Looking Into the Abyss

My essay on the death of actor Heath Ledger, "Looking Into the Abyss," is temporarily withdrawn because New Oxford Review will be publishing it in its October 2008 issue. When it is published, the article will once again appear on this blog.

What Is "Character"?

One of the best definitions for "character" which I've ever come across is this: "Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.”

In their new book, Walk the Talk, Eric Harvey and Steve Ventura offer a longer definition. They say that one of the keys to character is commitment. Here's what the authors wrote:

Think of someone you know who is "a person of good character." Lock his or her image in your mind. Now take a moment to reflect on the things this person says and does...the personal characteristics that make him or her a role model for you.

What comes to mind? What do you see?

Chances are that high on the list of your role model's qualities is COMMITMENT - the unwavering dedication to being a good family member and friend...to doing his or her best at work and away from the job...to doing what's right, noble, and decent.

Committed people like your role model just seem to have their heads and hearts in the right place. They keep their priorities straight. They stay focused on what's important. They know, inherently, that what they believe must drive how they behave - and how they behave ultimately determines the character they possess, the reputation they enjoy, and the legacy they leave.

Abraham Lincoln had this to say about commitment: "COMMITMENT is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year. Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism."

The world renowned pianist, Van Cliburn, after one of his magnificent concerts was approached by an admirer who had been in the audience. The emotional fan grasped Cliburn's hand and said, "I would give my life to be able to play the piano like that." The pianist smiled and replied..."I DID."

The Two Faces of Chinese Nationalism

(Published in China Briefing, Center For International Relations, August 2008, pp. 9-11.)

On May 12, 2008, China’s Sichuan province was struck by a massive 7.9 earthquake. In the aftermath, Chinese people rallied together in an unprecedented show of national solidarity and fellowship. Many volunteered to excavate victims still buried in the rubble; others donated money to help survivors; still others offered to adopt the children whom the quake had made orphans. A week after the disaster on May 19 at 2:28 p.m., people all across China mourned in silence for three minutes. All of which led outside observers to remark that we might be witnessing the beginning of a genuine civil society in China. As longtime Sinologist Ross Terrill put it, “A new China could be glimpsed after the earthquake.”

But a month before the quake, the world had seen an uglier face of Chinese nationalism. As human rights protesters dogged the Beijing Olympics’ torch relay around the world, Chinese convulsed in collective outrage against international criticisms of their government’s violent crackdown in Tibet and support of the genocidal regime in Sudan. In online forums and chat rooms, Chinese youth blasted their leaders in Beijing for not being tougher against the Tibetan “separatists.” Some 20 million signed an online petition calling for a boycott against Western businesses, such as the American chains McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Chinese ire especially targeted the French retailer Carrefour—protests and demonstrations in front of its outlets in Wuhan drew thousands.

Chinese nationalist anger even spread to college campuses in the United States. At the University of Southern California, Chinese students harassed a visiting Tibetan monk. At the University of Washington, hundreds protested outside during a speech by the Tibetan spiritual leader-in-exile, the Dalai Lama. At Duke University, a Chinese student who had tried to mediate between pro-China and pro-Tibet protesters was branded a traitor by her compatriots. Her photo was posted on the Internet, together with her contact information and her parents’ address in China.

These incidents are a reminder of Chinese nationalism’s volatile mix of prickly pride and smoldering resentment. The same nationalism exploded into anti-Japan riots across China in 2005, against Japanese school textbooks that minimized Imperial Japan’s World War II atrocities. The visiting Japanese national soccer team was brutally attacked; Japanese missions and businesses were trashed. The same Chinese nationalism also burst into violent anti-American protests in 1999 after NATO’s accidental bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. And when the United States was attacked by Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001, some Chinese exulted over America’s pain. One student told pollsters that “When the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, I really felt very delighted.”

Nationalism may be defined as the sentiments of affinity and love for one’s national group. China’s thorny nationalism was birthed out of the turmoil of what Chinese still call their “hundred years of humiliation.” That century began with Great Britain’s trouncing of Imperial China in the Opium War (1840-42), which opened the floodgates to more defeats, unequal treaties, economic turmoil, territorial losses, a massive rebellion, dynastic collapse, revolution, warlords, Japan’s colonization and invasion, and a ruinous civil war from which the Communist Party emerged as victor in 1949.

Unlike organic nations that are formed naturally over time, the Chinese nation is a product of the Chinese people’s experience of being abused and humiliated by outside groups. Their shared suffering at the hands of common enemies transformed Chinese from being “a tray of loose sand” into a nation. In effect, Chinese nationalism from its very beginning has been reactive and xenophobic.

After its bloody suppression of the pro-democracy movement in 1989, the Chinese government initiated a patriotic education campaign, using nationalism to shore up its legitimacy. School textbooks focus on China’s past humiliations, while the state media, such as the People's Daily, highlight contemporary China’s perceived mistreatment at the hands of the United States and other powers. As Hong Kong legislator Christine Loh observed, “If you don’t bear a grudge against China’s historical oppressors, then you don’t ai guo (love your country) enough.”

At the same time as it encourages reactive nationalism, the Chinese government also fears that runaway nationalist passions may harm the economy by alienating foreign investors or, worse yet, mutate into unrest and insurrection against Beijing. Thus far, Beijing has been able to douse the fire of populist nationalism when it became excessive. As an example, in 2005, although Beijing initially had stoked popular anti-Japan resentments, it later brought out riot-control police to restore order in the cities.

Today, on the eve of the opening of the Olympics in Beijing, the true face of Chinese nationalism remains an open question. Is it the peaceable face of herbivorous nationalism, wherein love of one’s own nation does not require hating others, or is Chinese nationalism carnivorous, wherein love of one’s own is intertwined with hatred and aggression towards other groups?

Whatever precedents there are in history are not encouraging. Recall that the nationalisms of both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were of the reactive carnivorous variety. Both saw themselves as having been victimized by others; both turned to grandiose dreams of empire in compensation; and in both cases, voices of reason and moderation were silenced by the authoritarian governments.

As China takes its place as a newly arrived member among the world’s great powers, which face of nationalism it wears carries serious implications for regional peace and security. So long as Chinese continue to overreact to international criticisms with hypersensitivity and rage, the world has reason to be wary. For the mark of a truly great power is the ability to undertake critical self-examination and to admit to flaws and mistakes when warranted.

~

For an extensive treatment of Chinese nationalism, see Maria Hsia Chang, Return of the Dragon: China's Wounded Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001).

What Does Hans Reiser's Handwriting Tell Us?

On April 28, 2008, after a six-month trial, 44-year-old Hans Reiser was convicted of murder-in-the-first-degree of his estranged wife, Nina. The case generated much media publicity due mainly to the defendant’s reputation of being a computer genius who had created the open-source Linux file system, the ReiserFS.

