Narcissistic Clusters

The Zone

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I am pretty sure anybody wanting to and needing to be a cult lead would be narcissistic in nature. A man is a man and nothing more.
 

cajun

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Well, I don't know if I'd call that a cult. Unless they all move in wiith you, dress funny and set up secret handshakes, etc. :rolleyes:
 

cajun

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I am pretty sure anybody wanting to and needing to be a cult lead would be narcissistic in nature. A man is a man and nothing more.
Narcissism in general is probably a trait that goes wiith leadership. Healthy narcissism seems to be rare, though.
 

Aero

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There is a lot to be said for the evolutionary benefits of narcissism. A lot of leaders carried their respective civilizations further because of it, but it was also the downfall of many. I've also heard the argument that bi-polar and hypo-mania has an evolutionary purpose too. Many great minds suffered from these conditions, yet thrived in their professional and personal lives.
 

cajun

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There is a lot to be said for the evolutionary benefits of narcissism. A lot of leaders carried their respective civilizations further because of it, but it was also the downfall of many. I've also heard the argument that bi-polar and hypo-mania has an evolutionary purpose too. Many great minds suffered from these conditions, yet thrived in their professional and personal lives.
I think both traits are heavily impacted by culture. Bipolar may be more of a physical than a mental illness in the sense that it is so similar to hormonal imbalances and dietary problems or drug abuse issues.

But narcissism is culturally loaded. A positive or healthy narcissist needs a supportive culture such as you sometimes find in artistic as well as military circles. Ritual and codes of honor, beauty and design are important in such circles. Narcissists in such circles are often forgiven for their selfishness because they are serving the good of others within those activities.

But a negative or malignant narcissist doesn't respect the protective structure of rules and rituals. Yet he's not a "free spirit" because he demands that others serve him. He wants to control rather than build.

Our culture today seems to favor negative narcissism because we seem to believe we have reached a limit in building, thus we seek control instead. And our military culture has also failed to keep up wiith our destructive power, thus it, too, becomes more about control than about protection. We see enemies everywhere and the severe narcissist can thrive in such an atmosphere. But unfortunately the severe narcissist sees only himself, not his group, as the one who must be protected. So it's like a personality virus in the collective culture that would be contained in a certain kind of rule/ritual structure but that spreads feverishly in a collective culture that has lost such a structure.
 
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