The Narcississtic personality

 I don't usually get pulled into discussions of psychology in my travels around You tube but recently a number of videos started coming up on the subject of the narcissistic personality, quite a few psychologists discussion this particular psychological phenomenon, a cetegory or collection of categories in the Diagnositc and tatistical Manusal, and thanks to a n enounter with a difficult personality in my own life I found myself interested in paying more attention to these discussions.  then I got hooked and have been gobbling them up, at least the videos of one particular psychologicat, a Dr. Ramani.  She lays out the characteristics of different versions of this personality type in great detail and I find myself fascinated.  

While I was in rehab after a medical condition landed me in the hospital back in April, I had one roommate who total threw me.  I'd neve r encountered such a personality before.  I asked her to please turn deown the TV as it was too loud for me and she said one flat ":no."  Just No.  Nothing more than that, just No.  I'd already had two other roommates and both had wuite qillingly tried to turn it down for me.  then after one horrible night of loud tv blaring incessangly I complained loudly to the urse about it and the roommate actually lectured me as if it were my own fault, that for heavens sake the world is full of noise, what is the matter with me that I can't stnad her tv being on?  I was flummosedc.  I'd enever enountered such a self justifying silly attitude beofre in my life.  I could mention other qualities of this woman that fit the narcissistic profiles I'm hearing about but those two attitudes ought to get it across.  i didn't have the concept of the narcissitic personality at the time to apply to her but I find it helfpful to have it how.  I think she must be a textbook case.

Funinally by the way a friend intervened for me by calling the front sdesk and the head nurse showed up late at night to find the tv blaring and told my roommate she had to shurt if off, that's the rules.  Blessed relief.

So I've been thinking a lot about psychological things that I don't usually think about these days.  Oh I hear Jordan Peterson from time to time but he's kind of an oddball, and my main reaction to him is that he's way off the rails the wsay he talks about the Bible, about which I've wanted to do a blog post for omsome time and may yet.  but that's about it for psycholgoicaly in my world until this narcissistic personality thing came along.  It's quite a big fad these days.  ther are at ledas six peop[le talking about it in great deptgh on You tube that I have run across, and Dr. ramani does a vidoeo on it every day.  The purpose is to help people who are the victims of such personalities get free of their damaging influences.  

But it's made me think how the culture itself seems to have been going in the direction of the characteristics ascribed to these personaltieis.  Self entitlement,k disregard for the rights of others, lack of empathy for others, a gradiosse way of talking and thinking, proneness to rages against anyone who thwarts their wishes, justification of all kind of sabuse to others and projection onto them of all the blame for awhatever happens.   It's kind of a picture of the Fallen World shorn of any correctives from , well, from Christianity in particular, or any moral system.  As I was desdribing our situation in the previous post.

People are justifying criminals, the Left in particular is justifying criminality.  They have no esympathy for those who are their victims, but plenty for the criminals who they think of as tuthe underdog opporessed by the normal people or something like that.  they dcriminalize the normal people, vilify anyone who has succeeded by ahard work in acquiring some measure of comfort or wealth.  envy is a characteristic of the narcissist.  And so on.

Again I think of the loss of the ten Commandements in the culture.  If they are taught and taken seriously at all they work to put a restraint on self serving abuses.  If the truth that sin leads to death and ultimately to Hell is taken seriously such moral restraints are strongly internaliized and if widespread in the population make up a people who can live with others in a harmonious civilized way.  Without those retstraints we get the chaos ahd criminalitiey run amok we are seeing today.  

I guess I'm also sucggesting that although ramani thinks you can't change personaltiy, if such a moral restraint were still in force in our culture we woudl have a lot fewer of such personaltiies who seem to be proliferating these days.  they could internalizie these restraints like anyone else its seems to me.

Later.  It also occurred to me that Marxism, and in fact Marx himself, are strong purveyors othe of the narxissitic mentlaity in the cutlure.    this is a theme I wanted to devlop in the above post but I'll have to come back to it some other time.

More about the devovling culture, the rejection of the moral law

 Yes I know that if we are as close to the very last days as it seems we are, very strongly seems we are, then a revival is not to be expected.  Descriptions of the days leading up to the end picture a worsening moral climate along with various disasters that speak of god's judgments, no mention of any glorious renewals as the time craws nearer.  But we don't know how close we are.  It certainly feels very very close, as if things just couldn't get any worse so we must be just about there, but we don't know how bad it could sill et before the end, we don't know anytbhing until it happens.  We know it's coming but we have no way ofknowing long long it will be in the arrival.  that being the case I still hope for a revival before it all comes down.  A revival would pull people into the Church and save them from the last days horror show.  they can still be saved then but I wouldn't wish that way of being saved on anywone.

Some huge percentage of houng people , like forty percent. think murdering the CEO of United Health Care was ustified, altho8ugh they know tnothing at all about the man or his work or any hnint at all that he ever did anything to deserve any kihnd of retribution.  Being the CEO of  health and incsurance company is enough to justify murder in the minds of an awful lot of people.  If that doesn't set your teeth on edge you aren't educated in the things we need to be educated in to run a civilization'

That statistic anolone is enough to suggest the last days are upon us it seems to me.   And it also makes me think of how it couldn't happen if we'd remained at least superficially a Christian nation, or a Christian West, as we truly were up until, oh I don't know, half a century ago?   If you throw out the Bible, tear down the ten Caommandments monuments, actually challenege the state that wants to install them in classrooms, you are denying the culture exacly the anticite to t all this murderous evil , this uncivilizing of the world that we are seeing.   Murder is a shall not in the ten commandments, but they are making it a positive value in today's world for people who are merely annoyed at the though t of someone running an inusurance company that doesn't do what they think the company should do deserves to be jmurdered.  Not given a fair trial even, just murdered in cold blood by any random person who feels annoyed at him.   think wehere this sort of thinking is going.  think of all the school shootinbgs.  Nobody is teaching the truth about violations of God's law that they lead to death and hell.   Scripture teaches that over and over and over but we've thrown out the bible and forbidden it from being taught in schools or spoken in public.  We can't even sing true Christmas carols that celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in public any more.   it's all winter type songs, celebration songs that scelebrate nothing at all except eating a lot of pumbpkin pie and so on.

So nobody hears that God has commanded us not to murder, or ven harbor hatred in our hearts toward others, to love our neighbor as ourselves, not to lie to our neighbor or about our neighbor, not to steal from our neighbor , not to be disrespectful to our parents and other legitimate authorities, not to commit adultery, not to covet or envy others what they have.    We are not taught those things any more and I suppose if we trie to d to makew people aware of them we'd be put in jail for it.

Having killed the main safeguard against murderous lying disruptive decivilizaing chaors, we've open ed the door to a realm of horrors  hat those who are aware should experience as terrifying.  those who are blithely denying religioun and any morality beyond their own pleausre won't get it until it is too late.

Jesus died to save us from an eternity of midsery for our violations of the Moral Law.  that is still offered to anyone who will diligently look 8into it, believe it and surrender to it. Even if the world around us all continues to come aparet at the seams.