America’s biggest problem — the one that prohibits any kind of real progress toward democracy — is its culture of narcissism. We usually think of narcissism as a personality disorder which is “characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for other people” but in the US, a prolonged campaign of propaganda has made narcissism into a core part of our culture.
The most important part of this pro-narcissism propaganda is that it redefined narcissistic behavior and traits as being normal — even going so far as to make us believe that narcissism is a natural and good part of every human being’s personality. This not only erases narcissism as a disorder but also portrays the narcissist as the ideal person. Ayn Rand called this big lie “The Virtue of Selfishness” and it is part of her pseudo-philosophy of Objectivism, which is not at all objective but rather a subjective take on reality from a pro-narcissist point of view.
Ayn Rand said that, “…rational interests of men do not clash — that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.” In other words, Rand claimed that a society based entirely on selfishness would not have any conflict, and then she went on to connect that idea to capitalism, effectively saying that the only path to a peaceful society would be unbridled capitalism. (It’s funny because the whole point of capitalism is to achieve a level of ownership that makes it so you don’t have to work — the aspiring capitalist wants to just rake in the profits while others work for them, and they take all the credit.)
There’s a step further into evil in her ideology, though. Not only did she say a society based on selfishness would not have conflict, but she also claimed that since every human being is innately narcissistic, that anyone claiming to be working for the greater good is a fraud and the cause of societal conflict. She was claiming, essentially, that good people are the real evil.
Even those who are not narcissists are trained to emulate the behavior of a narcissist. If you refuse to compete, or if you try to do the right thing, people will tell you that you are foolish, that “it isn’t going to work” and in fact it doesn’t work because nothing works without the organized support of the whole community. In our case, the whole community is working to fight each other to the death — though usually in an economic way rather than by physical combat — and so that is what “works”.
Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is the Bible of evil, but even Americans who claim that they don’t like Ayn Rand support this basic idea — that everyone is essentially narcissistic, so society is evil, and the only way to make it less evil is to double-down on selfishness. In my experience, the only people who are willing to consider the idea that people can be better are on the left. That does not include Democrats who are more than happy to agree with Rand on the point of innate human narcissism, despite the fact that they usually say they don’t agree with Rand.
The social science is quite clear, though: Not only are human beings born with empathy and concern for other people, but those anti-narcissistic functions are one of the most important keys to our specie’s success on this planet — if not the most important one. The cultural narcissism of the USA — and the entire west — may provide an advantage in the relatively short term, but it comes with horror, suffering, and ultimately, destruction. That innate goodness that we are born with is destroyed in our early years through the peculiar way we raise children.
Narcissists are not concerned with the long term. One of the most important components of the personality disorder — as well as the cultural disorder — is a fixation on short-term outcomes. This is why the “time horizon” for corporations is typically in the range of three to five years, in contrast with the time horizon for sustainable societies which is more like seven generations — that comes out to well over one hundred years.
This lack of concern for the future — and especially the future of people who are not me — is the primary driver behind climate change denial. There is more than one kind of climate change denial; there is denying that there is climate change, there is denying that people cause climate change, there is denying that it is a significant problem, and there is denying that it is a significant problem now. However, I’ve come to believe that these are all the result of the same thing: Denial that it is going to affect me, and that’s why even Democrats — who are supposedly pro-environment — are opposed to doing what is required to mitigate the predicament. They think it will not affect them, and they simply do not care if it affects anyone else — they don’t even care if it ends humanity.
The climate change debate really is narcissism in a nutshell. The majority of American adults — well over 100 million people — would prefer to roll the dice on murdering their own children or grandchildren and extinguishing all human beings than be in any way inconvenienced or less comfortable. It isn’t just the challenge of imagining a probabilistic future that is causing this failure. These same Americans — Republicans and Democrats alike — continue to vote for wars of choice and the overthrow of other nations because they just do not care about other people, and they believe these things provide them with a benefit.
As we now face a growing probability of human extinction from climate change (and other issues), most Americans just don’t care. They see it as an inevitability that will come near the end of their lives. Interestingly, this timing has a lot to do with narcissism. Narcissists can’t disconnect the end of themselves from the end of the world, and see no point to the world continuing after their death — because they really only care about themselves. They would rather destroy the world they live in, in fact, than admit that the false, grandiose idea that they have of themselves is false — even if that kills them, too. That’s why this purposeful careening toward destruction is an essential part of the culture of narcissism.
Those that do care about others are locked into this same path, though, because they continue to believe Ayn Rand’s lies about the nature of human beings. The first step forward is for all of us to admit the truth: That human beings can be authentically good.