Local publicity was intense from the beginning [1] because the case originated as a missing person mystery: 31-year-old Nina had disappeared on a hot Labor Day weekend in 2006, after dropping off the couple’s two young children at Hans’ Oakland hills residence in the San Francisco Bay Area. Several search parties were undertaken, as well as huge billboards in conspicuous areas publicizing the missing woman. The trial also garnered the attention of the dot.com community [2] and the national media, including ABC’s 20-20 and CBS’s 48 Hours.

More than other murder trials, the Reiser case attracted its share of those who continue to insist on the defendant’s innocence even after the jury delivered a guilty verdict. On July 7, 2008, however, two days before Reiser’s sentencing, he led police to where he had buried his wife’s body, thereby removing all doubt about his culpability. His decision to do so was prompted by an agreement with the district attorney’s office, in which his sentence would be reduced from the first-degree murder penalty of 25 years to life imprisonment, to the second-degree penalty of 15 years to life.

Before that, Reiser had tried to finagle the system, playing the body’s location as a trump card or bargaining chip, to be wielded only when all his other maneuvers had failed.

He first had his defense attorney William Du Bois file a motion declaring him to be “mentally incompetent” and “unable to understand the nature of the criminal proceedings or to assist counsel in the conduct of the defense in a rational manner.” Next, in a handwritten note to his trial judge, dated June 29, 2008, Hans asked that Du Bois be replaced by another lawyer, John Feury, who had been Hans’ divorce attorney. (The note can be viewed on http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/reiserwriting0001.pdf.) Feury, in turn, filed a motion stating that Hans was mentally competent. Then Hans pointed the finger of guilt at his erstwhile best friend, Sean Sturgeon (who had carried on an adulterous affair with Nina), insisting that his only role was in assisting Sturgeon in burying Nina’s body. But the police gave Hans a lie detector test, which he flunked. Finally, when all else failed, Hans admitted he had strangled Nina in a heated argument, and led police to her skeletal remains buried in a 4’ x 4’ hole in a steep ravine in a regional park half a mile from his home.

Seeing Reiser’s handwritten note piqued my curiosity. I dug up a book I have on graphology [3] and consulted numerous websites on handwriting analysis. Admittedly, I am a rank amateur at this. Accordingly, in the following analysis of Hans Reiser’s handwriting, I will give reasons for each of my claims. I invite any professional grapho-analyst who is reading this to disagree, correct, or amend!

∞


Danger Signs

Right off the bat, I wanted to see if Hans’ handwriting bears the telltale signs of someone who is seriously psychologically disturbed. In graphology, those danger signs include the following:

1. Felon’s claw: This is any letter that goes below the baseline, such as a lower-case “y”, “g”, or “z”, whose down stroke comes straight down and then veers up the left into a claw-like loop. This is someone who is underhanded and a back-stabber. It’s called the felon’s claw because it is found in the handwriting of prison inmates and the mentally unbalanced. Graphologist Andrea McNichol claims that 80% of convicted felons display this characteristic. [4]

2. Maniac “d”: A lower-case “d” whose stem falls over or collapses to the right. It indicates great pride and, more importantly, the writer’s extreme reaction to insults to his/her pride. Graphologist Bob Wallace claims that O. J. Simpson and the 1960s Zodiac killer both display this characteristic. [5]

3. Stinger: A little double-hook inside the lower-case letters “o”, “a”, “c”, or “d”. Stingers point to manipulation and often, anger at the opposite sex.

Hans’ handwriting contains none of the above signs that are characteristic of a severe mental disorder, which contradicts his defense attorney’s motion, now withdrawn, that Hans was “mentally incompetent.” Now, onto the rest of the analysis.

Slant
One of the first things that graphologists look for is the slant of the handwriting. The left represents the self, whereas the right represents others. Therefore, the degree to which handwriting slants to the right or left reveals how much the writer wants to be involved with others.

A left slant is a person who is self-interested, self–involved, skeptical of and emotionally aloof from others; whereas a right slant is empathic and open to others. An extreme right slant, however, is someone who cannot control his/her emotional expressions and is prone to hysteria. A person with vertical writing is someone who is objective and balanced, whose head rules the heart, and who assumes a neutral posture until s/he decides whether or not s/he approves of the subject matter.

Slant also shows how spontaneous one’s emotional reactions are and how receptive the writer is to external and internal events. It reveals how well a person controls his/her emotional responses after filtering them through the rational mind. Emotional equilibrium is shown in the steadiness of the slant, but a person whose writing alternately slants to the right, then to the left, is in great emotional turmoil. One website claims that whereas only 10% of the general population has a wobbly slant, as many as 70 to 80% of convicted felons have this characteristic. [6]

In Han’s case, his handwriting is consistently slightly slanted to the right, which indicates that he is expressive of his feelings (no surprise to those who observed his testimony in court) and somewhat impulsive. His heart rules more than his head. He also has some empathy for the feelings of others.

Slant can also mean slope—whether the baseline of a person’s handwriting is level, or slopes upward or downward. An upward slant is indicative of the writer’s optimism. In Hans’ case, however, his baselines slightly slope down, which suggests he is in a pessimistic frame of mind.

Margins
The next thing I looked for is the width of margins. Assuming that the pdf view is an accurate representation of Han’s actual note, his narrow left margin indicates a clinging to the past (his childhood?) and a need for security, neither of which is surprising given his murder conviction and incarceration.

A narrow or no margin at all, left or right, also indicates frugality and the writer’s strong focus on money. Indeed, during his murder trial, Hans’ concern about finances was discussed. He gave that as one of the reasons why he allegedly slept in his Honda CRX; he also accused Nina for embezzling from his software company, Namesys.

Pressure
Pressure refers to the force with which one writes. In graphology, too light a touch signifies indecisiveness, while a very heavy hand may point to a domineering personality. [7] In Hans’ case, the pressure is variable, alternately heavy and light, which suggests erratic emotions and uneven depth-of-emotion.

Zones
Graphologists divide each line of writing into three areas or zones: the middle, upper and lower. The middle zone is the baseline where one finds letters with no upper or lower extensions, e.g., the lower-case “a”, “n”, “o”, “w”, etc. Other letters have extensions into the upper or lower zones, e.g., “b”, “d”, “t”, “g”, “y”, etc. Only one letter, the lower-case “f” in script form (instead of printed), extends into both the upper and lower zones.

