Stan Lee the Narcississt

Stan Lee

Showing the new incivility that has swallowed our public discourse, I see that hatchets are suddenly out for Stan Lee, the moment he can no longer defend himself. He is charged with

1. being a sexual predator 
2. being racist and anti-gay 
3. not being the real creator of the Marvel universe 
4. being a narcissist who hogged undeserved credit. 

As to the first charge, this is apparently based on a complaint by a home nursing company he employed recently.

That means the charges are that a 94 or 95 year old man was a sexual predator.

This sounds inherently unlikely, simply in terms of physical ability. Also unlikely for someone to become so only in his final years, if there had previously been no such record. If he really was, it was probably a symptom of senility, which can make people randy, and something that ought to have been easily managed by a physically healthy young woman without involving anyone else. What's the point of being a nurse for the aged if you cannot manage the symptoms of senility?

It sounds, more plausibly, like an attempt at extortion. Anyone rich and famous is going to be a target: make an accusation, and they may pay you off just to silence you. And the insane doctrine of “believe all women” makes it more attractive.

As to the second charge, this is based on a clause in a contract with Sony specifying that they must, among other similar conditions, portray Spiderman as Caucasian and heterosexual. These days, such a concern apparently makes you racist.

But surely we can all agree that it would be an act of vandalism to paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Why? Is that being sexist and anti-male? Same principle here.

Any work of art, for its effect, depends on what Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief.” We have to look at that canvas, in the case of Da Vinci's painting, and see in our minds not globs of paint, but the illusion of a human person. An imaginary character is a work of art, like any other. Altering it in a way that would be improbable for a real person destroys the illusion that gives it life, or at least severely damages it; damages the art. Changing skin colour is an obvious example, like having a woman grow a moustache. Making a heterosexual character with a prominent history of relationships with women suddenly turn gay is not much better.

Stan Lee is not being racist or anti-gay; he is only giving a damn about his business and his work as an artist.

As to the third charge, the claim is that Jack Kirby had at least as much to do with the “silver age” of Marvel as Lee. This is true, and not denied, certainly not by Stan Lee. Kirby's artwork was a big part of the appeal for me personally. He is, as Lee named him, “The King.” But the claim here is, specifically, that it was really Kirby who created the characters and the plot lines, and Lee just took credit. 

There is a simple way to test this hypothesis. How did Lee make out when working with collaborators other than Kirby? How did Kirby make out when working with collaborators other than Lee?

When Kirby left Marvel for DC, to work on his own, his projects for them, although they have their audience, broadly failed, lost money, and were a general disappointment. Lee, for comparison, did Spiderman entirely without Kirby, and it is probably his single most successful creation. Kirby was a great artist, perhaps a good plotter, but the spark that made the Marvel tales marellous must have come from Lee.

As to Lee hogging the credit, this is literally false: he invented the tradition of conspicuously crediting the artist on the first page of the comic book. He even credited the inkers and letterers; creating a fandom for previously anonymous comic book artists. He gave regular reports to readers about who was in “the bullpen.” He is as responsible for Kirby's fame as his own. Lee was not about self-promotion; he was about promotion. He was a brilliant marketer and salesman.

And so the charge of narcissism is also false. As is the far more common claim that Donald Trump is a narcissist. It seems to be a common misunderstanding of what narcissism is. It is urgent that we begin to understand what narcissism is better than this indicates. It is not simply a matter of saying “look at me”; otherwise anyone who makes their living as an entertainer or performer of any kind, or in sales, would be by definition a narcissist. And it would equally mean that any actor playing a character is that character. Both Lee and Trump are showmen; it is a performance art. Dave Nichols or P.T. Barnum or Walt Disney were similar showmen.

Real narcissists are by nature not creative; they fear the sort of introspection necessary to come up with new perspectives or new ideas. It can mess up their delusions. Accordingly, anyone who, like Lee, is conspicuously creative simply cannot be a narcissist.

