Secrets of the City

I was talking to a friend who visited in Norway recently, and she complained that they constantly compete w/ Sweden with top ten lists — “hey we’re number one in literacy! in voting! etc” That sounds an AWFUL lot like Minnesota with it’s constant headlines highlighting the newest list we topped. I think I know 10 different things Minnesota is #1 on. The whole freakin state’s narcissistic!

“A recent survey conducted by a professor at Louisiana State University says that people are more narcissistic now than 25 years ago.“

Well, with good reason. We’re better looking now, we’re smarter, and we just plain deserve more good things than other people.

I wish I was special….but I’m a creep.

I’m a narcissist because you got to love somebody, and so few are deserving.

I blame the media.

Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal column on this study. An AP story on it.

I also think the internet may have something to do that. In making it easy for everyone to self-publish all their ideas, we’ve taken away the idea that some ideas have more worth than others. It’s all been equalized as “special.” Some ideas are dumb, and some people are stupid.

I also think it’s a little funny if I keep posting comments in the item about being a narcissist. Just a little, though.

By the way, blame a lot of things for the culture of narcissism, but Fred Rogers was a freakin’ saint and I will not stand to hear people speak ill of him.

Mr. Rogers taught me how crayons were made and how to feed a fish and the virtues of cardigans. Don’t mess with my man.

And don’t we usually blame parents for this sort of thing? What happened to parenting?

“By the way, blame a lot of things for the culture of narcissism, but Fred Rogers was a freakin’ saint and I will not stand to hear people speak ill of him.“

Well, he was a Presby, so according to the Pope he can’t actually be a saint, but he sure was a snazzy dresser!

Well, that’s enough about the state. Let’s talk about me.

The Old Man sure told The Rat enough times that he wasn’t anything special. Once he sang the Mr. Rogers theme and said “I can act stupid like that, too.”

I’d have to say “the lakes”.

i don’t understand that survey. i’m in my 30s and everyone in my generation seems to be ok (as far as narcissism goes). it’s the kids in their early 20s that have the problems. and did they even watch Mr Rogers? I can see them being raised on Barney, not Mr Rogers.

eh…i don’t trust anyone born after 1985, anyway.

I had low expectations from the shows I watched as a wee lad. To this day I write letters to myself and count them to make me feel better. One…ha ha ha…two…ha ha ha.

On second thought, it was The Rat’s older brother who did the Fred Rogers routine.

Wanta get it right

wow, the Count was a lot creepier, back in the day.

I’m sorry, I don’t how this pertains to me…

How did they manage to leave ME off that list?

I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!

Hey hey! We out “me-ed” the “me generation”! We’re number 1! We’re number 1!

I’m thinking that it takes a pretty self-absorbed parent to go as far as blaming Mr. Rogers for the fact that their kid is a brat…

DR. Spock? That’s a relief. I though you said MR. Spock.

i so loved the operas he used to do on that show. they were so cool.

i wonder how they measure narcissism. Do they count how many times a person looks in the mirror?

I blame the parents, aka “helicopter parents,” who won’t let their kids grow up. I sat next to a woman today on an airplane who’s the student relations person at a small liberal arts school in California. She told me a recent story where a mom called HER and said, “My son just moved into a new apartment and needs to know where to buy TOILET PAPER.” Her answer, in disbelief, was “Uh, at the same place you bought him toilet paper???”

True story. And true many times over again.

True narcissism is a form of insecurity. It isn’t the result of being treated better by parents, its feeling a greater need for self preservation and safety. The world feels less safe. People feel unheard, unimportant, and increasingly powerless. Insecure people need to believe – and tell everyone else so they’ll believe – that they’re important so someone will bother to save them if the crap hits the fan.

Where people once turned to their elders for guidance and answers in times of crisis, they now feel that life moves too quickly for their elders to have the answers needed to manage problems and conditions that are new to everyone. What’s more, our media and government have fed us a steady diet of fear. For the former, it sells. For the later, it keeps people too afraid to make radical changes or ask hard questions.

People who really believe they are valueable and special don’t announce it. If you have real self love you don’t let people hit you, exploit you, or make a martyr of you and you don’t marry or have kids because you feel like you’re supposed to. You don’t worry about being saved because you feel you can save yourself. You pursue your dreams because it’s what makes you happy and probably best serves others – everyone gains when true talent expresses itself in the best way. If people in our culture really were “full of themselves” they wouldn’t do the nasty things they do to each other.

It isn’t the result of being treated better by parents, its feeling a greater need for self preservation and safety. The world feels less safe. People feel unheard, unimportant, and increasingly powerless.

Wow. If that’s true of your generation (and I’m assuming that you’re a young person), then it only illustrates how much your parents and their peers have succeeded in creating a generation of emotional cripples.

I’m infamous around here for decrying the wussification of the young american male, which I have attributed to millions of males being raised by single mothers, and without a father figure. I admit that perhaps that’s an over-generalization, but something has definitely shorted out some formerly hard-wired circuitry that has served the male of the species well over the millenia that does not bode well for the survival of our species.