The upper zone is the area where one finds the stems and loops of letters like “f”, “t”, “l”; the dots of “i” and “j”; and “t” bars. This area represents a person’s thoughts, interests, aspirations and spirit; some graphologists identify a well-developed upper zone as indicative of a concern for the higher truths of philosophical, spiritual, moral, or theoretical matters. Kerrie Spencer maintains that upper loops that are way out of proportion to the rest of the writing points to a person whose thoughts are not terribly rational. [8]

The lower zone is where one finds the lower strokes and loops of such lower-case letters as “g”, “p”, “y”, etc. It is where the writer expresses his/her physical vigor, material demands, and sex drive. Spencer maintains that lower extensions that are way out of proportion to the rest of the handwriting indicate a person who has urgent, repressed, inhibited, or perverse sexual fantasies.
In Hans’ case, his upper zone is well developed but not exaggerated. In contrast, his lower zone has rather short lower extensions of “g”s and “y”s. Hans’ stunted lower zone signifies a lack of determination, a sedentary disposition or lifestyle, weak physical strength or a disinterest in physicality, and a blunting of the sex drive. All of which is unsurprising for an incarcerated man who is facing the depressing prospect of perhaps a lifetime in jail.

Personal Pronoun “I”
One of the more important signs to look for in handwriting is how the capital-letter “I” is written. This is because “I” is the personal pronoun, representative of one’s self. A person who writes his/her “I” consistently in the same manner has a stable self-image and knows who s/he is, unlike someone whose “I” is changeable and inconsistent. Graphologists also regard a script-form “I” (i.e., an “I” with a looped upstroke and base-stroke) as indicative of the writer’s relationship with his/her parents.

In Hans’ case, he writes his capital “I” in a consistent manner, which means he has a good idea who he is. His capital “I”s are of a good size, but not disproportionately large, indicating a fair amount of self-esteem.

He also writes his “I” in script form with a looped upstroke and a larger cup-shaped base-stroke, which points to a strong connection to both parents. The looped upstroke signifies his connection to his mother, Beverly Palmer. But Hans begins that upper loop with an initial upstroke at the baseline, which makes his capital “I” resemble a small-letter “l”. In graphology, that initial upstroke to a letter is called a “resentment stroke,” which suggests that although Hans is close to his mother, he feels some resentment against her.

Even more interesting is the looped base-stroke of his capital “I”. Not only is it larger than the upper loop, it resembles a small-letter “c”. The cup-shaped and larger base-stroke of Hans’ capital “I” is suggestive of a stronger, more open, and nurturing (or dependent?) relationship with his father, Ramon.

Lower-case “t”
Graphologists place great importance on the lower-case “t” because how it is written reveals a great deal about the writer’s personality.

To begin with, the “t” of a direct or forthright person is simple, without an initial upstroke—the resentment stroke—at or below the baseline. In Hans’ case, some of his “t”s (as well as his “y”s) begin with an initial upstroke, which means he is not straightforward in his communication, as attested to by his rambling meandering 11-day testimony on the stand. He is also quite angry and resentful.

The fact that Hans’ “t”s (and “d”s) have high stems points to his pride. He is also persistent or obstinate, as indicated in the upstroke and downstroke of his “t”s forming a teepee or steeple.

Then there are his horizontal t-bars. They are completed (Hans is not a procrastinator), short (Hans lacks enthusiasm; his energy is only available for short spurts), either level or slanting slightly downward (pessimism), and are halfway down the stem instead of on top of or above the stem (practical goals and a lack of self-confidence).

Honesty
In graphology, the presence of loops within a writer’s lower-case “a” and “o” is indicative of dishonesty, secrecy, and deception, especially when double-loops are found inside the “o” letter. The larger the inner loop, the more secrets are withheld from others. Graphologists also emphasize whether the inner loop within “o” is on the left or right side. A loop on the left side signifies self-deception.

In Hans’ case, his lower-case “a”s are clear and not retraced. However, his lower-case “o” not only is retraced in some cases, it also contains a small right loop, which is indicative of some dishonesty toward others. Moreover, secrecy is indicated in his lower-case “s” being closed instead of open. All of which is confirmed by Hans’ repeated lies in and out of court, including one instance of admitted perjury, and his keeping secret the location of Nina’s body.

Other characteristics
Here are some other of Hans’ attributes that can be gleaned from his handwriting:

* Intuition: minimal, as indicated by the fact that there are few breaks in his letters.

* Sense of humor: minimal, as indicated by a short, if any, beginning stroke on his capital or small “M” or “N”.

* Generosity: moderate, as indicated by a medium-length final on the end of his lower-case “y” and “g”.

* Sensitivity to criticism about his work: minimal or none, as indicated by his lower-case “t” not being looped.

* Some sensitivity to criticism about his person, as indicated in the stem of his lower-case “d” being looped. But even here, his sensitivity is not great because the loop is quite narrow, nor is his “d” always looped.

* Jealousy: some, as indicated by the small clockwise near-circle of the base-stroke of Hans’ capital “I”.

* Friends: a few, as indicated in the infrequent and narrow lower loops of Hans’ lower-case “y”, "g" and “j”. Hans may be protective of himself by being selective in his choice of friends.

* Hans’ squared lower-case “r”s indicate manual dexterity, as in engineering talent.

* He is not selfish, indicated by the absence of curled initial loops of his capital letters. He is somewhat generous with friends and family, as indicated by his ending his words with a small upstroke.

* He has a fairly good organizational ability, as indicated by the balanced upper and lower loops of his lower-case “f”.

* He has good attention to details, as indicated by his dotting every “i” and crossing every “t”.

* Irritability and some impatience are shown in his i-dots being flicks or short dashes instead of dots. Those i-flicks or dashes are also to the right of the i-stems, especially in the word “Reiser” of his signature, where the i-flick is so to the right that it is on top of the next letter “s”.



Notes:

(1) See Henry K. Lee’s blogs on the trial for the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/localnews/category?blogid=37&cat=1428.
(2) See David Kravets’ blogs on the trial for wired.com, http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/index.html.
(3) Josh Batchelor, Handwriting Reveals You, 2003.
(4) http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/homework/?article=handwritingevaluate.
(5) Bob Wallace, “Page Full o’ Fun,” http://rmwallace.tripod.com/pagefun.html.
(6) “10 Secrets Your Handwriting Might Reveal,” http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/Columns/?Article=handwriting10secrets.
(7) Linda Sorcie Smith, “Tips for analyzing people's handwriting,” http://www.helium.com/items/809735-tips-for-analyzing-peoples-handwriting.
(8) Kerrie Spencer, “The Three Zones (Used in Handwriting Analysis,” http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/handwriting_analysis/76505.

The Little Flowers of St. Ambrose

(Published as "Seniors beautify St. Ambrose Church with tender care," in The Catholic Voice, vol. 46, no. 14, August 4, 2008, http://www.catholicvoiceoakland.org/08-08-04/inthisissue2.htm.)

In the summer of 2006, I left my university teaching post in Nevada to join my husband in Berkeley. I made it a point to attend Mass at each of the city’s four Catholic churches in order to select one as my parish.

