B. Some of the Constituents of Narcissism:

We should not expect narcissism to be a simple psychical entity that has  a simple structure. It is a psychical entity that anyway we look at it (cause or effect) we find ourselves unable to come to a satisfying conclusion about it.

Narcissism is not a term created by psychoanalysis. Its parallels are part of human language since God bestowed on Adam the special status of being different from the rest of his creations. However, analysts, as usual, assume the right to explain anything that pertain to the subject’s psyche. Thus, it became imperative that the term, which Freud coined to mean self- partiality (adulation), has to get a place in our endeavours to explain ourselves (because no other animal is suspect of narcissism). But analysts- did not pay the attention needed to question narcissism: is narcissism a psychical condition created by something else or is it a condition that creates other psychical conditions? A hasty answer to this question would ignore, neglect, or just avoid facing the fact that we do not know yet.

Narcissism is the central issue in our sense of being and also any deviations in that important psychical condition. Our sense of being is narcissistic because it is basically ‘knowing that we know that we are existing’. Narcissus had to exist first for the reflection of his image on the surface of the pond had to materialize in front of him. In other terms, our sense of being could be a result of the nature of our awareness (consciousness of consciousness), or maybe homosapiens sense of being leads to consciousness of consciousness. The dilemma is which causes the other. This question pertains to the issue of structuralism (the nature of the issue) not functionalism (cause-effect and which comes first) because we need to know first what are the constituents of a narcissistic state to decide what is cause and what is the effect of that cause.

The Structural Quality of Narcissism:

Interpreting signs of narcissism in libidinal terms usually misses several features that are most basic and intriguing in that psychical condition. Although underlining those features will get the approval of most psychoanalysts, they will still remain doubtful of explaining or elucidating them because psychoanalysts are accustomed to discover causation within the structure of any psychical feature and not visa versa. An example is dream interpretation: in the Irma dream Freud revealed a wish that he tried to prove it to be accountable for the ‘dream scene’. However, the wish did not explain the dream even after identifying it; it could be said that the wish just initiated that particular dream scene. Therefore, restructuring -building up- narcissism from its content or components is the way to understand it. This is the reason I think the libidinal explanation of narcissisms is useless and is actually distracting from understanding it.

I will start by specifying four features that even ordinary people would relate to narcissism. They are features that I find to be obvious and available for direct observation:

1.There is no narcissism (self- love) that is not accompanied by hate for a counterpart of the self, in the form of another person or thing. 2. If the narcissistic proclivity is reversed for a reason or without an obvious reason the hated person or subject becomes charged with an exaggerated degree of admiration and love (hate becomes adoration). 3. A strong tendency to exaggerate and over “libidinize” positive and negative affects in regard to the narcissistic issue or object. 4. Volatility of relations in which the object of the feeling or emotions is volatile but the intensity of the feeling remains dominant.   

Considering those four features (and maybe few more that other analyst could come up with) show in a simple and direct way that racism in general, the social history of racism, the opinions about the reactions to racism among blacks and whites (persecutor\persecuted) or social discrimination in any form it  takes are product of narcissism. I can now take this statement a step further and say: any social discrimination (gender, sex, class or race) is a matter of narcissism, in which a group does not feel good about another group claiming the right to be equal to their group.

It is the right place to add another idea in regard to the ‘narcissistic hurt response’ the prevailing race (or group) goes through. The gradual loss of the privileges becomes a wall of resistance to give up narcissism when the unprivileged prove without any doubt that they have caught up (sometimes surpass) with privileged adversaries. There is no doubt that Blacks in the USA have caught up with the whites in every aspect of daily life. Therefore, whites are no longer able to expect the inequality to continue a little longer till a total matching is achieve. Copying from A. Richards “Quote for the Day” (without permission) Malcom X said: “When we see that our problem is so complicated and so all-encompassing in its intent and content, then we realize that it is no longer a Negro problem, confined only to the American Negro; that it is no longer an American problem, confined only to America, but it is a problem for humanity."

What Malcom X is saying is clear: Racism is a problem with the human subject and his psychical nature. Therefore, I strongly believe that narcissism is not an individual condition. It is part of social phenomena.