Narcissism is caused by the media

Twenge suggests that brainwashing by the media has contributed to much of the narcissism in US culture. In the past, people just envied and competed with their neighbors. With television, they were able to see how people in different classes and different parts of the United States. As a result, people began to deserve the lifestyles and belongings of the extremely wealthy, which they might not have been aware of in pre-television and internet days. Keeping up with the Joneses was taken to an international level.


Twenge blames reality TV shows for the exceleration of this problem in the US. I agree with her but I personally think the problem began back in the late 1980's. Long before reality TV, long before Sex and the City, the baby boomers of America had their reality forever altered by thirtysomething. It not only changed their lives but those of their children, the current Generation Y (or as Twenge calls them, Generation Me.)


thirtysomething:

Back in the mid-80’s, many baby boomers were fans of the television series thirtysomething. Set in Philadelphia, it was about several yuppies who were adjusting to yuppiedom after spending their college years as flower-children. They lived in large, clean, nicely decorated houses that looked like shoots for an upscale home furnishings catalogs and were stay-at-home moms or artily employed single women depressed over their lack of suitable dating prospects. The men all seemed to make huge amounts of money as lawyers or advertising executives. All the characters spent much time obsessing over every action they took, whether raising their child, working, or the man they broke up with years earlier.

While I found the show depressing, I knew many baby boomers and Gen X'ers who took this show as the model for their life and those of their children. They wanted the lavish house, the life where the main focus was on children (one character quit a part-time job as a fact checker because she was unable to find time to rear her child), the refusal to take politics seriously, the culture where a single woman was pitied and miserable and people who tried to effect social change were ridiculed. I also knew people who took this show as a model in how NOT to live their life, but they were a minority.

The next show to have such a major impact on US life was Sex and the City, which will be considered in my next post.

The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell

Introduction:

Jean Twenge’s previous book was Generation Me, which I read as an attempt to understand the values and psyches of my younger co-workers. I found the book depressing but insightful. As a result, I decided to read her next book, The Narcissism Epidemic, even though I felt the term was heavily overused. Rarely have I had such an extreme reaction to a book. I moved between recognizing societal behaviors that I had noticed but not fully registered to being convinced that I, too, was dangerously narcissistic. Should I take the narcissism test? Would taking the test be a sign of narcissism? Is wanting to affect change a sign of narcissism? I ultimately called a close friend who reminded me that I had a similar crisis after I read The Geography of Bliss and suggested that I read some non-taxing novels for a change.

However, the worsening of the U.S. economy has made it essential that we examine our society. How did the financial crisis begin? What made financial people feel that it was acceptable to let potentially unsound loans to go through? Why did ordinary people borrow widely out of their financial means? Why did no one think that these financial abuses would be destructive? The answers, according to Twenge’s book, lie within the narcissicist values of our culture.

Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents by Minal Hajratwala

In Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents writer Minal Hajratwala tells the story of several generations of her far-flung family, and in doing so also traces the roots and reasons for diasporic movement. She uses the particulars of her clan's many uprootings and reroutings - from India to Fiji, to South Africa, to Australia, to New Zealand, to the U.K, and to the U.S.A. -- to explore the historical and societal forces that shape migrations. In her writing she manages to convey the results of her meticulous research as well as the more personal stories of her kin, and then, in the penultimate chapter, of her own life story and the metamorphoses she has undergone as an immigrant child of immigrants three times over.

When I first picked up this book, it was with a sense of curiosity, excitement and trepidation. Excitement and curiosity because I was looking forward to learning how a contemporary of mine -- also an immigrant, and, like me, one who has lived most of her years in this country -- would write about the Indian diaspora. Trepidation because when picking up a book that focuses on one's own cultural background, one never knows what to expect. Will it be like looking into a mirror? Like looking into a microscope? Or like looking into the wrong end of a telescope?

What I am most impressed by in Leaving India is the way that the author picks out the story of not only her immediate family but also of various strands of her clan in a way that provides historical context - rounding out the whys and wherefores of the personal with attention paid to the larger forces that were at work in shaping their lives. The reader is educated as well as entertained -- we learn about overarching immigration/emigration policies and regulations that affected not just one nuclear family but entire communities and generations. One thing that intrigued me when I began to read the book is that Hajratwala chooses to write this strictly as a factual account. In fact, in her introduction she says:

"... the reader should know that this is a work of nonfiction. I have been asked frequently whether I am fictionalizing and the answer is no... The journalist in me is scrupulous about such matters, and no "poetic license" has been taken..."

While I rejoice in the fascinating history lesson that Hajratwala provides about diasporic moves, what I really revel in is the personal detail, that which she is naturally better able to provide for some stories than for others, in her pursuit of pure nonfiction. While I admire and appreciate her decision to just "stick with the facts, m'am," I find myself most drawn to the chapters about her parents and about herself, as these are the most fleshed out with story, which is my true impetus, always, to read. Of course this is a personal preference on my part; I respond more keenly to stories than to facts.

Blog readers, what are your thoughts on the continuum that is the realm of "creative nonfiction"? Is it ever acceptable to fictionalize a memoir in order to tell a more complete story, or must one always obey the dictates of fact and truth? Is there a grey area? I welcome your thoughts on this topic and also on any other thoughts that you have as you read Leaving India.

The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Every man has a mob self and an individual self, in varying proportions.

~D.H. Lawrence

The words "I am" are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.

~A.L. Kitselman

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, "This I am today; that I will be tomorrow."

