<
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/11/group-narcissism/620632/>
"In 2005, the psychologist Agnieszka Golec de Zavala was researching extremist
groups, trying to understand what leads people to commit acts of terrorist
violence. She began to notice something that looked a lot like what the
20th-century scholars Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm had referred to as “group
narcissism”: Golec de Zavala defined it to me as “a belief that the exaggerated
greatness of one’s group is not sufficiently recognized by others,” in which
that thirst for recognition is never satiated. At first, she thought it was a
fringe phenomenon, but important nonetheless. She developed the Collective
Narcissism Scale to measure the severity of group-narcissistic beliefs,
including statements such as “My group deserves special treatment” and “I
insist upon my group getting the respect that is due to it” with which
respondents rate their agreement.
Sixteen years later, Golec de Zavala is a professor at SWPS University, in
Poland, and a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, leading the study
of group narcissism—and she’s realized that there’s nothing fringe about it.
This thinking can happen in seemingly any kind of assemblage: a religious,
political, gender, racial, or ethnic group, but also a sports team, club, or
cult. Now, she said, she’s terrified at how widely she’s finding it manifested
across the globe.
Collective narcissism is not simply tribalism. Humans are inherently tribal,
and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Having a healthy social identity can
have an immensely positive impact on well-being. Collective narcissists,
though, are often more focused on out-group prejudice than in-group loyalty. In
its most extreme form, group narcissism can fuel political radicalism and
potentially even violence. But in everyday settings, too, it can keep groups
from listening to one another, and lead them to reduce people on the “other
side” to one-dimensional characters. The best way to avoid that is by teaching
people how to be proud of their group—without obsessing over recognition."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
