I have a confession to make, O reader. I've recently come into a job (praise Jesus!) which pays money. With money, I'm able to tithe and begin paying off loans and am able to buy gifts for friends, family, and finally myself. One of these gifts I bought for myself was a magazine subscription to Esquire. I'm totally in it just for the overpriced fashion tips and manly advice. Just sayin'. (It's awkward reading it whenever it's a picture of a ... barely clad woman on the cover. Like Megan Fox on the February 2013 edition)
Anyways, in the January 2013 edition, a small article called "A Thousand Words With Stephen Marche" featured narcissism, a vice of man and a "personality disorder" according to the secular psychologist's DSM-IV.
Wait.
A personality disorder?! The same gets said about conduct misbehavior in children, severe forms of anxiety, depression, anger, and dramatic tendencies. Phobias fall in this category also.
No matter how much I love labels, Psychology has done a number on its students who believe that labels give a person power over the human condition of sin and misery. If we can label it, we can fix it!
However, the author of this article has a lot of truth to say. He begins by calling out the act of television watching as being "inherently an act of narcissism" because it "both feeds and fuels what Freud described as the core of the narcissistic personality-- 'the delusion of being watched' " (Marche 56). Given this, the author goes about to describe how television's narcissism "is currently shifting ground;" the old narcissism of Sex and the City is being slowly replaced by new narcissists of Louie, Community, and Arrested Development who are self-loathing of their self-obsession (Marche 56). The author describes how narcissism has come a long way from a so-called "newly-found" psychological disorder describing sexual pleasure taken from one's self coined about a hundred years ago to the standard way of life here in the United States. "Narcissism," he says, is "no longer, properly speaking, a disease at all" (Marche 58). Apparently Americans spent twice as much money ($10 billion) on plastic surgery in 2011 than for NASA's funding of the same year ($5 billion). Ten percent of young people have narcissistic tendencies, while only 3% of older adults display the same tendencies. The author continues to point out that the American economy runs on narcissism, as does education submit to the desires of the "average" American parents' superior valuing of their children's self-esteem over and above their virtue or knowledge. Technology likewise plays a role in binding men with narcissistic tendencies-- smartphones eliminate the need to look up, ask for directions or advice, or pay attention to the world outside of a haunting glow of a computer's screen. "Narcissism, not love, makes the world go round," the author admits (Marche 58).
Anyways, in the January 2013 edition, a small article called "A Thousand Words With Stephen Marche" featured narcissism, a vice of man and a "personality disorder" according to the secular psychologist's DSM-IV.
Wait.
A personality disorder?! The same gets said about conduct misbehavior in children, severe forms of anxiety, depression, anger, and dramatic tendencies. Phobias fall in this category also.
No matter how much I love labels, Psychology has done a number on its students who believe that labels give a person power over the human condition of sin and misery. If we can label it, we can fix it!
However, the author of this article has a lot of truth to say. He begins by calling out the act of television watching as being "inherently an act of narcissism" because it "both feeds and fuels what Freud described as the core of the narcissistic personality-- 'the delusion of being watched' " (Marche 56). Given this, the author goes about to describe how television's narcissism "is currently shifting ground;" the old narcissism of Sex and the City is being slowly replaced by new narcissists of Louie, Community, and Arrested Development who are self-loathing of their self-obsession (Marche 56). The author describes how narcissism has come a long way from a so-called "newly-found" psychological disorder describing sexual pleasure taken from one's self coined about a hundred years ago to the standard way of life here in the United States. "Narcissism," he says, is "no longer, properly speaking, a disease at all" (Marche 58). Apparently Americans spent twice as much money ($10 billion) on plastic surgery in 2011 than for NASA's funding of the same year ($5 billion). Ten percent of young people have narcissistic tendencies, while only 3% of older adults display the same tendencies. The author continues to point out that the American economy runs on narcissism, as does education submit to the desires of the "average" American parents' superior valuing of their children's self-esteem over and above their virtue or knowledge. Technology likewise plays a role in binding men with narcissistic tendencies-- smartphones eliminate the need to look up, ask for directions or advice, or pay attention to the world outside of a haunting glow of a computer's screen. "Narcissism, not love, makes the world go round," the author admits (Marche 58).
But this is not the end, even for an editor of Esquire. He continues this theme by pointing out one of the supposed solutions with a surprising statistic: drug abuse has dropped 30% in 30 years and cocaine 40% in the last 7 years, but Adderall is on the rise. "Vapid self-indulgence has been replaced by scrupulous self-management" states the author, and he concludes by resting on Freud's theories: "There is a cure [for narcissism] by love and a cure by analysis. Only a lucky few can manage the former. For everybody else, there's television" (Marche 58).
Freud meant something different when he said that love is the answer for a narcissist's woes, but the word remains the same (at least in English!). "Love is all you need" asserts the philosopher Lennon, and he's right... if Love is bound in the triune personhood of the living God. Jesus is better than the vapid self-indulgence of the twenty-first century because He endures. He is better because He is incomprehensibly complex in the riches of His grace to mankind. Jesus is better because He is the High Priest forever and the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus is better because He is sovereign over all things, and He can thwart the most cleverly laid schemes of the self-managed person who prides him/herself in being the "master of his/her own destiny." Jesus is better because He has all the answers to life, the universe, and everything. Jesus is better because He knows more than Google. Jesus is better because He makes the world go round by the word of His command.
Works Cited:
Marche, Stephen. "In Praise Of The New Narcissism." Esquire Jan. 2013: 56-58. Print.
Works Cited:
Marche, Stephen. "In Praise Of The New Narcissism." Esquire Jan. 2013: 56-58. Print.
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