Where people once turned to their elders for guidance and answers in times of crisis, they now feel that life moves too quickly for their elders to have the answers

If this is true with regard to this generation and their elders, I blame the elders. When you decided to be your offspring’s friend instead of their mentor and disciplinarian, you robbed them of the source of truth and wisdom that they would have to rely on in times of need. By failing to set a course, and showing them the way, fellow elders, you set the young ones adrift. And now they don’t know whether they can trust their compass.

Terrific title of a book of poetry by Tony Hoagland:

“What Narcissim Means to Me”

I agree it’s totally the helicopter parents’ fault. Ugh… let your kids grow up!

My mom was a big fan of hitting instead of talking. Or hitting and talking at the same time (also known as yelling). Very few things I did were ever good enough for her.

Sure, I have anger issues now. But at least I know I’m nothing special.

“True narcissism is a form of insecurity.“

Dissent. False narcissism is a form of insecurity. True narcissism is just a bit selfish.

Here’s the definition of NARCISSISM:

“A pattern of traits and behaviours which signify infatuation and obsession with one’s self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one’s gratification, dominance and ambition.“

Nowhere do I see that it must stem from an unjustified regard for yourself. Thus, operating in the opposite manner as does paranoia, (”it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you”), one can have true narcissism, like my own (wonderful, and I know it), or false narcissism (horrible, but with high self-regard.)

A feeling of superiority is okay when you really are superior.

Prince Tuesday was the most narcissisitic of Mr. Roger’s crew. That kid was annoying.

I learnded a lot more from Mr. Robinson than Mr. Rogers.

jess- that was my mom, too. she’s still pissed off that i didn’t win the state level spelling bee in 1985 (just making it to state wasn’t good enough). i’ve got a lot of anger as well, but i keep it on the inside where it festers. on the outside, i’m all bright eyes and smiles!!! yabetcha!

Total side comment that has nothing to do with this post:
I have received some emails asking me about it, so:
Anyone interested in doing another round of MNSpeak Fantasy Football? Let me know.

maybe we’re not increasingly narcissisistic, just more apt to behave as narcissists. The media’s examples often encourage us to think very highly of ourselves and express this in an obnoxious manner. I think that a large percentage of the population still remains fearful of our worthiness of love and praise.

You never want to know a true narcissist, they are truly the most hateful, vile people. I think there is a clear definition between narcissism and selfishness. Narcissists are the harbingers of sociopaths in my opinion.

where’s the link?

oh, nevermind, I see the newsboy linked to it.

bobby, your clinical definition is correct, but something has to trigger the problem. You need to be insecure to get to narcissist. aliecat’s right that clinical narcissism leans towards the sociopath-ic but my feeling is that when Louisiana did the survey they were using narcissist to substitute for words like arrogant and selfish.

maz – Explain why you think men have been wussified. Men don’t hit each other as often as a means to resolve conflict – that’s a good thing. I think fewer men volunteers for the military, but the country is developing a habit of getting into war for profit and calling it something else. I don’t think its wussy to avoid being exploited.

I don’t really think younger people are emotional cripples or selfish, but they are less likely to settle for the life their parents made for themselves and they’re not quite sure how to do that. Taking a new path means you are bound to make more mistakes and hit more dead ends. And in terms of children being raised to feel better about themselves, Dr. Spock might have gotten parents to hit their kids less and stop screaming at them, but the emotional abuse continues – albeit more subtle.

With regard to the comment on elders: even if they showed you discipline and taught you integrity, if they seem out of touch with the modern world it doesn’t feel like they are the best source for guidance. When you see them using the same solutions to try to solve the same problems even though those solutions failed the first time (or second, or third) they were used, why should I have faith in their judgment. No one seems to be learning from history.

Nobody every really learns from history. That’s why it keeps repeating.

“We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.” -George Bernard Shaw

I didn’t learn from my lunch, and it has also started repeating.

Boy, talk about beating a dead horse. It seems that this professor at LSU has a political agenda in store: smear anyone that is to blame for our children’s behavior since the 1980s. Yet, Mister Rogers however is not the villain to the story; he is being portrayed as a scape goat by self-righteous hacks within the psychology profession in this country. Yeah. You know, the same folks that are embedded with the pharmaceutical industry on the false premise that children with emotional problems can be cured with Prozac and other forms of ADD drugs.

For one thing, this is the same profession that hires Dr. Phil as their intellectual mouthpiece, regarding over whether real school shooting by kids in general are to blame for playing violent video games on their TV sets or computer monitors. This is also the same profession that rallied against sex and violence on TV, even though there has not been any scientific connection studies between the content you see in the media and the relationship of criminal activity in real life as a result, starting in 1968; this is the same profession however that comes up with false notions that there is some form of liberal cabal within Hollywood, trying to pollute our kids with all of this filth, which is not true in any case.

Other than this college professor from Louisiana should redeem himself from this survey and leave the poor, decease presbyterian minister from Pittsburgh, PA, alone.

If Mr. Rogers were still alive he could kill that man 47 ways with his teeth.

But he wouldn’t, because he just wanted to help the children learn.