Real narcissists are easily wounded by criticism; they crave constant adulation. They fear abandonment. As a result, they are people-pleasers, full of charm. They will say whetever they think those listening want to hear. This is the very reverse of Trump, who seems to enjoy scrapping with the media or political opponents; who seems fearless in the face of criticism; who will say anything. He cannot, on this basis, be a narcissist.

Real narcissists do not honour their promises; they say whatever they think the listener wants to hear, and then will do whatever they want. It follows from being self-centred. As president, Trump has not been like that at all; he seems to have done a better job than the average pol at trying to keep the promises on which he was elected. There have been no surprise changes of direction—as we have seen, for example, with Justin Trudeau in Canada, dropping his promise of electoral reform. If Trump has not kept all his promises, he seems to have tried to keep all his promises.

It is worrying that the popular imagination so often seems to get things exactly backwards. This is not a symptom of a healthy society.

Blasey Ford Testifies

Christine Blasey Ford.

I was able to watch the Senate testimony yesterday from Christine Blasey Ford. I have not seen Brett Kavanaugh's testimony. Saw a clip of Lindsay Graham; looked impressive.

To me, Blasey Ford came across as utterly sincere. But she came across as well as something else: utterly mad. Look in her eyes: there is madness there. It seems obvious to me she is what used to be generally recognized, before it became politically incorrect to see it, as a hysterical woman.

We used to know a lot more about human psychology than we seem to today. Two hundred years ago, the issue would probably have been understood immediately.

The fact that she is a psychology professor tends to reinforce my diagnosis. One common reason people go into psychology is in hopes of finding a cure for themselves. Her life, by her own account, has been one of intimate association with analysts. Is it so implausible that she might be capable of delusions?

Someone who is hysterical is capable of believing anything. They can be convinced they are blind, for example, even though their sight is physically 20/20. They can believe they have been abducted by aliens.

Part of the problem, it is plain, is that Ford is self-absorbed. This makes anyone inherently fragile. Flying in a plane is a problem. Having only one door in her home is a problem, requiring marital counselling. Being interrogated by a professional instead of the senators is a problem. Everything for her is an emotional crisis—with the implicit emphasis on “for her.” Some or all of these anxieties might be entirely real; mental suffering is nothing trivial. But they also seem to serve always to draw the attention of both herself and those around her to her. She demanded all sorts of special treatment in return for testifying to the committee; as though she were a princess. This strongly implies narcissism.

A narcissist, sadly, is not going to see Kavanaugh as a fellow human being, Kavanaugh, after all, is not her, and so of no significance in himself. She is not going to be concerned with what any of this is doing to him, if she is mistaken. Because only she is important.

One can visualise how she got to this point. It is an old story, old as time. Little girls are frequently put on a pedestal growing up, told they are perfect princesses and everything about them is awesome. They are thus tempted to primary narcissism, self-absorption. Some can resist, some bite down hard on the apple.

Then, inevitably, most likely at about age fifteen, younger if they are less sheltered, they discover the realities of sex. Suddenly it is no longer possible to be inherently good; there are moral issues and moral choices. They have no experience with such things. If they have sex, some will condemn them for it. If they refuse sex, others will condemn them for it. Either way, they are no longer perfect beings whom everyone adores.

For someone who has fully swallowed the poisoned apple of narcissism, this is devastating. They are their own entire world. If they are now damaged goods, their entire world seems to have come to an end.

Now comes second-stage narcissism. Forced now to choose between cold reality and staying perfect, some no doubt will wake up and grow up. Others are liable to reject unpleasant reality now and for the rest of their lives. From this point on, and increasingly as lie piles upon lie, to protect their perfect fantasy self-image, they are capable of sincerely believing anything, no matter how madly untrue. They live permanently in a world of self-delusion, always under siege by imagined evil forces from outside. Rapists, say.

