Narcissm in Politics

I received two very pertinent responses to my last posting: the first was a question about a possible similarity between a human and a major social phenomenon like an Empire. The issue was: since we individuals have a curve of life could empires also have a life curve that brings it to aging that ends with its death? The second was regarding possible deteriorations and restorations within the life span of one cycle of an empire. My point of view is that empires could exhibit such similarities to the individual, but when we look for the causes in both we find out a basic difference: in the case of the individual, the causes of death are understandable (dysfunction of organs, or the disturbance of certain interconnected physical functions resulting in the failure of what sustains life in the person.

In social phenomena, such as empires, a dysfunctional system of government affects another system of government almost like what happens in individuals’ death. Yet, the collapse of the empire is usually and clearly the people and not the systems that bring an empire down. The dysfunction of the empirical tools affects the psychology of its people; thus, the collapse of controlling the Suisse Canal in Egypt hit the narcissism of the Brits as a whole, and their individual sense of greatness was shaken by the military’s defeat in Port Said in 1956. However, there is a link between the individual and society just in the sphere of narcissism. Changes in the narcissistic structure of the I John (the person) and ME the known physician could be taken to correspond to I Great Britain and the Undefeated Army.

The gradual widening of the gap between the subjective identity (I) and the objective identity ((M) was instrumental in making both people in Great Britain and in India ready for to demise of the British Empire. More so, the collapse of Great Britain itself was a result of the liberation or semi-liberation of its own people with the birth of the Labor Party. The problems with the surface of internal conflicts within the ethnicities in Great Britain exposed some cracks in its social identity. The difference in that regard looks as if it pertains to issues related mainly to narcissism. I did not mean that social phenomena are the result of the psychological problems (narcissism) of its populations. What I meant is that what causes a person’s psychological death is something internal like failing to gain recognition. What causes an empire to fall is something external as defeat or failure to support itself. This is proven in some clear cases. The Chinese empire almost died two or three times during its span of life, but was revived by its own people (not foreigners) to continue uninterrupted. The same with the Early Egyptian empires that went through three episodes known as the First Empire, the Second, and the Third. Therefore, the answer is that Early Empires were not comparable or compatible with anything similar, so there was that silent state of narcissism that guided their progress and death. But there was a history of empires that the issue of narcissism became a new factor.

Narcissism is the cardinal condition of psychological death. After years of Narcissus just knowing that he is “I” Narcissus, he saw that the I has an image (Like the child who realizes that he has an image of “the Me” that his mother has given him. As Narcissus discovered that he has an image he was mesmerized and drowned to die… the I Am gave way to this is me  (psychological death of the subject happens when the me takes over the I). In Empires, Narcissism is based on “This is us”, the strongest, the most intelligent, the most demographic, etc., we are the American of the USA (for instance). I am American becomes confusing because it was formulated as so in the time when ME of that time has passed. The notion is that group and social narcissism are based -in most cases- on the idea that we are not anything else, but we are our am’s. (ego). The ‘me’ in group narcissism is born dead. Therefore, narcissism in individuals is the opposite of narcissism in empires: death is the cause of one and the result or outcome of the other.

The Distinction and Difference:

The distinction between the individual’s narcissism that makes him psychologically dead, and group or mass narcissism that makes an empire ready to collapse is totally the making of  historical moment(s)in the life of each. There are several events in the recent history of the European Empire that show its predicted collapse and end. In India, Algeria, Congo, South Africa, Sudan, Kenia, etc., there were uprises and massacres that were declared the end of colonization. In South America, countries were liberating themselves “Without Permission” from the Colonists. Asia had to go to war because imperialism was infiltrating the public leaders in many countries. If not because European imperialism was evident and its narcissism reached its peak in southeast Asia in a clear, the colonized countries lost their fascination with narcissistic leaders who were paid agents of the colonists.    

Therefore, we can talk about the collapse of the European Empire in clear terms considering those changes. Without citing reasons and causes it is obvious that there are no more parts of the world where imperialism could exist or be disguised to keep going. Moreover, there are no new ways of disguising imperialism to give it a chance to survive. Moreover, there are no countries that could be depicted as backward and others as advanced (lately Albania had an uprise that we could not see its parallel in Sweden). The world is now ONE human entity but still has pockets of racial and cultural backwardness.

Although I am not politically naïve, I believe that in the next thirty-fifty years we will lose the news analyst and news experts that make their work an arena of ridiculous political so-called analysis.  Enlightened and educated persons will help to restructure a world in which knowledge will force separate silly politics from new politics that will overpass political narcissism. There will be a will to globalize the minds and not just politics. As a psychoanalyst and not a politician I expect very fundamental changes in political narcissism. We will be able to look through personal and national narcissism.