When The Ferris Wheel Flies Apart

“Decompensation” is what happens when a narcissistic individual or entity is no longer able to maintain the grandiose self which is its chosen identity. The Anglo-American identity which the United States has constructed for itself is just such a “grandiose self”: a “chosen nation,” a “city on a hill,” “the greatest nation on earth” because it consists of a race “predestined” to supreme greatness by “Providence.” In the name of that “Providence” it has conquered the North American continent, nearly exterminating the original inhabitants in the process, and it has managed to subjugate most of the rest of the world. In that process, moreover, the privileged among the citizens of the United States have come to believe that they deserve the special privileges they enjoy, having been predestined to these privileges; and that the nations and peoples who have been subjugated “deserve” the treatment which this country has inflicted on them, being “predestined” to that treatment. Throughout its history, there have been spokesmen for this country who have boasted that the United States is a “Christian” nation, “one nation under God.” Yet U.S. treatment of other nations – especially non-European nations – has been anything but a model of the Golden Rule, embodying instead the slogan, “Do unto others before they do unto you.” Hence the need to invoke a Calvinist predestination to justify this country's treatment of other nations and peoples.

The identity which the U.S. has constructed is inherently unsustainable. It is now being threatened by forces beyond the control of this country and its privileged members. Some of those forces were identified in last week's post. The United States has become used to economic, political and military arrangements which allow four percent of the world's population to control almost all of the economic flows on this planet, and to enjoy over 40 percent of the world's resources. The rest of the world has for a long time regarded this a rather distasteful and burdensome arrangement, and has in the last few years begun to do something about it. Weekly – sometimes daily – new challenges to U.S. hegemony are now arising as nations seek to reassert control over their own affairs. The most recent contender is Greece, where the Syriza party, described as “far-left” by Western media, holds a lead over the ruling party days before the Greek general elections on the 25th of this month.  If the Syriza party gains a decisive number of seats in the Greek parliament, a Greek exit from the Eurozone would certainly be a possibility, as Syriza have made it clear that they want a drastic revision of economic austerity conditions imposed on them by the EU and the IMF. The beginning of a breakup of the EU would have serious implications for U.S. economic hegemony. Also, a number of European nations have been making noises within the last two weeks about breaking with the U.S. over the issue of sanctions against Russia.

But there is a more compelling reason than geopolitics for the unsustainability of the current American identity. This country has exhausted its base of many natural resources, just as the industrialized world has exhausted a critical mass of its natural resource base. The current and deepening depression in the price of oil, metals, and other commodities is a symptom of an anemic economy falling down after a period of overexertion. This fainting is a sign that the exertion was itself unsustainable. The German Energy Watch Group, which published supply outlook reports for oil, coal and uranium in 2007 and 2008, also published a comprehensive update to its forecasts in 2013. That update, titled, Fossil and Nuclear Fuels - The Supply Outlook, maintains that global production of conventional crude oil peaked in 2008, and that global extraction of all non-renewable energy sources will peak right around now. Concentrated energy sources are the lifeblood of an industrial economy, so the peak and decline in extraction means the inevitable decline of the global industrial economy. This means that a lot of people who were winners will now become losers; a lot of people who were used to being in control of things will lose control.

The various nations are being affected unevenly by this contraction, depending on whether they are producer nations who still have valuable concentrations of resources or importer nations who have largely used up their resources. The U.S. is an importer nation. A loss of hegemony by the U.S. at a time of energy and resource contraction means that U.S. consumers will increasingly find themselves cut off from access to remaining stocks of raw materials which exist in distant nations and are controlled by those nations. Those nations may be temporarily hurt by the current drop in demand for their materials, yet the fact that they can still produce things of value will enhance their long-term survival prospects compared to nations which import most of their resources and finished products. Thus the long-term standard of material wealth in a nation like the United States will inevitably and irreversibly decline.

What does this mean in plain language? This nation has built its identity as a “special and chosen people” on a foundation of having lots of stuff and being able to tell lots of people what to do. That identity is about to take a huge hit. When that happens, many of us will get to watch decompensation in action.

Of this decompensation, it has been written that “The stress of aging or illness and the attendant loss of beauty, strength, or cognitive function can undermine narcissistic fantasies of invulnerability and limitless power. It may lead to an empty, depleted collapse on the one hand or a frantic search for compensatory thrill-seeking on the other, both of which are described in the classic “midlife crisis”. Later-life crises, such as one experienced on the eve of retirement, also may reflect narcissistic pathology.” (See this and this.) In other words, the loss of ability to maintain a grandiose self provokes a crisis. What does that crisis look like? I am not a psychologist, and I don't usually make predictions, but I'd like to suggest a few possibilities.