Men too, of course, can be narcissists, and can become hysterical. Boys too can be spoiled. But it happens less often, and the moral crisis is more likely to come at an earlier age: a failing mark, for example, or not making the basketball team. And it is likely to involve less of a double bind. Being younger, they are also likely to be more resilient.

Now along comes Brett Kavanaugh. Ford knows him, he is suddenly on the front pages, and of course this really ought to be all about her, not someone else. She should be getting this attention. He is stealing it from her.

Now, by pinning her own guilt feelings over sex, whatever they are, on him, Ford gets not only to absolve herself of blame for her sexuality, in her own eyes and in the eyes of the world, but also gets the eyes of the entire world focused on her. She appears both as morally pure and an irresistably desirable being. She can be a real princess again.

It is, incidentally, the same motive usually behind political assassinations.

You have to feel sorry for her. Her suffering is very great and very real. But far sorrier for the victim, Brett Kavanaugh. Ford is ultimately responsible for her own suffering, and is suffering because she cannot accept and admit that. What happened here to Kavanaugh could happen to anyone.

Ah, you reply, doesn't it still matter that there are now two or maybe three other female accusers? No, it does not. Numbers mean nothing if each charge is independent, and no one charge can be corroborated or substantiated. More accusations at this point are inevitable; just as one political assassination inevitably prompts more assassination attempts, one terrorist attack or airplane hijacking prompts more terrorist attacks or hijackings, until it stops being such big news, and then they tend to abate. Even when there is some spectacular murder in the news, police departments must deal with a spate of false confessions. For many, the temptation for fame is that great; a really serious narcissist is prepared to die for it.

More accusers are certain to come out of the woodwork at this point to copy Ford and share her sudden fame. Just as she could not bear Kavanaugh getting all the attention instead of her, they cannot bear Ford getting all the attention instead of them.

Rumour is that Kavanaugh now has the votes to be confirmed. I hope so. Anything else would be both a grave injustice and a catastrophic precedent. American civil society might never recover.

It is hard even now to see the Democratic senators supporting Ford's accusations against Kavanaugh as anything but intentionally evil. One hopes they are instead profoundly naive. One clings as so often to the old saying, “never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”

Believe the Woman?

My sense of things is that the current rash of claims of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh is having, and will have, the net effect of discrediting the whole “#metoo” movement.

Logically, we cannot let these current accusations influence matters. If we do, without requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt, what we do, given that there is no penalty for making a false accusation, is leave any man vulnerable to having his life or career wrecked at any moment by a mere accusation which any woman can lodge at any time for any reason.

It would over time take all males out of the running for any prominent job that any woman wants.

The proper and fair thing would be to bring it all into a court of law. But there is no time for that, and these charges are so old that even then, it is unlikely to be possible to assemble evidence one way or the other. In the ordinary course of events, there is probably nothing here that would warrant going to court: just accusations with no corroboration or supporting evidence. We can pretty well assume, if they went to court, that the cases would be dismissed.

Accordingly, the only fair thing is to ignore them and appoint Kavanaugh. To do otherwise would have disastrous effects in future.

And for the #metoo advocates of “believe the woman,” as somebody observed, this looks like Pickett's Charge. It has been a fatal if inevitable overreach. Inevitable, because it was always madness to assume all women were incapable of lying or even being mistaken. Even if they pull it off this time, and Kavanaugh is destroyed, they will overrreach the next time, or the next.

And then—most likely already, now—it will never again be a plausible argument to demand that people simply “believe the woman.” Indeed, from now on, given the Kavanaugh example, the base assumption is more likely to be the opposite. Not good for anyone who really has been sexually assaulted, but this is the fault of the feminists.

Free Woody Allen

Fake mug shot of Woody Allen from "Take the Money and Run."

I hate to talk about the private lives of celebrities. It is almost automatically the sin of calumny. Celebrities have the same right to privacy we all do; it is supposed to be a human right.

