NARCISSISM AND HUMAN EVIL

Narcissism is when you admire yourself and hold others in contempt as inferiors.

Narcissism is individual or collective.

If the individual is the narcissist then we talk about agentic individual narcissism.  These are easy to spot.  They tend to be very individualistic and have to play-act when called upon to help their community.

Communal narcissism is when individuals are narcissistic together and looking after each other – birds of a feather flock together. They satiate their own narcissism by making it a group thing. It is terrifying for they easily come across as compassionate and caring but this is about themselves and any help for you is done to patronise you.   It is about them getting their glow as a group.  They like to bask in glory from society and even a God who waits for them in heaven.

Collective narcissism is when a number of agentic narcissists just happen to have the same goal. It's about the goal only. The fact that they have the goal does not mean they share it.

Communal collective narcissism refers to a group that is has features of both.

All forms of narcissism other people. They mark them as outsiders. Why? Because they don't matter or are seen as threats.

M Scott Peck in his The People of the Lie says "all sins are reparable except the sin of believing one is without sin." For Peck sins do not make you evil. They are failures to reach a high moral standard. A good person can fall several times a day. What makes you evil is attempting to hide your sins and your evil from yourself. "Evil originates not the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it." The book says pride which is the failure to see the evil you do and the sins you commit makes you evil so you need to see the truth.

He is talking about narcissistic pride. The narcissist loves herself or himself and has nothing but tolerance (yes tolerance as in hating you but having to put up with you) and contempt for others. The narcissist suffers from above average pride - if suffer is the right word.

Sin is about doing evil and also committing a crime against God. Those who do not believe in God see evil as just bad but not as a crime. They do not see how calling it a crime is helpful. If your problem is the flu, wanting the nurse to decree that it is the flu and medically the flu is a distraction. You need help for how you feel and what books and all in a sense say do not matter. But you need your diagnosis? No you need the benefits around the diagnosis. The diagnosis is a means not an end. It is about actions not the science or what the nurse thinks.

I would change Peck's wording to, "all evil traits are reparable except the trait of believing one has no evil traits."

Extrovert narcissists tend to drive people away. Others can't bear the boasting and the patronising.

However, a narcissist may be introverted. There is such a being as the covert narcissist. An example of such a person is one who seems to heroically help other people but is not doing it because they are in pain or because they feel for them. They help for they see them as useless and stupid. So they feel smart and superior by helping.

A narcissist can be an introverted narcissist one way and a more open one in other ways. To think that your brain or your judgement that you are being drawn to God through his grace in which he reveals himself to you is narcissism of the introverted type. The claim, "But the God I love is not about what I think or want him to be. He relates to me personally and I have found him through how he helped me through his grace" is just a cover-up. Anybody can say that. Also, people think they are connected with a God and can be wrong. It is narcissistic in itself to use such an excuse. And even if God were revealing to you and reaching out personally it is you thinking you can judge that it is him and not your own notions. That is pure narcissistic arrogance. You are claiming to be as smart as God if not more for you decide if he is speaking.
Religious introverted narcissism gives rise to more extrovert forms.

The Situational Narcissist describes a person who does well in life and knows it and then starts to think of others as inferiors. It is the kind of person of which we would say that success went to their head. They are in a situation that allows them to acquire narcissistic traits.
There is a way to be one of these situational narcissists without it showing.

If you feel you have succeeded in getting a good relationship with a perfect God, the owner and maker of all the universe, then you are a situational narcissist.

Feeling that God has chosen you and your religious group can be a form of communal narcissism.

We all have the potential to be narcissistic in some ways.  If God belief heightens that risk then is that belief something to encourage?  I don't think so.  Not when you see the consequences.   A seemingly humble mediocre person can show their narcissist true colours when given power.