When I first visited St. Ambrose, I noticed its beautiful garden and clean facilities and thought to myself that the church must be blessed with an exceptionally able gardener as well as a conscientious janitor. Although it was the warmth of then-pastor Fr. George Alengadan that convinced me to choose St. Ambrose, the church’s appearance was an additional factor in its favor.

Several months passed. One Sunday at the end of Mass, Fr. George called four men and a woman to the front and introduced them to the congregation as the parish’s Maintenance Crew. Only then did I realize it was these parishioners, instead of hired help, who had kept the garden blooming and the church’s great hall clean. My astonishment was quickly overtaken by a sense of shame because the men and woman standing before us were all senior citizens in their golden years.

St. Ambrose’s Maintenance Crew is consistent with the results of a study done in 2000 which found that a small minority (less than 10%) of the population in North America accounted for most (nearly 75%) of the volunteer work. Moreover, the volunteers tended to be older folks: 35% of those who volunteered were between the ages of 45-54, 30% were between the ages of 55-64, and 23% were over 65. More interesting still is the finding that among those who volunteered, individuals with a religious affiliation gave more time on average than those who were not religious, at 168 volunteer hours vs. 149 volunteer hours a year.

At St. Ambrose, the volunteers on its Maintenance Crew come to the church every Tuesday morning to perform the following chores, most of which are quite physically demanding:

* Sweeping and mopping the floor of the great hall where Sunday pancake breakfasts, RCIA and other classes, assorted meetings, lunches, and festivities take place. The hall is capacious and can accommodate 300 to 400 people. The volunteers who sweep and mop the hall’s floor are Arnie Guasco, Selso Martinez, and Mel Schiavon.

* Gardening: St. Ambrose has a lovely garden with perennial flowers such as roses, as well as annuals such as miniature sunflowers. There are flowers blooming even in the midst of winter. We do not have a paid gardener; instead, all the planting, pruning, weeding, and watering are performed by volunteer Barbara Thomas-Lieberman, who is assisted by Ray Aguilera.

* Outside cleaning: St. Ambrose is situated at the intersection of tree-lined Gilman St. and Cornell St. The pedestrian pathways and the small parking lot on Gilman require regular sweeping, mainly by José Valdivia.

* Electrical work and repair: Retired professional electrician Jim Mullarkey undertakes all the electrical work and repair for the church and its adjacent rectory.

* Building repair, painting, and other odd jobs, such as repairing broken pews, are performed mainly by Mel Schiavon and Richard Vohs.

Put simply, the above tasks entail plain hard manual labor. But the members of the Maintenance Crew perform these chores willingly and cheerfully every week, without fail, despite their mature years. The oldest among them, at a glorious 85, is Selso, while Jim, in his early 60s, is the baby of the group. The others are Arnie, 81; Mel, 80; José, 76; Ray, 75; Barbara, 68; and Richard, 67.

This group of volunteers is remarkable for another reason. With the exception of Barbara and Arnie, who were, respectively, a corporate accountant and a sales manager before their retirement, all the volunteers had been blue-collar workers, not unlike the humble fishermen whom Jesus once called to be his apostles. Selso was a maintenance worker (otherwise called a janitor) at UC Berkeley; Mel was an iron worker, fitter, layout man and foreman at Herrick Corporation in Hayward; Richard had spent 40 years in the US Merchant Marine; Jim was an electrician; and José was a dishwasher and cook at Spenger’s Seafood Restaurant for 42 years.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), better known as the Little Flower, is only one of three women on whom Vatican has bestowed the honorific title of Doctor of the Church. Unlike the Church’s other doctors, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, who are celebrated for their learned intellect and rich troves of writings, Thérèse is known for her simple but profound notion of the “Little Way.” By the example of how she lived her short life, she teaches that to serve God and attain holiness, it is not necessary to accomplish great works or heroic acts. In her autobiography she wrote, “Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

And that is exactly what the little flowers of St. Ambrose’s Maintenance Crew do every Tuesday. By their example, I was inspired to join the team. Truly, it is in the smallest that we are refined.

Conforming Personality Disorder

(Note: All page citations are from Theodore Millon, with Roger D. Davis, Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond, 2nd edition (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996)


Conforming Personality Disorder (CPD) is one of a number of personality disorders identified in the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM)-IV. Past labels for CPD are “obsessive-compulsive” personality disorder and Sigmund Freud’s “anal character.” (Note: In this essay, CPD is used to refer to both the disorder and the person afflicted with the disorder.)

What are personality disorders?

The word “personality” may be defined as an individual’s “lifelong style of relating, coping, behaving, thinking, and feeling.” (p. 3) A longer definition is “a complex pattern of deeply embedded psychological characteristics that are largely nonconscious and not easily altered, expressing themselves automatically in almost every facet of functioning. Intrinsive and pervasive, these traits emerge from a complicated matrix of biological dispositions and experiential learnings, and ultimately comprise the individual’s distinctive pattern of perceiving, feeling, thinking, coping, and behaving.” (p. 4)

Recognizing that personality exists on a continuum, psychologists maintain that “no sharp division exists between normality and pathology.” (p. 7) Personality traits nevertheless can become a disorder when they are rigid and unbending. A “personality disorder” thus refers to ingrained, inflexible, and maladaptive patterns of behavior that cause discomfort and impair an individual’s ability to function.

Given the above, at least three main differences between “personality” and “personality disorder” can be discerned:

1. The personality traits of a disordered individual are inflexible.
2. The rigidity of an individual’s personality renders her maladaptive, i.e., she is unable to adjust herself to changing circumstances, both external and internal.
3. Personality traits being “pervasive,” the disordered personality creates problems in the individual’s life—at home and at work, affecting the individual as well as others. The problems may include unhappiness, alcoholism, drug addiction, psychosomatic symptoms, actual physical ailments, and interpersonal conflicts.

Differences between conforming “style” (CS) & conforming personality disorder (CPD):

Anyone reading this is probably well-educated and, therefore, an achiever. Such an individual probably has a mild variant of CPD—what psychologists call a “conscientious” or “conforming style” (CS). Simply put, CS individuals are high achievers who respect tradition and authority, and conform to societal morality and standards. Having strong moral principles, they behave in a highly principled manner with an unusual degree of integrity. They are responsible, proper, and conscientious; loyal to their families, their causes, and their superiors; and may be religious. They are hardworking, persevering, disciplined, and organized—all of which makes them efficient and successful in most of their endeavors, and are perceived by others to be dependable and industrious. Being morally principled, however, also means that CS individuals tend to be judgmental of those who do not abide by conventional rules and standards. At the same time, however, CS individuals are prudent and restrained, and strive to act in an objective and rational manner.