I propose that there may be two phases to decompensation. Both phases are characterized by scapegoating and projection, but the nature of that scapegoating changes from the first phase to the next. In the first phase, scapegoating takes the form of “enemy creation” in order to justify not only the exploitation of groups or individuals targeted for exploitation, but also to distract from the dysfunctional dynamics experienced by those who are in long-term association with the narcissist. The scapegoating is an ever-present feature of the narcissist's interactions, but when his grandiosity is endangered, the scapegoating may kick into overdrive as the narcissist seeks a defense from the threat he perceives. This may well explain the evolution of the U.S. “War on Terror” from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the present day. The takeaway message of the “War on Terror” is that because the United States is a “special” nation, there are enemies out there who “hate our freedom” and want to attack us. This then becomes the primary focus of our attention, and we are trained to ignore our own dysfunctional treatment not only of others, but of the marginalized members of our own society. This also plays into two of the symptoms of narcissism described in the DSM-IV: “...believes that he or she is 'special' and unique...,” and “...believes that others are envious of him or her...”

In this first stage of decompensation, scapegoating then consists of “enemy creation” the purpose of which is to promote the cohesion of the dysfunctional group led by the narcissist, to mask the pain of the dysfunction experienced in the narcissist's pathological space, and to justify the exploitation of those who have things the narcissist wants to take, or who by their very existence threaten the narcissist's identity as the “fairest one of all.” I think this is what was behind the undeserved publicity surrounding the supposed North Korean hack of the computers of Sony Pictures over its release of “The Interview” – a movie about attempting to assassinate the leader of North Korea, a movie which was so technically and artistically bad that it earned a rating of only 52 percent from Rotten Tomatoes. Other examples include the inaccurate portrayal of people of color as largely criminal in the aftermath of the shootings of unarmed Black people in the U.S. last year, as well as the inaccuracies in media coverage of Libya and Syria prior to U.S. and NATO military action against these countries. And let's not forget the granddaddy of them all, the false case for “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq just before the 2003 invasion led by the United States.

The trouble with this kind of enemy creation is that over time, it stops working. Instead, an increasing number of people come to believe that each new “terror incident” or “threat incident” in the news is nothing more than a “false flag” attack designed to advance the ulterior interests of the nation which is supposedly warning us of the “threat.” (For instance, a surprising number of people believe that the recent Charlie Hebdo attack was a false flag operation designed to advance the “War on Terror” and the political prospects of far-right European nationalist political parties, as well as to dissuade member nations from leaving the EU. See this.) Think of the boy who cried “Wolf.” Nevertheless, it would not surprise me to find an increasing number of “enemies” being created by Anglo-American leaders and media in the years to come.

As the decline of our formerly grandiose nation continues, and we begin to enter the second stage of decompensation, we will begin obviously to lose the ability to affect events on the world stage. This will lead to a further decline in our material standard of wealth. At this stage I expect the scapegoating to turn to asking whom we can blame for our loss of prestige. This may take the form of infighting between powerful leaders of economic/political factions, with a little (or maybe a lot) of the old enemy creation added in the form of targeting foreign-born people and people of color within this country's borders. The point will be that someone, somewhere has to answer for the failure of this country's grandiose self, and the people who caused that failure will prove to be too brittle to take responsibility. Therefore they will project that responsibility on the most convenient target they can find. I think of a scene out of the Great Divorce where Napoleon Bonaparte is in Hell, in a well-lit mansion which can't keep out the rain, and he is endlessly pacing up and down, muttering, “It was Soult's fault. It was Ney's fault. It was Josephine's fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English...” The second stage of decompensation may also take a suicidal turn, as the remaining leaders of the old order enact policies which they know to be self-destructive, as Hitler did during the waning days of the Third Reich, or as Jim Jones did on the day that he and his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid.

The task, then – for marginalized peoples in this country and for all people of principle who seek to maintain a good conscience – will be to successfully navigate perilous days for a while. For while it may be tempting to run away to another country, the reality is that most of us don't have that option. Also, there are other countries which have been poisoned to the same extent as the United States. (I think particularly of Great Britain, Canada and Australia.) Yet I don't think all areas of the United States will be equally bad. There will be a surprising number of geographical and cultural nooks and crannies where a meaningful and healthy life can be led. Finding and thriving in these niches is part of the task before us.

P.S. Please do read in their entirety the articles on narcissism which I quoted and linked from the Web of Narcissism site.   Pay special attention to the stories of decompensating individuals.  Then take a look at the folks around you.