But I must speak out on Woody Allen, because a grave injustice is being done.

He is innocent.

Yet many people are protesting The Atlantic for even allowing his wife, Soon-Yi, to give her side of the story.

I am not a Woody Allen fan. I think his influence has been baleful. He is a disciple of Freud, and Freud has been a wrecking ball in our culture. But the man is innocent.

Allen is accused of assaulting his step-daughter Dylan, when she was seven. That's it.

This charge was looked into twice, by two independent authorities, in New York and Connecticut, and neither found any credible evidence to support the charge. Never even made it to court.

Moreover, Allen and Mia Farrow were in the middle of an acrimonious breakup when the incident was alleged to have happened. Faking a charge of child molestation is simply standard practice among unethical women in any divorce proceedings these days, to milk the husband for as much as possible in the settlement. If you are caught lying, there is no penalty; so there is no downside to doing it. Arguably, it is malpractice if your divorce lawyer does not advise it.

Dylan still insists it happened. But memories from age seven are intrinsically unreliable and subject to suggestion. Her testimony might be sincere, but it is worth nothing as evidence.

There are apparently no other allegations against Allen. This is significant, because according to the experts, pedopiles are compulsive. They never do it just once, with one victim.

Indeed, there are apparently no allegations of sexual misconduct against Allen from any adult leading ladies either, although he was obviouly in a position directly comparable to that of Harvey Weinstein. He apparently did not exploit it.

Unfortunately, it all reflects shockingly badly on Mia Farrow; as does Soon-Yi's testimony about her, which is corroborated by her sibling Moses Farrow. Perhaps, then, it is best to stop here.

Men? It's All Your Fault

Absolutely no comment.

A recent piece in the New York Times reflects upon the sex scandals rocking Hollywood and Washington, and argues that it all just shows how evil men are.

Superficially plausible: it is only men who are being called out for sexual misdeeds. However, this is simply a result of men being expected to make the first move sexually.

Pamela Anderson has made a good point, and is being raked over the coals for it: why would a woman go into a man's hotel room alone in the first place?

If she does, given the current vague and ambiguous rules of engagement, isn't it fairly reasonable for the man to conclude that she is voluntarily in the game and on the hunt?

For every man being accused of unwanted sexual aggressions, there is probably a woman guilty of using sexual favours to get ahead. But the men, if they miscalculate, lose their career and their public reputation. The women face no consequences. They can even play the game, get the preferment, then years later turn on their boss and accuse him of sexual misconduct.

Either way, it is a bad thing: women getting sexually harassed, or women getting advantages through sex. Allow it, and a lot of innocent men and innocent women are harmed.

It turns out that there were good reasons for traditional morality. One great advantage—and only one of many—to “no sex outside marriage” as a rule was that it made the boundaries perfectly clear; there could be no misunderstandings. This same calculation also explains why, traditionally, having men and women mingle in the world of work was considered a bad idea. Not incidentally, it also explains, on the same basis, why homosexual employees were considered a problem. In all these cases, too much chance for sexual attractions to get messed up in the mix.

We have knocked down all these fences, all the fences that made our civilization function. And feminism has been in the forefront in doing this. Much of civilization is such fences, which is why the left hates civilization. It prevents us, after all, from getting what we want, when we want it. We have created this problem, and are still, it seems, thrashing about for scapegoats.

According to the NYT piece, the crisis reflects on “the nature of men in general,” “the grotesquerie of their sexuality,” the “ugly and dangerous nature of the male libido” “the implicit brutality of male sexuality.” “Male mechanisms of desire are inherently brutal.” So, in order for women to continue to do whatever they want, men must be put in chains.

Go back and substitute the word “Jews” or “Jewish” for “male” or “men” in the above statements. Or substitute “black” and “blacks.” Or “women” and “female.” How does it sound? That will give you a pretty clear idea of who is being oppressed in our present society, and who is being privileged.

Surprised? You have not been paying attention.

