Perhaps I should speak only for myself, but I think to say that any of us are doing our volunteer work solely as a result of our own ethical prerogative, would be complete fantasy thinking and a feeble attempt to preserve the primary narcissist perfection ( I do it because I am a good who only does good things for good reasons) we all pine away for. The truth however I believe lies in who and what we are surrounded by. Here is my argument:
The author describes the ego ideal as “a substitute for primary narcissistic perfection, but a substitute from which the ego is separated by a gulf, a split that man is constantly seeking to abolish” (p. 77). A short while later, the author continues, “The question is only how we seek to abolish the gap. Do we idealize the ideal, filling it with the greatest cultural achievements in which we can then share? Or do we fill our ego ideals with our own grandiosity?” (p. 77). The author then goes on to describe the ego ideal as the avatar of narcissistic perfection. Finally, the author proposes that moral narcissism depends on whether or not our ego ideal is moral or not, “Narcissism moralized requires that the content of the ego ideal – that is one’s ideals – become moral” (p. 78). The bottom line is everything points back to the ego ideal and how we fill it. Is it filled with the influences and ideals of our culture or with our own selfish grandiosity?
I believe that as social animals, we are most apt to fill our ego ideals with the influences of our culture. What happens though when the culture that influences you (fills your ego ideal) is offbeat with mainstream culture or the ideals of our society? I believe this is the case with the majority of the students at MCCS. The immediate culture of these students is their peers and in some cases their family (which are often extremely dysfunctional). What then fills up these ego ideals of these teenagers? It is mostly rebellion, drugs, sex, cursing out the teachers and being tough and cool. Once one becomes entrenched in this culture, it becomes more and more difficult to return to the mainstream, because the ego ideal is increasingly filled with these aspects of life considered most important. Thus a life is pursued based on these ideals.
Those of us who survived the corrupting culture of our families, high school or whatever other distractions came along the way and find our way to college are entrenched in a culture that values learning, understanding and development of the self and our society. We are the lucky ones who are part of a culture that teaches, structures and motivates. We can fill our ego ideals with the knowledge and concepts of those who have more experience than we do. I believe it is the purpose of MCCS and those of us involved there to offer an alternative culture to the one that the students are a part of and/or have created amongst themselves. Hopefully in doing so, we provide alternatives views, ideals and material for the students to assimilate into their ego ideals and hopefully into their lives. As the author postulates, there are two options for the focus of our ego ideals; our community and culture or ourselves. While it is true that we are all engaged in actions focused on our community, I believe it is very unlikely that we would be engaged in such actions if it were not for the influences of our immediate culture.
a concise interpretation of what Alford is proposing with the concept of narcissism moralized. the one piece that is missing for me is the idea that for w.b. especially their ego-ideal is much more filled with the experience associated with primal narcissism in which the infant self has no boundaries. Meaning, that primal experience of self-hood is one that can't be separated from the larger reality--mother, bed, father, room, house, tree, window--for the infant, there is no distinction--he/she is merged with all that he/she experience. When the infant begins to individuate, this sense of interconnectedness dissolves and the ego is formed whose whole goal is to create and support, at all costs sometimes, a unique and autonomous identity.
ReplyDeleteThe ego-deal holds all the higher values and what Alford is saying, is that on some metaphorical level, the ego-ideal of the w.b. is strongly affected by that primal experience of selfhood as interdependent. Freud called this "primary narcissistic perfection" (Alford, 77). So, the self, that the w.b. loves and wishes to protect is that self which is intertwined with all other reality. This interconnected reality/self the higher principle that the w.b. is driven by--or this is Alford's hypothesis. This is also why the w.b. is so naive about what motivates others and the org.--the w.b.'s doesn't understand that everyone does not share this principle of selfhood. So, when the organization is involved in wrongdoing--this functions as a narcissistic wound for the w.b. because these actions poke at the very essence of what the w.b. believes about who they are as part of this larger shared reality that functions on this principle/ideal of "oneness."
Basically, the w.b. is protecting an ideal of self which is bigger than that one unique identity that many egos are seeking to protect.
Yeah--it's complex.
So, this goes back to the idea that Jen quoted in the beginning of her post--do we raise ourselves up to try to meet our ideals or do we lower our ideals so that we don't have to confront our own imperfection? In general, we associate narcissism with the second but this misses the sophistication and nuance of the theory. Alford then adds the morality clause--when narcissism is hitched to "the self in all its glory [think of that primal unbounded self] or the self that so identifies with its ideals that it becomes them" (80). So, as Alford continues, narcissism moralized happens when a person no longer distinguishes between the "ideal self and the ideals of the self" (80). He cites Kohut here who called this cosmic narcissism.
So, ideals are more based on cultural influences are developing ideals a bit differently than the whistleblower whose ego-ideals are much more closely linked to that first primal experience of "perfection." Wow--I went off there but I am really fascinated by these concepts and what they help us to understand about ourselves. And always remember that this is a philosophical interpretation of psychoanalytic theory not a direct application of the theory in a psychoanalytic or clinical setting. .. Don't know if any of that makes sense but I enjoyed myself!