How CS differs from CPD:

A conforming style does not mean a conforming personality disorder (CPD). The main difference lies in the fact that the CS individual does not have the severe cognitive distortions of the CPD—distortions that come from the CPD’s repression of thoughts and feelings, and her psychological mechanisms of defense and denial. That is why, unlike the CPD, the CS individual can act prudently, objectively, and rationally, and exercise restraint. Simply put, the CS individual’s rationality enables her to learn and adapt. In contrast, the CPD is inflexible and maladaptive. That rigidity, together with her repression and denial, accounts for the CPD’s self-destructive behaviors and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships.


The CPD Syndrome:

Etiology: Psychologists maintain that in childhood, the CPD’s parents (or other primary care-givers) were “demanding, perfectionistic, and condemnatory,” (p. 517) holding the child to extremely high and exacting moral standards. More than being exacting, the parent is punitive when the child violates or fails to conform to those rules. The punishment can be physical (extreme physical abuse can produce a child that is rebellious or, worse yet, a psychopath or sociopath) or emotional (the parent may withhold affection or gives the child the silent treatment). Whatever form the punishment takes, it is so unbearable and psychologically painful to the child that she learns to avoid punishment and gain parental approval by completely conforming herself to the parental standards. But the child’s compliance is excessive because it is achieved at a cost in that the child represses her legitimate anger and resentment at having been so harshly punished. The result of that repression is CPD—a complex syndrome comprised of cognitive distortions and the deployment of psychological mechanisms of repression, defensiveness, and denial, all of which damage the person’s health as well as her interpersonal relationships. In effect, in Freudian parlance, the CPD’s “superego” is over-developed because, even in adulthood, she remains enslaved to the parental standards and rules of childhood, at the price of developing a genuine self-autonomy and moral understanding.

The CPD syndrome includes the following attributes:

Perfectionism: The CPD has so internalized her parents’ high standards that she becomes her parents, which explains her conformance to social rules and conventions and, if religious, her orthodoxy. She is perfectionistic, hardworking, disciplined, organized, responsible, tidy, and meticulous. Fearing that others might view her as less than perfect, she drives herself hard and minimizes the importance of recreational and leisure activities.

Moralistic: Having an over-developed superego, the CPD is moralistic, absolutist, and dogmatic. Her moral code being rigid and unbending, the CPD sees the world in black and white, without shades of grey.

Self-righteousness: More than being moralistic and righteous, the CPD’s perfectionism and fear of being seen by others as lacking make her self-righteous and sanctimonious. Convinced that virtue, rightness, and (in the case of religious CPDs) God are on her side, the CPD is always right and never wrong. She is demanding and harshly judgmental of others, seeing moral and religious issues in stark black-and-white terms, instead of nuanced complexities of shades of grey. Not only does her self-righteous moralism buttress her perfectionist self-image, it also functions as a sanctioned outlet for her suppressed anger and hostility, which explains why CPDs are attracted to occupations such as dean, soldier, surgeon, or judge. (p. 517)

Repression: The CPD allows only socially acceptable thoughts, feelings, and memories into her conscious awareness. The rest is either suppressed (i.e., highly regulated and tightly bound) or repressed (i.e., being consigned to the unconscious). Suppression and repression result in denial, the outright refusal to countenance something or accept its legitimacy. Denial can take the form of:
· Taking great pains to avoid recognizing the contradictions between the CPD’s unconscious impulses and overt behaviors.
· Avoiding to look into themselves by devaluing and refusing to undertake self-exploration and -examination. As a consequence, CPDs exhibit little or no insight into their motives and feelings.

Defense mechanisms: To keep a tight rein on her contrary feelings and dispositions, “more than any other personality,” (p. 516) the CPD engages in many defense or regulatory mechanisms. Those mechanisms are “more varied...than any of the other pathological patterns” (p. 517) and include:
1. Reaction-formation: Putting a positive spin on their thoughts and behaviors.
2. Undertake socially commendable actions that, in fact, diametrically oppose their deeper forbidden and contrary feelings.
3. Public display of a mature reasonableness when faced with circumstances that frustrate, dismay, irritate, or anger other (i.e., non-CPD) people.
4. Rigid compartmentalization of the CPD’s inner world—of memories, feelings, and dispositions—to block or neutralize feelings that are normally aroused by a stressful event. The compartments are tightly sealed to preclude any open channels of interrelatedness.

Cognitive Style: The CPD’s cognitive style is constricted because she thinks in terms of conventional rules and regulations, as well as personally formulated schedules and social hierarchies. The CPD’s cognitive characteristics include:
1. Work diligently and patiently with activities that require being tidy and meticulous.
2. Easily upset by having to deal with unfamiliar customs and novel ideas.
3. Concerned with matters of propriety and efficiency.
4. Contemptuous of those whom the CPD perceives to be frivolous, impulsive, and emotional.
5. Morally self-righteous.
6. Perceived by others to be industrious, efficient, but also stubborn, perfectionistic, officious, legalistic, uncreative, and unimaginative.
7. Judge others in accord with rules that they themselves unconsciously detest, which accounts for the CPD’s resort to psychological projection when she is harshly judgmental toward others.
8. The CPD’s ambivalence and her unconscious desire to defy authority blocks her from significant achievements and from attaining her public aspirations.

Self-Image: The CPD sees herself as:
1. Devoted to work, industrious, reliable, meticulous, efficient, perfectionist, prudent, and disciplined.
2. Having a strong sense of duty to others.

Outward appearance or expressive behavior: Due to an over-developed super-ego, the outward appearance of the CPD is characterized by the following: (pp. 513-514)
· A “grim and cheerless demeanor”: Although the CPD is not always glum or downcast, her characteristic air however is one of austerity and serious-mindedness.
· Tight posture and movement that reflect the CPD’s tense control of her emotions.
· A tendency to speak precisely, with clear diction, and well-phrased sentences.
· Formal and proper clothing that is restrained in color and style.

Interpersonal conduct: The CPD’s conformity to tradition and authority extends to her social conduct, which is governed by social conventions and proprieties. She is generally polite, formal, and correct, although a distinction is made between her superiors and status inferiors. Specifically, (pp. 514-515)
1. With her superiors, the CPD is more than just correct and polite. Since she enjoys the protection and prestige of her superiors, she is deferential, ingratiating, and even obsequious, eager to impress them with her efficiency and serious-mindedness.
2. Toward subordinates, however, the CPD is “pompous,” “uncompromising,” “demanding,” “haughty,” and “deprecatory.”
3. Toward those who fail to live up to the CPD’s standards, she is reprimanding and condemning.
4. In her treatment of subordinates and “transgressors,” the CPD is self-righteous. She cloaks her behavior behind regulations and legalities, always justifying her conduct by invoking rules or authorities higher than herself.
5. In effect, the CPD is quite aggressive toward subordinates and “transgressors.” This exertion of power over others acts as a sanctioned outlet to vent her suppressed hostile impulses.

