(10-11-2019, 10:42 PM)taramarie Wrote:(10-11-2019, 10:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's really simple. As it is with people whose skin color, physiognomy, theology, national origin, handicap, social status, or gender -- respect the person whose sexual preference is different from yours by respecting that person for shared humanity instead of the obvious difference.
Can this be said for political difference as well out of sheer curiousity and a tongue in cheek moment....otherwise I agree except for certain people like narcissists who make this VERY difficult. I have my future mother in law in mind. Yes she is an actual narcissist unfortunately who is obsessed with tight control over everyone. Can I respect that difference? Not to the point it destroys those around her. My philosophy is live and let live so long as you aren't harming others.
Narcissism is not a certifiable handicap. Narcissists typically see nothing wrong with themselves and do not change their ways unless they experience some trauma, usually economic. Narcissists are able to make others dependent upon them, putting those that they exploit in fear that exploitation and abuse offer some security. In short, there is some security in being overworked and underpaid in a job that few others want. (That is not quite true; people might be overworked and underpaid because the organization is failing and is losing such attractiveness as it had to people who might bring new competence and talent).
Failed narcissists learn humility as a survival skill -- and such breaks their narcissism unless they have deeply-rooted anger. Successful narcissists tend to define themselves by their plush lives, their bureaucratic power, and the fear that they inculcate, so they can seem happy in the presence of much misery.
I have been re-reading a book on criminals. Among criminals are many failed narcissists, people with inflated self-esteem devoid of any basis of legitimate achievement. Some feel entitled to sex with anyone that they want -- which of course makes them rapists. Some feel entitled to a Good Life that they have never earned, and they become thieves -- or they get involved in such an illicit activity as drug trafficking. Some take out their frustrations on vulnerable children or spouses. If they clean up their act a little and get a job, they might short-change or fleece customers or do employee theft. This book neglects criminals who have insinuated themselves into high levels of economic hierarchies who are capable of getting away with sexual harassment or who (remember Enron!) committed large-scale economic frauds.
In recent years, the United States has endured a strong trend toward pure plutocracy in which most people are obliged to suffer for a tiny elite of rich and powerful people seemingly unaccountable to anyone. Seemingly. There was Jeffrey Epstein, and there is Donald Trump. We are in a Crisis Era, and this one seems so far to elevate the narcissist as much as the last one tore the narcissistic tendency down. If the Depression did not shake people of narcissism, then the Second World War did. We need to go to some basics -- do good for people, and you will do well... but do bad things to people and be ruined.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.