Narcissism and Culture (1993)
(from the book “The Creative Process and Psychoanalysis”)
In the nineteen thirties, Sigmund Freud, whose work has had the fate to be both vigorously approved
and refuted, wrote the essay ‘Civilization and its Discontent’--a work written when he was in the full swing
of his scientific career. In this work Freud is prophetic, his analyses results in a morbid vision as to the
outcome of the struggle between the two instincts, the life instinct – Eros, and the instinct of destruction,
which was later identified with Thanatos – the death instinct. He identifies the potential outcome, at
which he arrived through his meticulous psychoanalytical interpretations, within relationships which
reflect social communications, i.e. what we normally call ‘living together’.
The purpose of the libidinal force would be fulfilled with the creation of optimal possibilities for firm object
relationships with a quality which at first glance resembles that of the religious message: ‘…love thy
neighbour…’. We say, at first glance because in this same essay Freud very clearly defines the regressive
level of the ‘oceanic feeling’ offered by religious experience. He explains that if the libido is thwarted in
its occupation of objects of importance, these unsuccessful attempts would force it to withdraw and
object relationships would be increasingly charged with aggression, leading to an ultimate attempt at
their destruction or destruction of other objects, regardless of their situation in external or internal reality.
It appears that the intensity of the menacing feeling one experiences when confronted with these insights
only increases when one brings to mind the fact that this was predicted more than half a century ago,
and in the time interval since, a multitude of signs could be observed which only corroborate the
authenticity of the presentiments of the founder of psychoanalysis.
Today we are witness to times which promote individuality, as well as independence and responsibility
on the part of the individual. In places, this attitude is at its social inception, while elsewhere this mood
has been a significant factor for a long period of time, influencing emotional relationships between
individuals who accept and develop it further. This development has been boosted by opportunities to
seek and experience individuality through a greater interest in individual bodily and spiritual actions, or
through authorization or non-authorization of personal choices. Confirmation of personal identity is
craved and found in differentiation from the others in the environs, or recognized in the two-dimensional
projections of the various communication media. Individuality is sought and found even in the mediocre
adoption of social and professional roles, increasingly spiced up by the aforementioned two-dimensional
media objects.
Then again, the time in which we partake with active exertion of our psychic apparatus is replete with
the most diverse types of information, whose reception initiates the creation of more or less energetic
contents which result in frequent attacks on the stability of the perception of created notions about the
inner and external world and notions about personal identity in relation to the external reality. The role
of a professional, which most of the time is the role of an individual who meets with the same or similar
objects on a daily basis, offers a repetition of object relations through which they become ever more
emotionally disinvested.
At this point, we raise the question: Where is the libido? What are the objects of importance cathected
by it? Is it possible that it dominates only abstractions, phantasms, imagined or imposed roles, information
which endlessly arrives from all sides? Perhaps the libido has become the thrust behind the economy,
material gains, money? We can remark right away that everything offered is completely opposite to the
principal tendency of Eros and the libido in culture, and that is the rapprochement of individuals, families,
tribes, and nations, the creation of new values in their integrated existence. Ultimately, we can seek and
recognize relationships between individuals in real society only in sexuality and love.
However, to be able to recognize upon what kind of sexuality we embark, it is necessary that we examine
the psychological structure of the individuals ‘produced’ in that very society who participate in such
relations. We have stressed that their development is determined by identifications with roles offered by
society and that the successfulness of this identification and adaptation determines the force that
upholds self-respect. This implies that personal identity does not stem from a gradual approaching to
authentic individuality, but from the upholding and preserving of accepted uniform conventionality.
Because this causes only a further departure from individual needs and potential, this development
inevitably generates constant conflict situations amid the components which constitute the structure of
the person. At this point, one might assume that this is a case of the creation of neurotic characters, as
a product and a future mainstay of society. Moreover, from the aspect of role playing, the individuals
provided in the immediate surroundings by the media can be recognized as an apposite criteria for
comparison—and personal self-respect is tested through observation of possible differences and similarities.
Objects from the external reality can either be integrated or avoided, if they are not compatible with
the concept of such inner reality. At the same time, inundation with information from different sources in
the environs instigates great expenditure of energy in the hasty synthesis of these objects and in defence
against possible attacks on the stability of the inner world around which the identity is created.
This only adds to the possibilities for further generation of conflict situations in the psychic apparatus of
the individual and new expenditures in energy occupied contents in defence of the threatened identity.
We can observe that only very little of the energy sources remains to be invested in emotional relationships.
We can conclude that the libido cathects primarily internal objects, notions about personal identity, not
developed from real potential and maintained for the sake of a sense of self-respect, which in such
cases is the very last defence against the advent of the process of self-destruction. At this point we ask:
What kind of sexuality can these structures expect when their emotional investments are mostly focused
on preservation of their own, loose and inauthentic identity?
Suddenly we come to the realization that we are actually discussing narcissistic structures, emotional
relationships determined by fixation of the libido and its entrapment in secondary narcissism. Having
recognized these structures as narcissistic, whose basic problem is how to achieve objective relationships
which allow a real libidinous transfer and a union between two individuals, we would like to raise the
same question again: What kind of sexuality are we examining? Can this kind of individual be free of
fears that in a love relationship which requires unconditional involvement and temporary symbiosis, they
will not lose their shaky identity? In such a relationship, the individual unconsciously experiences inferiority
owing to the powerlessness of the remaining modest energy sources to satisfy the anticipated relation
emotionally. If allowed, this sexuality ends at the point of physical consummation for the sake of
preservation of the shaky sexual identity. We can see that the libido cannot in fact activate an emotional
transfer and thus occupy an object relation. It remains imprisoned in the dungeons of narcissism. Love
remains a reminder of the relationship with the parents, buried deep in the individual unconscious with
an intensity which demands repeated realization.
Since yet another, perhaps fundamental biological necessity is not realized, a chain of release of
repressed energy charges is inevitably activated, either mentally, physically or psychosomatically, realized
through auto-aggressiveness or through hetero-aggressiveness. At this point, we can argue that there is
a case of aggressive, destructive, instinctual forces at work opposite to the libidinal, being aware that
the possibilities for their discharge are unlimited once the doors for such outcome are opened. And these
outcomes are always to be expected when self-respect is destroyed, usually maintained through mutual
support and relying on other individuals in an endless game of inauthentic roles.
As a consequence, these individual fears of disillusionment about personal identity and self-respect
mobilize joint efforts to uphold these object relationships and impose them where they are not developed
in such a manner. Suddenly, we come to the paradoxical conclusion that a cohesive rapprochement
has somehow been achieved between individuals in society. Yet, in this rapprochement, the chief factor
is not the libido, but fear and hostility.
We confront the suggestion that individuality, upon which narcissistic culture is founded, is still some kind
of progress, a developmental step forward from the symbiotic-dominant, autocratic societies which we
have left behind. But at the same time we are confronted with the fact that individualization, as we have
described it, is not equal to individuation, because the first implies departure from the core of the person
and the laws of nature, while the latter entails a process of understanding and accepting one’s own
authenticity, as well as the uniqueness of the world that surrounds us.
In the end, we revisit the pessimism of Freud’s observation of society. Perhaps, with the only difference
that we are not afraid of the end but of the supposed loss of promise that the creative would eventually
win over the destructive. Let us hope that, one day, we might still truly take upon ourselves the message
to ‘…love thy neighbour…’ —not as a result of religious regression, but through the superiority of reason.
The text was published in 1993 in ‘Lik’, Nova Makedonija.
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