A chilling statement from the piece:

“How naïve must you be not to understand that sex itself is about power every bit as much as it’s about pleasure?”

Indeed. And how emotionally dead must you be to not even think about the possibility of it being about love? Everything to some is either for pleasure or for power. Everything is for self.

Yet More on Moore

A lot of folks have recently weighed in on the Roy Moore case. I think an update is in order. I had most recently said that a new accusation by a fourth woman, Beverly Nelson, of an attempted rape in a car, probably tipped the preponderance of evidence towards guilt, so that Moore should withdraw as a candidate. Now I think I need to walk that back. I think serious doubts have been raised over that new accusation.

The one point that most strikes me—and this did not occur to me personally until someone else pointed it out—is that the accuser's prime bit of offered evidence is an inscription in her high school yearbook wishing her a Merry Christmas. Hang on: school yearbooks come out at the end of the school year, in Spring, and are carried around for maybe a few days after that. Who brings their high school yearbook to a restaurant the next Christmas?

Nah; not plausible. But plausible as a con, given that it reinforces the image of Moore as someone who chases younger girls—high school age.

Moore's legal team has demanded that the yearbook be submitted to an independent party to enable forensic analysis by handwriting experts. Gloria Allred, the publicity-hound attorney handling the accuser's case, has refused. I see no reason for this other than that she knows it is a forgery. If she thought it was genuine, she wold be eager to do this.

Another point, noted by Rush Limbaugh, is that the accuser says she was locked in Moore's car, and could not escape. Limbaugh points out that child locks, the kind controlled by the driver, did not appear in cars until a few years after the incident is claimed to have occurred. So why could she not have opened the door?

If Moore really is a pedophile, note that, according to everything the psychologists say currently, pedophilia is incurable. That is why we have this current hysteria about having sex offenders registers, and notifying neighbours if they move into an area, no matter how long ago the recorded crime took place. Accordingly, if the charges are true, there should not just be incidents 38 years ago. There should logically be continued incidents up to the present day. Instead, Breitbart.com, which has always been in Moore's corner, has published a stream of character references by people who ought to know saying Moore has always been a perfect gentleman for as long as they have known him. For what that is worth.

All we have so far, is one claimed incident almost 40 years ago. This tends to disprove the claim, unless we soon get others. The likelier picture is of a guy who, in his thirties, and single, was looking for a wife, and had a preference for younger women. A religious guy might, since virginity might matter a lot to him. Possibly he was socially awkward, and not always good at reading the signals of consent. Always a tricky business for any man.

More on Moore

As I suggested might happen, another accusation has come out against Roy Moore, and it is serious: an aggressive sexual assault on a sixteen-year-old. With three accusations, and two of them serious, I believe he should step aside. If he does not, nobody should vote for him. He may yet be innocent; but there is not time to prosecute the matter before the election. If he is prosecuted later, and found innocent, he can run again, and ought then to be given a sympathetic hearing.

But for now, the chances are too good that the charges are true. We now have the word of three women against one man. Mind you, this is not yet as strong as the evidence against Jian Ghomeshi, back in 2016. He too had three accusers, and their claims were more serious. And he turned out to be innocent.

The issue is complicated as well by a general prejudice against Southern US culture, which traditionally, like most cultures, sees nothing wrong with older men dating younger women. Let us be clear: there is nothing wrong with older men dating younger women: that is purely prejudice. The age of consent in Alabama is sixteen.

The issue here is sexual assault.

Weinstein and Trump

Anti-semitic Nazi cartoon: the Jewish doctor and the defenseless Aryan woman..

Why, I see some are asking, is Harvey Weinstein being given such a bad time over the sexual exploitation of women, but Donald Trump seems to be given a pass?

But any suggestion that the charges against Weinstein are politically motivated is absurd. Many right-wing figures have only recently been felled by similar accusations: Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly at Fox News; Bill Cosby. Until Weinstein it was looking as though it was left-wing figures who were being protected, and only those on the right taken to task.

