Hypocrisy is the “Weapon of Mass Destruction” of the Privileged: on Narcissistic Systems.
Once you learn how to spot narcissistic systems, you will see them everywhere.
The news is abuzz these days with so many mixed messages that even the mixing itself is confused!
I’m well aware that being born on this planet means we all have blood on our hands in one way or another. We must eat plants and/or animals to live. We destroy nature to shelter in homes. We take medications that were tested on animals. It can be brutal, but I realize we must play the game this way in order to survive. Nature does not care about our personal preferences or whims. Global warming is making this truth more exigent.
However, to live a life of integrity means one’s message to the world needs to match with one’s behavior behind closed doors if a society is to be truly healthy.
The news reports, at least in the United States, conflict with each other endlessly. “Fake news and alternative facts” abound. A so-called ‘prolife’ camp pushes pregnancy and birth but refuses to provide resources to children once they are born. If you are truly ‘prolife’, wouldn’t you want children to have access to adequate healthcare, nutrition, and work/life balances for parents to take care of their children safely? A healthy society (I hope) would not want its children to have to worry about being shot up in a school just to get an education.
It makes no sense.
Politicians that wax poetic about “saving the lives of the unborn babies” are later found to be molesting them once they arrive on this planet. Religious leaders become the subject of lawsuits for all types of child abuse. For example, if you have been following the news, a recent lawsuit by Hannah Kate Williams alleges that her father, James Ray Williams, repeatedly sexually and physically tormented her. This man is supposedly a “Good Christian” yet was essentially waterboarding his daughter under the guise of “baptism”. When Ms. Williams tried to speak out, the backlash against her was so vicious that she required police protection around her home.
So what is going on here? As a psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience in practice, I have learned much about narcissistic patients, and narcissism in general. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version 5, lists Narcissistic Personality Disorder as “a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. People affected often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success, or about their appearance. They often take advantage of the people around them.” They often are charismatic and can gain immense privilege and influence.
In addition, narcissistic personality disorder frequently occurs on a spectrum of other personality syndromes, which are called “cluster B personality disorders”. These include antisocial, histrionic, and borderline personality disorders. What these disorders have in common is that individuals have difficulty regulating emotions and also “externalize” their behaviors. Externalization occurs when a person “projects” their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors into the outside world. These individuals can isolate their thoughts and behaviors to such a degree that they can make their victim seem like the aggressor. If you read an interview of a personality disordered criminal, they often say it was “the world” or “this/that person” causing their behavior, i.e., “they made me do it”. What is called hypocrisy is actually externalization in the wild!
Cluster B systems, which I will refer to as Narcissistic Systems, function much the way a person with narcissistic personality disorder does. Examples are everywhere in political systems, domestic violence cases, and workplaces. For example, a manager complains that his employees are stealing from the cash register when in fact, the manager is the thief. The manager can externalize his behaviors to the employees to draw attention away from his own crimes. In this way, his own behavior becomes acceptable. Hypocrisy is used as a weapon to confuse and gaslight his employees that they are the problem, not him.
Narcissistic systems also exist in the case of abusive religions, in which powerful leaders gain even more authority by projecting their own “sins” on their followers. Often these systems use hypocrisy as a weapon to whip the masses into a frenzy of anxiety. The followers then are terrorized to obey the one who knows, and can save them, which is the narcissistic leader.
Functional MRI studies, though results have been mixed, have indicated that individuals who have Cluster B personality disorders also have abnormalities in their anterior insula and prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain are thought to have a role in the regulation of empathy and modulating prosocial behaviors. However, the presence of these abnormalities in the brain does not mean Cluster B individuals are not responsible for their behavior!
Where do we go with this information? I would speculate that the first step is to become acutely aware of narcissistic systems and how they operate. There is extensive and widely available literature on this topic. I truly feel that this is a pressing major public health issue.
The second step is to differentiate one’s own behavior from the narcissistic system, and not be gaslit into taking responsibility for said narcissistic system. This is very difficult to enact in the real world, as narcissistic systems have heavily infested Western cultures. Cluster B individuals are often cunning and can externalize their way to very prominent positions. Political systems also tend to be brutal and select for individuals who exhibit these traits.
The third step would be to work on techniques to modulate one’s own fears and not get overtaken by the fearmongering, gaslighting, and projection of the narcissistic system.
On an individual level, people who are able to extricate themselves from these systems usually are able to acutely identify the system and become an inspiration for others to do the same. Please glance over the subreddit “Raised by Narcissists” for their playbook. I have been fascinated with the resilience of these souls who were able to say goodbye to decades of abuse and reclaim their lives.
And the personal IS the political.
