Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Ever met a guy who talks only about himself, thinks he’s superior to everyone and who tends to view women as little more than playthings?
That man may very well have narcissistic personality disorder, a condition marked by an inflated sense of self-importance and a profound lack of empathy for others.
And new research suggests the anger, hostility and short fuse that accompany a man’s narcissism tend to be directed toward straight women.
“Heterosexual, narcissistic men become enraged at people who deny them gratification, whether it’s social status, having a trophy partner or sexual gratification,” said lead study author Scott Keiller, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at Kent State University Tuscarawas in Ohio.
“The group that could gratify heterosexual men the most is heterosexual women,” Keiller said. “To the extent narcissistic men would get resistance, that would make them enraged.”
For the study, published online July 23 in the journal Sex Roles, Keiller and his colleagues gave 104 male undergraduates questionnaires designed to measure narcissism. Questions included: “I love to be the center of attention” or “It embarrasses me when I am the center of attention.” The former is associated with narcissism, the latter with modesty and humility.
Another case of a white-coat pocket-protector clipboard-carrying propeller-beanie egghead conducting a study to “discover” what he wanted it to discover.
If you already see the dark side to this one, I know exactly what it is that concerns you. And your fears crystallize into reality right here:
None of the men questioned had diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder, said Keiller. But narcissism is a continuum, and plenty of the young men had a pronounced tendency toward those traits, he said.
Massive eyeball roll…steam coming out of ears…sputter, sputter. Does it even need to be said? Okay, let me lay it out right here:
Everything is a fucking continuum, asshole!
It isn’t that I can’t see some merit in what he’s trying to do. I recall, some twenty years ago…there was a software engineer on a project who started accusing me of stealing source code and taking it home. This was a small company, and he managed to get me put on some kind of “probation” — over nothing. No evidence, no appeal. I never even understood what set the whole thing off…for a few months…and then it became crystal clear. He blackmailed the boss. Something hadn’t gone his way, so he gave an ultimatum over the phone: He had the project at home and he was never going to come in again until some changes were made. He’d been projecting. Accusing others of doing what he, in fact, was doing.
That one had a whole kit bag packed full of emotional issues. But if he were to be given a test, would he be clinically diagnosed with a behavioral disorder? Maybe if you put him in front of one of those quacks that can find a disorder in just about everything…but that’s true of us all. My point is, he should have been found wanting of something — and maybe looking for mental health deficiencies is not the right approach.
Some of these people are just plumb happy with the way they’ve been made, and they think it’s right. Blackmailing the boss with stolen company assets and blaming someone else for it, is clearly unethical; but the other person might say it’s the only logical decision if there’s some larger mission to be fulfilled, and it can be achieved by no other means. Everyone has a justification for just about everything.
Actually, that’s what the word means. At least that’s what I’ve always thought of it to mean: I can justify anything in my own mind, so if I have any kind of ethical taxonomy, I might as well not have it.
I’d be more inclined to look for mental illnesses with regard to the technique of the blackmail. He wasn’t threatening to start his own company and bring the software to market; he was literally stealing the code. Whatthefuck?? We had backups.
But you know, the more I read about this study, the more Scott Keiller reminds me of that guy. Read that one more time:
“I love to be the center of attention” or “It embarrasses me when I am the center of attention.” The former is associated with narcissism, the latter with modesty and humility.
This is not to say that the only worthwhile man is one who will say “It embarrasses me when I am the center of attention.”
But the desire to obliterate others who are not exactly like yourself…is a continuum.
This is where the study really falls apart. Really, when you think about it, it’s delivering on its promise from stem to stern; there are narcissists out there, like my old “pal,” who would never be found to possess a genuine personality disorder and yet certainly should be. Without a study like this, the rational observer is forced to conduct an informal, unwritten study of his own. Heheh, trust me on that last one. If you were in the position in which I was placed two decades ago, you’d be going at it just as hard.
But the conflation between dysfunctional narcissism, and classically masculine traits, and the cognitive bias that is driven by this, is palpable. My one-line conclusion? Scott Keiller, from what I’m seeing here, is what he calls others.
His research deserves to be studied, just like the stuff his research studies deserves to be studied. In fact, his own mindset is probably even more worthy of inspection because Keiller is not the first “researcher” to let fly with it, and it bears great responsibility for putting our civilization where it is now: Males, in order to be worthy, must be weak, meek and mild. They should be inclined, even eager, to accept situations in which things are not done the way they think they should be done; they should be perpetually self-sacrificing. Females get a pass from all this. They mature more quickly and they know how to “nurture.”
It has deteriorated into yet another academic exercise with much detrimental effect and very little beneficial product in its wake. The propeller-beanie eggheads like Keiller want us to get rid of masculinity because they call it “narcissism”; we’ve accommodated them; now we have a society that is constantly pretending to be more certain about what to do, than it really is. It’s constantly confused. Our feminists typify it. They cannot choose a man who will make them happy over the long term. They can’t even make up their minds whether they want Wonder Woman to wear long pants or not.
I once saw an old episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk was split in half by the transporter beam. Each “half” was physically complete (they sidestepped the question of the doubled mass in the sum-of-the-Kirks), but the personality was separated, as if spun in a centrifuge. One physical incarnation possessed all the feelings of hostility, all the primal urges. Kirk’s Id. The other half had a monopoly on the characteristics that are required of a person when he seeks to become a cooperative and functional part of a society.
The nasty drunken reprobate was the one in control of all of the leadership and decision-making skills. I’ve got a gut feel Keiller would find this to be scientifically invalid; but if you’ve ever been in a position of leadership, and forced to make decisions about things when not all of the requisite information is there, you can recognize there is certainly something to it.
In fact, I’ve found that particular episode to be a chillingly accurate prophecy of exactly what feminism has done to manhood since it came out. After Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the gang were forced to acknowledge the importance and beneficial effect of these supposedly destructive attributes, feminists and quack-doctors spent the decades since then continuing the damage in their blissful ignorance.
The “researcher” knows barely enough to be dangerous. It’s like he’s figured out that gasoline is extremely flammable, can do all kinds of terrible things…and furthermore, on inspecting the commuter car that gets us to work and back again, has made the shocking discovery that it has some in it. Better get him a grant, toot-sweet!
Hat tip to Full of Grace, Seasoned with Salt.
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I typically direct my johnson at straight women.
It’s just the best place for it. And a good time is had by all.
Is that wrong?
- HoundOfDoom | 08/10/2010 @ 06:22