan, or Moslems they changed to be love and hate of being socialist, communist, labral, conservative, etc. This change confused the originally simple social narcissistic identities. It became difficult for the ordinary person in the street how to define himself or his political affiliation: American, Westerner, Capitalist or republican, because an American could not be a Democrat without being considered anti basic American values.  New terms were created to solve the problem of affiliations and identities by assigning new meanings to the new mixed and confusing narcissistic social identities. Tom Gould, a famous Canadian broadcaster in the seventies divided the world into the Free world and the Communist world. Sometimes he just called the west the Civilized world indirectly identifying the East as the uncivilized. The fact of the matter is that the WWII created a state of political confusion about who is the enemy and who is the Allie, which required a rearrangement of the political minds of people. Politicians-in the USA- proved to be quite limited in their knowledge of the emanating of the new terminology. Recently, Obama and Sanders seem to be the only two who know what they are talking about despite their different political stands.

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After the WWII the US was the only country in the world that had an economy, an army, a functioning government, industry, and could feed itself. USA lived for a long time enjoying the identity bestowed on her by "the other", and looked at its wish for greatness as a fantasy that became reality. The identity of the leader of the free, civilized world and the West as whole was taken by the Americans as a fact that does not need phantasies. Despite its concrete reality it was still a creation of 'the other' who dealt with it as a definition of her own reality too (being not great anymore). So, the world advanced its wishes and its fantasies; revived its potentials and wished and fantasied catching up with the USA (with the help of the USA) . In other word, the US took that bestowed- upon identity as fact not just a product of a historical moment. Eventually Europe (Russia, Japan, China) realized the fusion between their wishes and fantasies, and started reviving their dormant narcissism. The European thinkers and politicians (the psychoanalysts of the society) helped in making the wish master its fantasy, because they were politically quite knowledgeable and savvy and did not rely on their knowledge alone to free the wish from its fantasy. Ironically, the best and most effective ideology they used was the Marxist doctrine and the movers of European politics were the communist and the social democratic parties. European democracy, which is older and more sophisticated than its equivalent in the USA, emerged from the ciaos, and the West brought back the Parliamentary system of governing. Europe, Russia, China and many smaller countries freed themselves from the past and move to the future. The USA got absorbed in the fantasy of the wish of greatness and lived it as an unquestionable reality; and reality is not liable to change.  

It is peculiar that the advantages the USA had over the whole world after the war was being free from the weight of a long and established past (young history), which made her more progressive, free and keen to try new things. In my neck of the world growing up the USA was the ideal country because it was free and uninhibited. Then, the USA proved, in different ways, how it idealizes its very early days of forming the country.  Instead of getting in details all American know well, and I only I know it as a foreigner, I will just mention the warning flag that is raised by Americans to Americans whenever a demand to give up something old and adopt something new: OUR OLD FATHERS. To put it in a clear and definitive form. The main and important advantage the US had over the rest of the world- as we thought- is readiness and ability to change.

This introduction brings us to two serious aspects in the narcissistic base of the American identity: refusal and rejection of the notion that the US is not the greatest and better country anymore, and self deception that it still is. Self deception is concomitant of narcissistic mortification. The way it happens is when the subject realizes that he was not aware of self deception he insists on the deception and even exaggerates it to ‘negate’ its falseness. It was noticeable that in the last ten years, especially after nine-eleven presidents and politician were exaggerating the usage of the US is the Greatest………… Even Obama, who is the most sophisticated of them did that several times when he was facing some “un-narcissistic” events like police abuse of powers.  

  

All those details are of no value if they do not lead to the specific purpose of this posting: Why mass shooting and the election of someone like Trump are products of a social phenomenon that caused American a narcissistic injury?

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The gradual changes in the international political scene in the last thirty years witnessed the rise of Europe in a different shape, China relinquished the economy of Marxism, Russia followed suite and Japan regained its international status. Those national entities developed themselves to be great. In other terms the USA lost its status as the greatest but remained to be great and maybe the greatest among greats. Some politicians in the USA- mostly conservatives in the European political lingua and republicans in American vocabulary- understood that as demoting the USA. In fact, the republican president who witnessed the rise of Russia (R. Regan) considered the event of Russia becoming part of the greatness of the twenty first century an American victory. The whole matter in its basic and fundamental nature is putting order in the disorder that resulted from WWI. In spite of everything the USA still considers itself the leader of the Western World, and the enemy of communism the defender against it (communism does not exist anymore). The American Social Narcissism is shaken, threatened, and threatening.

Before reaching a conclusion about that change and using it to explain the link between mass shooting and the election of Trump it is imperative to highlight that not all American are affected by loosing the identity of the greatest the same way or to the same degree. The old USA is dying but a new USA is being born, a fact that pleases many and upsets many. Trump’s base is upset, very upset by that change. However, the supporters of this new change are still unable to replace the old with remedy. This leads us toe the link between Trumpism and mass shooting.

In state if narcissistic pain the phantasy prevails over the wish because the concerns about having to give up the wish if it is found that is no longer realistic to hang on to it. The result is and the tendency to regress, which fantasies encourage and support, and to replace the defeat with a strong sense of omnipotence. Put differently: narcissistic mortification results in regression allowed by fantasy life that replaces the reality of the wish, thus the subject lives a sense of omnipotence that replaces the reality of defeat.

Both mass shooting and electing Trump share a common base: narcissistic loss, rage at the loss, regression to fantasies of omnipotence, acting them out.

I would like to conclude this posting by reminding of the reverse mirror image of the psychology of the subject and the psychology of the social. The individual gets narcissistically hurt when the ‘other’ tinkers with his image and he loses or has to modify his fantasy about his wish. The society gets narcissistically hurt when it’s wish does not generate the usual fantasies of superiority, omnipotence, and encourages regression.