Despite all the CPD’s repression, suppression, denial, defensive mechanisms, and proper outward conduct, psychologists maintain that “At some level,” CPD individuals “sense the pretentiousness and insincerity of their public behavior.” (p. 518) More than that, the CPD’s tight control and outright repression of thoughts and feelings take their toll. She is tense and unable to relax, with a grim, stern, and joyless countenance. More seriously, her repressed emotions and energies dispose the CPD to somatic complaints and psycho-physiological disorders, especially “immobilization” (p. 518).

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In psychology, personality disorders refer to individual traits that reflect ingrained, inflexible, and maladaptive patterns of behavior that cause discomfort and impair a person’s ability to function--including her relations with friends and family. At least ten distinct personality disorders have been identified, one of which is the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) that the American Psychological Association (APA) classifies as a “cluster B” disorder. NPD is a highly complex psychological-behavioral syndrome that confounds and baffles those close to the afflicted. Once understood, however, one achieves clarity of vision.

Narcissism may be defined as excessive love of self. Socio-biologists maintain that love of self is natural for both individuals and groups because it is an instinctive, natural-selection trait. That is why all children are narcissists. As individuals mature into adulthood, however, they become less narcissistic because their insecurity tends to diminish as a result of concrete achievements and successes. A certain degree of healthy self-love nevertheless continues into adulthood. It is when love of self in adults becomes excessive that psychologists consider it to be a sign of immaturity or worse, a pathology—that of the narcissistic personality disorder.

Although the phenomenon of narcissism is as old as humanity, the formal diagnosis of NPD was made by the APA only as recently as 1990. The following list of traits comes from the APA’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV:

“A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by 5 or more of the following:

* Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
* Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
* Believes that he or she is “special” & unique & can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions.
* Requires excessive admiration.
* Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with her expectations.
* Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.
* Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings & needs of others.
* Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him/her.
* Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.”

In addition to the above, I’ve compiled the following attributes, after having read, assimilated, and synthesized a great deal of the literature on this subject. Instead of the typical approach taken by the psychological literature on NPD—which describes the disorder as a syndrome of various attributes—what I attempt to do here is to uncover the central logic that accounts for the syndrome.

In the following description of the NPD syndrome, I use the pronoun “she” to refer to the narcissist, for the sake of avoiding the cumbersome “he/she” and “ his/her.” The psychological literature, however, claims that male NPDs outnumber females. The literature also claims that the incidence of NPD is relatively rare, afflicting an estimated 1% of the population. Both of these claims, however, are not verified by my own personal experiences. The problem, as the psychological literature itself admits, is that the very nature of NPD prevents narcissists from admitting they have a problem and to seek professional help. As psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explains, “To receive treatment one must want it, at least on some level. And to want it one must consider oneself to be in need of it. One must, at least on some level, acknowledge his or her imperfection.”(1) And imperfection is something to which the narcissist, by the very nature of the NPD disorder, will not and cannot admit.

The few narcissists who do seek therapy, do so when their narcissism has led to a major life crisis—such as divorce, drug addiction, unemployment, and imprisonment—a crisis that threatens to shatter their grandiose self-conception. Even when narcissists seek help, however, they typically do not complete the course of psychotherapy. Instead, when the therapist confronts them with their pathological narcissism, the individual would simply abandon treatment and flee. This is because therapy requires the patient to undertake self-scrutiny and self-examination, followed by change. But to change oneself is painful. More than that, it is a form of death because it requires the surrendering—the shedding—of the sick and dysfunctional aspects of oneself. For the pathological narcissist, whose very self is a constructed lie, to change would mean the total annihiliation—the death—of her self. This is why the narcissist will sacrifice anything and anyone instead of confronting and admitting the truth.

Given the above, I have every reason to conclude that the statistics claimed in the literature—that NPDs comprise but 1% of the total population—are suspect. The simple truth, I submit, is that the psychological profession does not really know how many NPDs there are in the population, nor do they really know that male NPDs outnumber females.


The NPD Syndrome

At the core of the NPD syndrome is the construction of a false self as a way to cope with the external world so as to compensate for the individual’s feelings of insecurity and uncertain self-identity. Like its namesake, the mythic Narcissus who is in love with his reflection in water, the self that the narcissist loves is not her real self, but a false self that is grandiose, perfect, and superior. The particular basis of the grandiosity is what the narcissist loves herself for. That varies according to the individual, and may be physical beauty, intellect, talent, power, etc.

Three types of narcissists: As a consequence, psychologists divide narcissists into two types: the somatic and the cerebral. The former are those whose narcissism is focused on their bodies; the latter are those who have a grandiose conviction that they have a superior intellect. I would add a third type: the spiritual narcissist. These are those who ooze with false piety and self-righteousness, having a false conception of themselves as supremely virtuous and God’s chosen. We need to remember that those who are truly good are also truly humble: They are the last people to claim that they have God’s special favor. The key to identifying a narcissist, whether she be spiritual, somatic, or cerebral is this: Does she present herself as always right and never wrong?

The logic of the NPD syndrome: Regardless of the particular basis of grandiosity, the narcissist strives to maintain and protect that false self at all costs. In effect, the grandiose false self acts like the center of a wheel, to which are affixed the spokes. The latter are the syndromatic attributes of NPD, the function of each is to protect and maintain the grandiose false self. The constellation of attributes is not accidental because there is a functional reason for the various attributes. This is the underlying logic that accounts for the syndrome.

Malignant narcissism: Together with the APA’s DSM IV criteria, the following collection of “spokes” constitute a particularly malignant form of narcissism. The malignant narcissist goes beyond excessive love-of-self to hurting other people. The hurt inflicted on others can be psychological, physical, or financial. Malignant narcissism has the following attributes:

· Using people—even supposed loved ones—as tools of self-aggrandisement to affirm and maintain the false self. The narcissist is hollow inside and derives her sense-of-self from seeing her reflection in the eyes of others. The psychological literature calls this “mirroring”: the narcissist mainly uses other people as a mirror to reflect her grandiose false self-conception. Like a vampire who must feed on others’ blood in order to live, the narcissist feeds on other people’s admiration, approval, love, and compliments. Once the source is sucked dry, however, the narcissist no longer has use of that person and will abruptly and mercilessly cast him or her aside.

· To lure people into her web, the skillful narcissist puts on an attractive social mask. In effect, the narcissist not just has a false self, she literally has a false faÇade of physical appearance or demeanor. She can be charming, gracious, socially adept, even obsequious. She must also be a consummate actor, skilled at simulating the whole range of human emotions, especially those of love, compassion, and kindness. The more successful she is at simulation, the greater her circle of friends and acquaintances who serve as her primary and secondary feeding sources. I’ve learnt from experience to be wary of charming people because charm is a form of manipulation, albeit very subtle. To quote Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter book and movie series: “I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed.”(2)

· More than to lure people into her web, the narcissist’s charming social mask also conceals the false self from scrutiny. Concealment requires secrecy, evasion, dishonesty, and deception. In effect, the narcissist is a consummate pathological liar--she habitually lies, even about seemingly trivial inconsequential matters.

