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Vaknin, Sam, 1961-

"Capitalistic Musings"


The narcissist is entitled to a "special treatment": high living
standards, constant and immediate catering to his needs, the
eradication of any friction with the humdrum and the routine, an
all-engulfing absolution of his sins, fast track privileges (to higher
education, or in his encounters with bureaucracies, for instance).
Punishment, trusts the narcissist, is for ordinary people, where no
great loss to humanity is involved.
Narcissists are possessed of inordinate abilities to charm, to
convince, to seduce, and to persuade. Many of them are gifted orators
and intellectually endowed. Many of them work in in politics, the
media, fashion, show business, the arts, medicine, or business, and
serve as religious leaders.
By virtue of their standing in the community, their charisma, or their
ability to find the willing scapegoats, they do get exempted many
times. Having recurrently "got away with it" - they develop a theory of
personal immunity, founded upon some kind of societal and even cosmic
"order" in which certain people are above punishment.
But there is a fourth, simpler, explanation. The narcissist lacks
self-awareness. Divorced from his true self, unable to empathise (to
understand what it is like to be someone else), unwilling to constrain
his actions to cater to the feelings and needs of others - the
narcissist is in a constant dreamlike state.


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