We do not know, in fact, whether the charges against Weinstein are true. None have been tested in court. Nevertheless, the sheer volume and the many claims by others to have “always known” make it look convincing.

We do not have anything like this for Donald Trump. For Trump, according to the linked article, we have three women who are prepared to speak out; and perhaps a total of ten overall. One charges him only with kissing her. Another says he “aggressively propositioned her.” These charges themselves do not seem to meet the bar for a charge of assault. Another’s claims are refuted by a third party who claims to have been present.

Leaving aside prejudice against Trump, it doesn’t give us much to go on.

Hillary Clinton called Trump an “admitted sexual assaulter.” That is probably libelous, or would be in Canada or the UK. Presumably she is referring to the famous tape of him talking to Billy Bush. I read the transcript. The most he admits to is kissing women, and nothing implies this is clearly without consent. In the real world, of course, it is always difficult, when a man kisses a woman, to know whether she is fully in consent or not. But it is considered his obligation to make this first move. Ther is no way around this.

By contrast, it would not be libel to call Clinton’s husband a “known sexual predator.”

What Trump said to Bush on the secretly—and surely illegally—recorded conversation was boorish and crude. But there is no law against saying boorish things. Such matters are properly dealt with by social stigma. In Trump’s case, he faced a jury of 300 million of his peers. One may disagree with the verdict, but the matter has been dealt as such matters ought to be dealt with. He was exposed, and we have the result.

Anti-black cartoon, US, 1954.

There is an obvious problem here: first, any such accusations of sexual impropriety are almost inevitably the word of one person against another. Such things are done in private. So how can we tell who is speaking the truth? Second, if a man has a lot of money, or has an important public reputation, let alone both, there is a huge motive for just about anyone to bring a false charge. There might well be money in it, or fame. Third, because they can be so easily made, charges of sexual assault and rape have been the traditional weapon to use against prejudiced groups: Jews in Nazi Germany were commonly held to rape and seduce good Aryan girls; blacks in the US South were usually lynched on the same charge.

Accordingly, we should assume such charges are false unless there is some corroboration. Like Monica Lewinsky’s semen-stained dress.

I see one comment a lot: about how all men are to blame for allowing such things to go on. In the Guardian piece, the woman whose charges have been contradicted by another witness says “men needed to make it clear that Trump’s brand of ‘locker-room talk’ is unacceptable. It would be nice at this point if we started hearing from men on this issue, because it’s not one-sided.”

This is a statement of just such prejudice as is traditionally supported by the rape or sexual assault charge. I am guilty of what someone else did, because he is a man, and I am a man? That there is such obvious prejudice against men abroad in the land is a further important reason why we should doubt any such accusations.

From the Nazi press.

I suspect there is indeed a lot of real sexual exploitation going on. Sometimes it may be a matter of a man exploiting his power over women. Sometimes it may be a matter of a woman exploiting her power over men: an attractive woman, for example, offering her sexual favours to a boss for special preferment. Hard to guess, even if there is evidence of a sexual encounter, where the rights and wrongs fall. Avoiding such stuff is no doubt why, in many more traditional societies, and in ours until fairly recently, men and women were generally kept apart in the public square.

If some group is ultimately to blame for all this, then, it is surely those who have ended this segregation: the feminists. There was a reason for it all along. Surely they knew this?

Women Raping Men

Back when I was on the Standards Committee of the Editors' Association of Canada, we developed a course for prospective editors. One author wanted to make the point that it was not always necessary to use inclusive language: some things pertained only to men, or only to women. Her chosen example was rape: it was never necessary to say "he or she" raped "him or her." Since, of course, only men raped.

I objected at the time, for the obvious reason that I knew personally men who had been raped by women. And it turns out it is not uncommon.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/?utm_source=eb

About time we drove a stake through the heart of this prejudice.