· Using other people as her “blood bank” requires that the narcissist be a human emotional radar. The successful narcissist is interpersonnally astute and shrewd so that she can “size up” everyone she encounters for their potential to be her blood-donor.

· Cynically using other people also requires that the narcissist be lacking in empathy. Do not be fooled by her simulations at empathy. A good experiment is for you to withhold your approval and compliments. You will discover that, overnight, the narcissist has lost her “kindness” and even simple civility.

· The maintenance and protection of the false self also requires the narcissist to be constantly vigilant against being “attacked” by others. Toward any perceived criticism, the narcissist is either cooly indifferent or overreacts with rage and humiliation to even minor or trivial reproach. She simply will not listen to or countenance criticism.

· As the saying goes, “the best defense is offense.” More than reacting with rage, the narcissist attacks the critic. How better to deflect criticism from oneself than to attack the critic? This is called scapegoating—projecting one’s own faults (what Carl G. Jung called our “shadow”) onto another person, and blaming the other for one’s inadequacies. The narcissist is very skilled at this.

· The false self must be impervious, which requires the narcissist to resist self-examination and introspection. Doing so would open the narcissist to reality-based assessment and reflection—a dangerous undertaking because the false self is, by definition, unreal. As a consequence, instead of the insecurities of normal human beings, the narcissist displays an impassive and uncritical acceptance of herself. She is curiously disinterested in reading or learning more about herself; she will avoid and resist psychological probing, counseling, and therapy.

· The inability or unwillingness to be introspective, together with the narcissist’s unreal inner world, in turn, result in cognitive dissonance, cognitive gaps, and non sequiturs. Trying to engage a narcissist in serious dialogue—especially about herself or her beliefs and values—can be a disconcerting experience because nothing she says makes sense.

· Since the false self is superior and grandiose, it needs no one. The narcissist dreads becoming dependent on others—dependence being regarded as a weakness—but instead asserts and clings to an exaggerated independence. Since her love of self is all-consuming, she is incapable of love and emotional commitments to other people. This is why the narcissist reacts to sincere declarations of love, verbal or behavioral, by emotionally distancing herself and, in some cases, outright abandonment, because she is unable to reciprocate that commitment.

· In effect, the narcissist’s grandiose self-conception makes her a god unto herself. Gods are not subject to the morality that governs lesser beings—“rules don’t apply to me.” The narcissist refuses to subscribe to society’s moral rules and ethical standards. Instead, morality is subjective: “Nobody can judge me.” One NPD I knew, a woman in her sixties (and therefore should know better), exhibited this trait when she blithely received the Holy Eucharist, believed by Catholics to be the actual body of Christ—although she is not Catholic! When told by her Catholic friend that she must be a Catholic and in a state of grace to receive the Blessed Sacrament, the NPD declared that “No one can tell me whether I can or cannot receive Jesus.” Another NPD, a former student of mine, responded with rage to my critique of his essay-exam, which garnered a respectable “B” grade, insisting that he was not subject to the grammatical rules of the English language.

· Lacking an abstract universal system of moral rules—and being cognitively impaired—the narcissist lives in a world of feelings and sensations: “What’s good is that which makes me feel good.” Narcissists tend to wallow in cheap “feel good” sentiments. One narcissist I know proclaims she is a humanitarian and an animal lover. But her “love” for humanity and animals is confined to feelings, instead of actual behavior. Not only does she abhor the homeless, she eats meat, sets poison out for mice, and had cement poured into a squirrel hole.

· Since the false self is grandiose and perfect, relationship problems are never the fault of the narcissist. She blames everyone, but herself.

· This also means that narcissists do not ever apologize or admit that they are wrong or at fault. Instead, they will always subtly, if not blatantly, turn things around to blame you.

· All of this means that narcissists do not, as a rule, seek therapy. In the few cases who do, it is because their problems have become so serious that they cannot be ignored (e.g., divorce, drug abuse, job loss, imprisonment). Even then, the narcissist resists therapy and is likely to blame the therapist (scapegoating!) and flee from treatment.



Why Pathological Narcissism is a Spiritual Disorder

A fifth-century theologian who called himself Dionysius the Aereopagite once wrote in The Divine Names that, “The denial of the true Self is a declension from Truth.”(3) In the last analysis, in constructing and clinging to their false selves, the entire persona of the NPD is a big lie. That being so, I have come to believe that NPD is not a psychological disorder at all, but a moral and spiritual disorder. Allow me to explain.

An intrinsic attribute of the NPD syndrome is deception—of oneself and of others—in the service of maintaining the grandiose false self. Philosopher René Descartes wrote that “willful deception evinces maliciousness and weakness.”(4) A person does not deceive without thinking about and willing it. One does not lie unless one intends to hide the truth, which means that one knows that one is being deceptive. Nor can the NPD put together and maintain the elaborate and intricate NPD syndrome of attributes (e.g., using others for self-aggrandizement, attractive social mask, secrecy, evasion, lying, scapegoating, etc.) without conscious effort. Psychologists say that, in their quiet moments, NPDs know that they are not really as grandiose as they pretend. (5) When NPDs cynically use others to “feed” their false self, they know it. When they overreact to perceived criticisms, they know what the truth is. When they lie to conceal their inadequacies, they have chosen to deceive. When they scapegoat others, they do so with deliberation. And when they refuse to apologize, they know they are in the wrong. All of which means that free will is fully engaged in this so-called “disorder.”

In effect, NPD is more than a mental sickness. To quote Theodore Millon, personality disorders are “not diseases.” They are not some “infectious agents” or “some ‘foreign’ entity or lesion that intrudes insidiously within the person to undermine his or her so-called normal functions.”(6) In the case of malignant narcissists, such individuals are in full possession of their reason. As an example, one somatic NPD I know takes extremely good care of her health by doing all the right things, for example, carefully watching her weight to maintain her figure, and eating the right foods to acquire the requisite nutrients. In so doing, she demonstrates that she is fully rational—“rational” being defined as choosing the most efficacious path toward the achievement of some end. Pathological narcissism is not some noxious virus or bacteria that overtakes a person. Whatever the early childhood experiences, free will is still operative here.

Instead of the standard diagnosis of a “personality disorder,” NPD is a moral disorder, because it is immoral to lie and to use, exploit, hurt, and scapegoat others. More than immoral, NPD is, at its foundation, a spiritual blight. Since the false self of the narcissist is extremely grandiose, she excludes herself from the moral norms that govern “lesser” beings: “rules don’t apply to me.” That makes pathological narcissists in effect their own gods. In so doing, they are in denial of the fundamentally flawed nature of all human beings.