The Breakup of Pathological Spaces

To summarize last week's post, present-day American narcissism stands on the following legs:

• A 1700-year legacy of the preaching of national exceptionalism in Europe by state churches who tried to justify the disconnect between the words of the New Testament and the actions of the states in which these churches were embedded.

• Exceptionalism “taken to the next level” through Calvinism: first, the belief that some people were predestined from before the womb to eternal salvation, and others predestined from before the womb to eternal damnation, this election being completely independent of the choice of any of those so predestined. Second, the belief that all that happens in the world happens because God has willed it; therefore, all that happens must have been approved by God. This morphed into “social Calvinism”: the belief that the sign that one was a member of God's elect was material prosperity and success in earthly business, the belief that those who were not successful or who were poor were so because they were not of God's elect but were under God's curse, and the belief that whatever “God's elect” got away with doing to the rest of the people in the world was approved by God and a sign of His “Providence.”

As I said in last week's post, this is the foundation of American narcissism, the belief that this nation is above all nations in that it has a special mission from God (a mission which conveniently lines up with American imperial ambitions), that Americans (specifically, white Americans) are a special, chosen people, and the belief that both Scripture, Providence and nature bear this out.

The effect that such beliefs, combined with a long string of seeming “successes” has had on the Anglo-American psyche is that this has become the unconscious foundation of national identity and the unconscious justification of white privilege. Americans know they are special just because they are. Therefore many of them have begun to compete with each other to see who is most “special.” (“Mirror, mirror, on the wall...”)

Today's post will consider the environment which narcissists create for themselves and in which they operate. That environment is the narcissist's Pathological Space: “the network of relationships in their home, extended families, workplace, and neighborhood.” (Krajco, 2004-2007). Its purpose is to feed the narcissist by providing victims and mirrors who reflect back the narcissist's grandiose self. Garden-variety narcissists don't care about anything outside their pathological space, even though they know that there is a world full of people who live outside that space. Therefore they don't trouble themselves with that outside world unless someone mentions it to them, in which case they disparage the outside world and turn back to contemplating their own glory. Within the pathological space, everyone else is either a victim or a mirror. A person can choose to be a victim or a mirror, although sometimes mirrors are turned into victims apart from their own choice.

A mirror is an adoring lackey or sycophant, who always gives the right answer when asked the All-Important Question: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?” A victim is anyone who contradicts the narcissist. Contradicting is extremely easy to do. You can give the wrong answer to the All-Important Question – first, by pointing out someone (other than the narcissist) whom you admire or look up to, second, by being someone of obviously praiseworthy virtue or competence yourself, or third, simply by being obviously different in any way from the narcissist – especially if your “difference” makes you “vulnerable” in the narcissist's eyes.

So what happens to you if you contradict or refuse to validate the grandiose self constructed by a narcissist? You become the target of attack while you are in the narcissist's pathological space. The attack is designed to destroy you, for a contradiction to the narcissist's grandiose self must not be allowed to survive, as the contradiction is an existential threat to the narcissist's identity. If you fight back or defend yourself, you simply provoke a drastic multiplication of the narcissist's rage – he has to be right and victorious, or his grandiose self will suffer an intolerable injury. Therefore, it will be a no-holds-barred, knock-down and drag-out fight from his point of view. Even if you win a round, you'll have to be forever on your guard, because the narcissist will never quit – even if at times he seems to surrender. The only way to rid yourself of the narcissist is to cut off all contact with him, and that introduces an entirely different set of dynamics and risks into the situation.

What happens when a narcissist or narcissistic nation manages to turn the world into a Pathological Space? I think when that happens, you get the sort of foreign policy which the United States has enacted from the late 1800's until now (with more than a little help from England, another nation ruled by narcissists). The war against “contradictions” has involved the following nations:

• Haiti, a former slave colony which obtained its independence by revolting from France in 1804. In the aftermath of the revolution, the United States sided with France in trying to economically isolate Haiti in order to destroy its self-determination and its government. France imposed a fine on Haiti in order to recoup the losses to its earning power resulting from the loss of its African slaves in Haiti, and the United States assisted France in its economic punishment of Haiti. Moreover, the United States has invaded the country numerous times during the 20th and 21st centuries. (For an example, see this.)

• The Philippines during the Filipino-American War, where the United States inflicted casualties to the tune of at least 220,000 and possibly over 300,000 people, according to some historians.

• The Dominican Republic, which was invaded four times by the United States from 1900 to 1965.

