Narcissistic Personality - Where Logic Leads

Where Logic Leads

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Let us follow the course of simple logic, wherever it leads:

If people with NPD can keep themselves from abusing when there would be witnesses, they can keep themselves from abusing when there wouldn't be witnesses. They just don't.

By going to great lengths to abuse on the sly, while portraying themselves to the outside world as the very antithesis of what they are, narcissists prove that they know that their behavior is wrong and shameful = something to hide.

Most children of narcissists don't choose to imitate the parent who hurts them and therefore don't become narcissists themselves. So, the child who does choose to imitate that parent does so of his or her own free will.

This is why the courts in the United States don't regard NPD as a defense. It isn't insanity.

Insanity is unsoundness of mind. The insane show that their minds are unsound by the way they go about a crime. They show that

they don't know what they're doing

they don't know it's wrong, something to hide and be ashamed of

they can't control themselves to keep from doing it.

How do the insane show this? They show it by...

attacking people in broad daylight like a loose tiger would

an absence of premeditation and cunning, in that...

they don't do wrong on the sly

they don't cover up their true character with an impressive facade

they don't plan ahead so as to sneak around and get away with wrongdoing.

None of that fits the modus operandi of people with NPD. In fact, the M.O. of the narcissist couldn't be more opposite, could it?

Narcissists sneak around to do their dirty work on the sly, in the dark, behind closed doors where there are no witnesses. Whenever there would be witnesses, they act like angels. What does that mean?

They discredit the victim in advance through character assassination so that no one will believe her complaints. What does that mean?

They go to great lengths to project a false public image of themselves as the exact opposite of what they are. What does that mean?

It proves that they know what they are doing and that it is wrong (something to hide and be ashamed of). It proves that they can control their conduct, because they do it well enough whenever the coast ain't clear. It proves that they are simply diabolical, not insane.

This is why NPD is legally a character disorder, not a mental disorder absolving one of responsibility for what he or she does.

In other words, NPD is NOT insanity. People with NPD are twisted, not insane.

Are they then just evil?

Nobody needs anyone to tell them the answer to that question. Just follow simple logic: Add it up: 2 + 2 = ?

Get the wrong answer?

Note that "psychopathic tendencies are conceptualized as being on a continuum with narcissism, with both involving a motivation to dominate, humiliate, and manipulate others." (Handbook of Psychopathy, by Christopher J. Patrick, p. 162). Does that desire proceed from a spirit of goodwill? Or ill will? Is it not pure malice?

Still get the wrong answer?

Ted Bundy wasn't evil? Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't evil? Ed Gein wasn't evil? Adolph Hitler wasn't evil? Josef Stalin wasn't evil? Saddam Hussein wasn't evil? Child molesters aren't evil? Rapists aren't evil? Serial killers aren't evil? It's all to dominate, manipulate, and humiliate others. That's "understandable"?

Wife-beaters aren't evil? Is anyone who intentionally harms others, including their own children, for no reason (but to dominate, manipulate, and humiliate) doing anything but evil?

The desire to dominate, manipulate, and humiliate others isn't the desire to harm them?

Is it not pure malignance to harm others who

are not hurting you

have never hurt you, and

are no threat to hurt you?

That ain't natural. Indeed, malignant narcissists go further into perversity than that: they go to the extreme perversity of targeting their benefactors and the meek, the weak, children, and those who love them and trust them the most. Enough to make you want to throw up. They aren't after anyone they have any reason to resent: they are after easy prey, period.

So, don't try to tell me that they are not evil. I know the word is unfashionable, but I am an atheist who doesn't mind acknowledging the existence of evil, so why should anyone else mind?

A Caveat: Narcissists don't do evil to do evil though. They don't love evil for it's own sake. In fact, they are as loath to know themselves as evil as you or I would be. That is precisely why they live in denial of this reality and cover it up at all costs.

They do evil for a different reason, for the same reason a drug addict does drugs = because it makes them feel good. Hurting and humiliating others affects them like a pain-killer they get high on.

So, we cannot get on a high horse of moral superiority, for we aren't tempted as they are. We don't have their perverted predatory urges.

But that doesn't mean that we should close our eyes to what they are. If hurting others makes you feel good, you like hurting others. Sorry, there's just no getting around that.

If you want to hurt others, you're malevolent. Sorry, there's just no getting around that.

It's dangerous to be in denial of these facts. Dangerous to regard narcissists as people of goodwill who don't want to hurt others, don't mean to hurt others, and are suffering victims who just can't help hurting others. That's bullshit.

That just plays right into their hands. That's what they want — for you to be a sucker and feel sorry for them. To make excuses for them. To assign them a lower set of standards to live up to.

There's a sucker born every minute. Before you know it, they have you regarding them as the victim, feeling sorry for them instead of their victims. All hell must be laughing their heads off at this joke. What a travesty of justice. What a perversion of Truth.

Just because they occasionally suffer in the consequences of some bad thing they do is no reason to regard these victimizers as victims. So what if they have feelings — for themselves? There's a little more to being human than having feelings for yourself. A dog has feelings for herself! In fact, a dog is more humane, because she has feelings for her master and her pups, but a narcissist doesn't.

It's a false choice — that suggested choice between hating narcissists and sympathizing with them. The sensible choice is simply to regard them as what they are: predators.

You know, like lions, tigers, great white sharks, polar bears, grizzly bears. We don't bother to "hate" them: we just STAY AWAY FROM THEM, NEVER TRUST THEM, AND DON'T GO INTO THEIR CAGE.

If you lie, you are a liar. If you kill, you are a killer. We are the sum total of what our choices to date have made us. Narcissists too are the sum total of what their choices to date have made them. Adult narcissists have passed the point of no return long ago.

Perhaps some day psychiatrists will learn some way to help them pay the toll to that demon at the door, so narcissists can return to the human way of life. Let us hope for that day, but let us not, in the meantime, be dangerously naive.

© 2004 � 2008, Kathleen Krajco � all rights reserved worldwide.
The URL of this page is: http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/epilog_malignant_narcissism.htm.
It was last updated on 3/7/2008.
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