The malignant narcissist is more than immoral, she is evil. In his book, People of the Lie, Peck proposes to the psychological profession a new diagnostic category of the “evil personality disorder” (EPD) as a sub-type of NPD. As he puts it, “The evil are ‘the people of the lie,’ deceiving others as they also build layer upon layer of self-deception.” When the narcissist intentionally hurts another, she has crossed the line from being an NPD to being an EPD. In Peck’s words, “evil individuals will flee self-examination and guilt by blaming and attempting to destroy whatever or whoever highlights their deficiencies.”(7)

Except for atheists (who must be very grandiose because they claim to know a categorical negative—that God does not exist),(8) all of us—the religious as well as the agnostics—believe in the existence of some supreme moral being or force in the universe. Recognizing that, most of us harken to these words of Descartes: “I have been so constituted as to be some kind of middle ground between God and nothing . . . . [A]s I am not the supreme being, I lack quite a few things.”(9) Dionysius the Areopagite concluded that being self-centered is “inherently wrong” because we have “no right to be the centre of things” as only God is the rightful center of all things.(10)

Not only is vanity and pride the first of the Seven Deadly Sins, I believe that narcissism is the root of all evil. Peck wrote that the most basic sin is pride “because all sins are reparable except the sin of believing one is without sin.” (11) More than that, narcissism was not only the original sin of Adam and Eve, it was also the First Sin--that of the fallen angel Lucifer--which introduced evil into the universe. It is for this reason that I propose calling malignant narcissism the “Lucifer syndrome.”

Decrying the ills that he saw rampant in modern society, in particular the relativization of all moral norms, post-communist Czechoslovakia’s first president VaÇlav Havel observed that “Given its fatal incorrigibility, humanity will have to go through many more Rwandas and Chernobyls before it understands how unbelievably short-sighted a human being can be who has forgotten that he is not God.” It is the misdiagnosis of pathological narcissism as a “personality disorder” instead of a moral-spiritual condition which accounts for psychiatrists’ characterization of NPD as “one of the most . . . difficult-to-treat conditions in the lexicon of mental illness.”



How to Deal With a Narcissist

Dr. Peck wrote that “I have learned nothing in twenty years that would suggest that evil people can be rapidly influenced by any means other than raw power. They do not respond, at least in the short run, to either gentle kindness or any form of spiritual persuasion with which I am familiar.” With that in mind, I suggest the following:

· The first rule is: Give up on your fantasy that you have an authentic relationship with the narcissist. Sadly, the person you think you love/like never existed.
· The second rule is: Don’t be a bloodbank for the narcissist.
· The third rule is: Be emotionally detached.
· The fourth rule is: If you must interact with her, challenge the narcissist’s false conception of herself by insisting on reality-based assessment. Doing so, however, is guaranteed to alienate you from the narcissist--which is a good thing because the narcissist is incapable of genuine friendship and love. In the last analysis, you are better off without her. (If, unfortunately, you must have her in your life because your survival depends on her, as in the case of a child needing the narcissistic mother’s care, the way to get along with her is to feed her fantasies by lavishing compliments on her, i.e., by letting yourself be her bloodbank.)
· The fifth rule is humility: Human beings are inherently disposed to be partial to ourselves. Just because you know a narcissist, this does not mean that you are a better person. Remember Christ’s injunction in Matthew 7:1-5: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” In effect, self-righteousness is a barrier to righteousness. Be very careful in accusing others. Always remember that “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

To those who have been victimized by pathological narcissists, I suggest the following:

· Don't let yourself be a victim again! You must love yourself enough to be convinced that you have inherent dignity and worth. You should give no one the right or power to hurt and abuse you.
· At the same time, you must avoid wallowing in your victimhood by holding on to your anger and rage. Wallowing is a form of self-indulgence and, as such, can become narcissistic--the narcissism of victimhood. Notice how many self-designated victims, such as radical feminists, racial/ethnic minorities, and gays, absolutely refuse to tolerate any criticism. Try not to generalize from your abuser to larger groups & forces in society, especially those with authority--the so-called Establishment. That is the danger and trap that many victims fall into. Take a look at Tammy Bruce's book, The Death Of Right And Wrong. Remember that hate is an acid that corrodes: if you hold onto it, it will consume you.
· Finally, when you can bring yourself to that place, forgive those who have hurt you. By forgiveness is meant wishing good for the other. More than forgive, pray for them, for they desperately need God's grace for their redemption.


Author’s note:
Thank you for reading my essay. I invite you to e-mail me with your thoughts, suggestions, and personal experiences. I also welcome you freely to use my essay. All I ask is that you cite and credit the source. Doing otherwise is plagiarism, which is a form of deception. Surely, we do not want to be “people of the lie,” do we? :-)

Copyright® 2002. Last updated: May 26, 2008.


Endnotes

1. M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil (New York, Touchstone, 1998), p. 63. Peck further writes in p. 77 that “the evil are the last people who would ever come to psychotherapy. The evil hate the light--the light of goodness that shows them up, the light of scrutiny that exposes them, the light of truth that penetrates their deception. Psychotherapy is a light-shedding process par excellence.”
2. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Scholastic Inc., 1999), p. 310.
3. J. Sparrow-Simpson and W. K. Lowther Clarke, eds., Dionysius The Areopagite (The Trustees of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920).
4. René Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, translated by Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1979), p. 35.
5. This was said to me by my colleague, Dr. Allen Fruzetti, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, on December 10, 2003.
6. Theodore Millon, with Roger D. Davis, Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond, 2nd edition (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996), pp. 7, 9.
7. Peck, People of the Lie, pp. 66, 226.
8. Logically, one cannot prove a categorical negative—that something does not exist. Imagine what it would take to know that something does not exist! One would have to know everything in the universe, in order to know for certain that something does not exist. This, in my judgment, is the most egregious mistake of atheists. To believe as they do requires that they have perfect and complete knowledge of the universe, so that they can confidently know that God does not exist. Atheists must have an exalted and grandiose conception of their intellect.
9. Descartes, Meditations On First Philosophy, p. 35.
10. Sparrow-Simpson and Clarke, Dionysius The Areopagite, p. 29.11.
11. Peck, People of the Lie, p. 72.
12. “Beneath Narcissism Lie Fear and Self-Loathing,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, 2002, p. E9.
13. Peck, People of the Lie, p. 68.

· For an online personality disorder test, go to: http://www.med.nyu.edu/Psych/screens/pds.html
· For more information, as well as links to many more websites on NPD, go to: http://groups.msn.com/NARCISSISTICPERSONALITYDISORDER/links3.msnw