• Vietnam, whose citizens fought a war of independence against France from 1946 to 1954. The French had become involved at the behest of the British government after World War 2. During that war, the United States supported the French with arms, intelligence, and funding. However, the French lost the war. Once the French were kicked out of the country, the United States brokered a partition of the country into North and South Vietnam. When the South Vietnamese government proved itself to be inept and corrupt, the Vietnamese people began fighting to overthrow it, thus triggering the American involvement of the 1960's and early 1970's which ended when Nixon negotiated a “peace with honor” that enabled America to walk away without having to admit defeat.

• The sabotaging of the attempts of Central and South American nations to escape from “banana republic” status (note the overthrow of Salvador Allende , the Iran-Contra Affair, the 2009 coup in Honduras (a contributing factor in the current child refugee crisis on the southern border of the United States), and other meddlings).

• Both Gulf Wars, ISIS, Syria, and Afghanistan, where American intervention has caused from 1,200,000 to possibly 2,000,000 (yes, that's two million) civilian deaths so far, according to several sources (such as this one);

• And many, many more!

In People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck wrote a chapter on the Vietnam War titled, “My Lai: An Examination of Group Evil,” in which he states that we fought so hard to conquer that country because psychologically we just had to be right, even though the facts on the ground contradicted us. We would rather have destroyed the contradiction entirely than admit that we had been wrong. Our zeal in fighting therefore shows our narcissism. It can be argued that this nation has never truly backed down from a war which it has started as an attempt to conquer a nation whose citizens plainly showed that they did not want to be ruled by the United States. After the U.S. was forced militarily out of Indochina, it used economic policies to enforce a partial subjugation of the region. And the U.S. has never truly left Iraq.

When the “good angels” in a narcissist's pathological space get together to compare notes, often the result is an exodus of people from the pathological space. Many writers describe this as “going No Contact (NC)” with the narcissist. Narcissists are enraged by contradiction, but they are made desperate by No Contact. Under No Contact, people who were mirrors to the narcissist, or who were used as sources of supply by the narcissist, are no longer there to reflect the narcissist's glory or power or influence back to him. Without such people, the narcissist faces an existential crisis even worse than the crisis provoked when he is contradicted by someone, for under No Contact, the narcissist sees his former victims and mirrors living meaningful lives completely independent of him, and he sees that his formerly grandiose self can no longer have any effect on them. This is the ultimate contradiction of his Grandiose Self.

Over the last thirteen to fifteen years, other nations have begun to go No Contact with the U.S. The diminishing of contact has taken place in the economic arena, as nations have sought to build trade agreements with each other independently from the United States, and to move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency. This move was provoked initially by the American use of sanctions to subjugate Iraq after the first Gulf War. This move has accelerated in response to the unilateral American military and economic acts of aggression which have taken place since 2001. This move has not been without risk, as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi found out. Nevertheless, in spite of economic and military warfare waged by the United States, the U.S. dollar as a percentage of all foreign exchange holdings droppped from 55 percent in 2001 to 33 percent in 2013.  Further, new bilateral and multilateral trade agreements and trade zones continue to be enacted throughout the world, independently of the United States, which is not being invited to enter these agreements. American attempts to wreck foreign economies through sanctions are backfiring, as targeted nations are learning that one can indeed survive without the U.S. dollar.

I think it's safe to say that we are witnessing the emergence of a new world order, but not one that is pleasing to the United States. What is emerging is a multipolar world, in which everyone must be polite, wait his or her turn, and say “Please” and “Thank you,” and in which no one nation will get to enjoy outlandishly “special” prerogatives or privileges over any other nation. The holders of concentrated privilege and power in the United States fear and hate the emergence of such a world, but increasingly, there doesn't seem to be a thing they can do to stop it. The long-term response of the United States to that emergence is likely to be some form of “decompensation.” That “decompensation” will be in part comically stupid, and in part dangerously ugly in many parts of this country, and in many sectors of American society. I'll talk about that in a future post.

A last note: when narcissists lose most of their current sources of supply, one sign of their resulting desperation is that they go back to former sources of supply and try to re-establish relationships with these people, in the hope of rebuilding a pathological space of mirrors and victims. Going back to former sources is called “hoovering” by many writers. As I think about hoovering, I think about the recent news that the United States is seeking to normalize relations with Cuba. Cuba – a nation which was ostracized by the United States over a span of 55 years – from the overthrow of the Batista regime until now. Cuba – a nation which has discovered that it is possible to live a meaningful and worthy life independent of the United States. Cuba – a nation which is now famous for having a first-rate medical system and which exports medical expertise and medical technology to the rest of the world. Cuba – a nation which is only 90 miles away from the American coastline. Cuba – a nation now being “hoovered”?  ¡Ten cuidado, Raul Castro!