Postmodernism = Narcissism = Fascism = Vice

Photo by Iain Sheriff-Scott, Queen's Journal.

When Jordan Peterson’s talk at Queen’s University’s Grant Hall was stormed by protesters a year ago, he referred to them as “narcissists.”

At the time, I thought this was wrong—a casual misapplication of a psychological term. Something it is too easy for psychologists to do, and not legitimate in debate. Of course, it was a far worse transgression to storm someone’s speech. It was they who were subverting debate, not Peterson. But still, a distraction.

Now I think he may have been literally correct.

I have been struggling recently here with, on the one hand, what seems a growing awareness, in me and in society, of the problem of narcissism, and on the other, a growing problem with postmodernism, and there has been the nagging awareness at the back of my mind while doing this that they are strikingly similar. After dismissing this for a long time, for the same reasons I dismissed Peterson’s comments, thinking I must be mistakenly over-applying the concept of narcissism, I think I have been forced to the revelation that, yes, in fact, they are the same thing, or at least expressions of the same thing. Postmodernism is narcissism on a social scale, or narcissism expressed as a philosophy.

This tends to go against my recent thought that postmodernism began as a good faith, if mistaken, reaction to culture shock. It looks as though that is, in the end, an alibi, and a convenient circumstance postmodernism has been able to exploit. Indeed, is perhaps creating in order to exploit. Get people culture shocked, and they are more vulnerable to being hoovered into a narcissist or postmodernist cult view. As I noted, it looks more like the disease than a treatment for it.

If this insight is right, by looking at postmodernism, we can now better understand narcissism; because it reveals how narcissists think. And by looking at narcissism, we can better understand the dangers of postmodernism, for it reveals where it is really coming from and where it is going.

Postmodernism shares with narcissism, to begin with, a willfully delusional quality. Robert Fliess described narcissists as “ambulatory psychotics,” because they seem to be out of touch with the real world. Others interpret this instead as habitual lying. Narcissists will say things that are obviously untrue, even to both parties, and say them as though they mean them sincerely. How is this possible?

But we see the same thing in postmodernism. It declares as its supposed core principle that nothing it true. “There is no truth. Truth is just a social construct.” Therefore, whatever they want to believe is true. This justifies any possible lie, or, depending on how you want to look at it, believing any conceivable delusion. Men declaring they are women. Or declaring racism “anti-racism,” declaring fascism “anti-fascism,” declaring favouritism “equality,” and so forth. If you simply say it, that makes it truth.

Postmodernism also shares with narcissism the dangerous and vile practice of scapegoating. The narcissist parent will notoriously unjustly project all evil on to one innocent child. The postmodernism unjustly projects all imaginable evil on “cisgendered white males,” on “Donald Trump,” or on a mostly imaginary racist “alt-right.” What the chosen target actually says or does no longer matters. They become the embodiment of all evil; they are there to be blamed for everything.

If this sounds a lot like Nazism, you have that right. If narcissism = postmodernism, it is also pretty clear that narcissism = postmodernism = fascism. It’s all at heart the same thing.

And postmodernism and postmodern attitudes seem to be ripping through the society and culture just the way Ionesco described Fascism spreading in “Rhinoceros.” People who only yesterday were reasonable and open are suddenly rhinos, true believers.

And, just like the narcissistic parent, the postmodernists also have their “golden children” as well. We saw it in the Covington High School debacle. Native Americans/First Nations are arbitrarily declared to be incapable of doing any wrong, no matter how strong the evidence against them. Same dynamic in the early reports of and public reactions to the Jussie Smollett faked assault, which was equally improbable on its face. It is easy to enumerate other such favoured groups: illegal immigrants must never be criticized. Gays must never be criticized. Women must never be criticized.

Not that this works to the advantage of either the golden child in the family, or the favoured group in postmodernism. It is a power move. It makes and keeps them dependent and helpless. And silence is demanded in return. Woe betide any member of such a group who themselves strays from the “narrative.” Telling word, “narrative.”

Most dangerously, postmodernists are exactly like narcissists in not wanting dialogue or discussion. I Fact, violently reacting against any hint of dialogue or discussion. What could be more characteristic of postmodernism in practice? If they are “delusional,” as Fliess says, this in particular shows these delusions are obviously willful. They certainly do not want to be disabused of them. So all dialogue is ended, force is resorted to instead, and dissenting views are if possible silenced. Hence the storming of Peterson’s talk. It is critically important to them that others shut up. The “hate laws” are of course part of the same paranoid attitude.

Just as is the case in a dysfunctional family, now we are all walking on eggshells, for fear that something we say might set somebody off. For fear of setting off a narcissistic tantrum. We saw that at Queen’s.

Which is, surely, our essential clue as to what is really going on here. What motivates both postmodernism and narcissism, is a guilty conscience.

Anyone who does not want to discuss a matter, or hear a matter discussed, knows they are in the wrong. Truth itself is the enemy.

And anyone who wants to put reality up for grabs knows that the evidence does not favour them.

“Reality” here is really in turn a mask for “morality.” It is right and wrong that both postmodernism and narcissism really most want to put in question. This is the core objective.

Which is to say that they know they are in some vital way in the moral wrong. If they are violent—and they are—it is their own conscience they are really lashing out at. And they scapegoat, obviously, for the same reason. A scapegoat is needed only if you have sinned.

There are several important takeaways from this.

First, narcissism is not a mental illness, but a moral choice. People choose to be postmodernists; accordingly, people choose to be narcissists.

Second, narcissism is not really about self-love. We take this from our reading of the original legend of Narcissus, but this is not even an accurate reading of that legend. Narcissus’s self-love, when he falls in hopeless love with his own reflection, is a punishment for a prior sin, which seems to have been pride. Not quite the same thing.

Third, both narcissism and postmodernism are covers, perhaps spontaneous reactions, for consciousness of sin. Or rather, not sin, but vice. We all sin. Good people then acknowledge fault, at least to themselves and to God, and move on. Narcissism or postmodernism happens when you instead deny you did anything wrong, and determine to keep sinning.

The narcissist or postmodernist has chosen to give free rein to some vice, and wants to continue to do so. Narcissism/postmodernism is their excuse to do so.

Fourth, the growth of postmodernism tells us there is at least one vice, if not several, running rampant in our current culture. The obvious candidate is casual sex, with free and legal abortion at its apex. This is why abortion rights has become the high-voltage third rail nobody is allowed to go near on the postmodern left. Narcissism on the individual level may be prompted by a variety of other vices, but when it happens to some large group of people, a society as a whole, the particular vice becomes easier to isolate.

How will it all end? Can it end without a bloodbath of innocents?

No; we are already in the middle of a bloodbath of innocents.