Narcissistic Systems and Hypocrisy: Part 2
Today is April 20, 2023, in Northern California. In the span of three weeks, I have watched former U.S. president Donald Trump get indicted for a hush money scheme, and two Tennessee legislators, both named Justin, get kicked out their jobs (and quickly reinstated after a public/media outcry) for protesting gun violence. A major network, Fox News, is now settling its 2020 election lies involving a voting equipment company for close to a billion dollars.
Today, I also learned that one of the Tennessee’s House of Representatives, Rep. Scotty Campbell, who voted to oust the aforementioned Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, resigned due to prior sexual harassment charges from a legislative ethics subcommittee. Essentially, this individual was making lewd and lascivious comments to two teenage interns. A muckraking local news station reported this story today. One of the interns even had to be relocated to a hotel due to living in the same apartment complex as Campbell.
This media circus continues with an ongoing feud between current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Disney theme parks, with DeSantis threatening to build a prison next to Disney World. The reason is because the latter wishes to conduct their business affairs the way they see fit.
Another issue involves mifepristone, the so-called “abortion pill,” being potentially banned across the United States of America. A decision regarding banning the medication, which has overwhelmingly been proven as safe and effective by the US Food and Drug Administration for over 20 years, was decided upon by a lone Texas judge based on this brief. A cursory review of the brief, and a crude understanding of Statistics 101, would throw immediately this “brief” in the shred bin. For example, here is page 10 of the brief:
“An eight-year retrospective California study showed that women who aborted had significantly higher age-adjusted risks of death from all causes: (162%) and suicide (254%) compared to those who delivered a baby.”
If you look closer at the actual study (link below), the results were: “Compared with women who delivered, those who aborted had a significantly higher age-adjusted risk of death from all causes (1.62), from suicide (2.54), and from accidents (1.82), as well as a higher relative risk of death from natural causes (1.44), including the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) (2.18), circulatory diseases (2.87), and cerebrovascular disease (5.46). Results are stratified by age and time.”
These numbers are not percentages, they are actually called “relative risk.” The risk of increased death of all causes is 1.62, meaning the relative risk that a patient experiences a death is only 1.62 times the non abortion rate, NOT 162 percent risk! Here’s the actual study for reference. The women in this study were also solely MediCal (California’s Medicaid) funded abortions or deliveries, which also is a significant potential study limitation.
You may notice something that I left out in the above paragraphs. Did you discover it?
Yes! I deliberately left out references to gender, political parties, social class, and race. I tried to rephrase these headlines as dispassionately as possible.
The method to my madness is to firmly unmask these narcissistic systems in the wild. As you can see in narcissistic systems, appeals to reason, logic, facts, and empathy don’t work. The image of a tantruming child who wants everything their way comes to my mind. Like a sole narcissist, the enablers of toxic narcissistic systems also rally around a person or belief that supports their position at all costs. In these cases, feelings equal facts. Narcissistic systems and lone narcissists cannot survive without enablers- they dissolve like the salts in the sea.
As with single narcissists, the only way to win systemically is to not play, and/or assert boundaries firmly, refusing to budge! A keen knowledge of systemic narcissism is sorely lacking in the present culture as well. Based on these headlines though, I am glad the public is finally waking up to the purulent, cruel, and dangerous entrenched systemic wounds that these narcissistic systems create. Thanks for reading!