~Louis L'Amour


Welcome to Brooklyn Public Library’s online discussion of Csikszentmihalyi’s The Evolving Self. The book is a sequel to the author’s bestselling Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, in which a radical theory of happiness is proposed. After years of systematic, in-depth and cross-cultural research for Flow, Csikszentmihalyi, who is arguably one of the greatest psychologists in the world today, concluded that what makes people truly happy has not much to do with sex, wealth and power, but to be actively involved in a difficult enterprise or an activity which “stretches physical and mental capacities.” In other words, the habit of taking up increasingly complex and new challenges on regular basis, is the key to genuine happiness. Being whole heartedly involved in such activities for some length of time, may then lead to a “rare state of consciousness” which he terms as flow, and suggests that this state can conquer anxieties of everyday life and make life worth living.

But perhaps an unexamined Self is not worth evolving. The variety of definitions and discourses about this thing called Self are as old as the beginnings of time. Human beings have attempted to solve this mystery with innumerable mythologies, vanities, fantasies, superstitions, delusions, religions, arts, philosophies and now sciences.

One wonders, what is so true and so new that Csikszentmihalyi has discovered about the nature of Self, which can stand the test of time and reason across cultures? We shall see.

Please join us for a month long exploration of the old and the new discourse about Self and its evolution, and whether or not such articulations are coherent, and correspond to reality, and lend themselves to sound and valid verification. After all, we have to define Self objectively and collaboratively before we can embark upon its evolution--an evolution which could be meaningful to individual and the collective. But, in an important sense, can human beings face some aspects of their real selves? "Every man has reminiscences," wrote Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground, "which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

But for how long can one be in denial of such darkness inherent in human nature--not only at an individual level but the collective as well. The known record of human history is but a collective biography of humanity. Violent history of the 20th century--which has so much to do with tribal identities--alone should make our species shudder with horror and disbelief about forces (conscious and unconscious) at work in human mind and human cultures. But perhaps the processes of defining, exploring and evaluating the nature of Self might have some far reaching implications, not only for the growth of the individual but also for the future of our species, which currently spends more on weapons than education worldwide.

The stakes are high indeed as the struggle for scarce and strategic resources is going to become more ferocious with unprecedented increase in population and pandemonium on the planet. Can human beings fundamentally change the way they have been thinking, feeling and behaving, parenting, preaching and politicking for millennia? Is propensity for violence and vanity so hard wired in the human brain that common sense, good will, religion and education have repeatedly failed us in every generation? For war and preparation for war have been constants of human history and continue to be so in modernity. Every individual, regardless of what group or nation they belong to, needs to ask this question about the nature and evolution of Self and take full responsibility for evolving its highest potentials. For it is not impossibilities which cause us the deepest despair, but potentialities that we have failed to realize. As an Indian proverb has it: “There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your own previous self.”

Darker Domain

What would you do to save the life of a child? How far into the past are you willing to explore to give your child a future? Michelle Gibson formally Michelle Prentice aka Misha, is about to take that journey and in doing so opens Pandora's box.

Have you ever looked into the past and wished that you did not? Or did your look lead to discoveries that were beneficial?

Doug Henwood on the crisis and The Shock Doctrine

Last week, the New Utrecht branch of the Brooklyn Public Library hosted a talk on the economic crisis and possible ways out of it by the economist and writer Doug Henwood. Here's part one of his remarks:



And here's part two:



Henwood has also written a penetrating critique of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine which points out its flaws from a left-wing point of view. I highly recommend that you check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.

Henwood edits Left Business Observer and is a contributing editor of The Nation. His books Wall Street and After the New Economy are both available through the BPL catalog.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (updated with video!)

For the better part of the last decade, Naomi Klein has been one of the most prominent spokespersons of a global movement dedicated to fighting against what it sees as the depredations of global capitalism. Her first book, No Logo, was fortuitously published just after the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle and became something of a bible among so-called "anti-globalization" activists. Since then, she has chronicled economic collapse and workers' movements in Argentina, the attempts of the United States to reorganize Iraq as a model of "free-market" economics, and the Bush administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. In late 2007, she published The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she attempts to fit these and other events into a broader analysis of the development of global capitalism since the 1970s.

Since the 1970s the nature of global capitalism has changed dramatically. From the end of World War II until roughly 1973, the liberal/social democratic welfare state was the reigning economic and political arrangement of the advanced capitalist West, and government-led developmentalism predominated in formerly colonial lands in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. However, since the 1970s, conservative free-market approaches to economics and politics have largely prevailed around the world, as embodied by figures like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and the late economist Milton Friedman. How did this happen? In The Shock Doctrine, Klein argues that this transition did not take place democratically, but rather through the exploitation of "disaster-shocked people and countries." It's worth quoting at length from Klein's website in order to understand the main thrust of her argument:

"At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets. "

Klein also collaborated with noted Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron to produce a rather stylish short film to promote the book and popularize its thesis. Take a look:



To get this discussion started, I'd like to pose a few questions:

- Is it accurate to argue that conservative, free-market economics was simply imposed on people and countries by corporate and political elites without democratic consent? Is Klein advancing a conspiracy theory rather than a rigorous historical and theoretical analysis?

- Does Klein stretch her concept of "shock therapy" too far to fit certain events and historical processes into her argument? Does the exploitation of "shock and awe" always work, as she seems to imply, or is it sometimes unsuccessful?

- How has the economic crisis affected the validity of Klein's argument (if at all)? Is the Reagan era really over with the election of Barack Obama, as many have claimed, and is there a possibility of "shock therapy" being used in the service of more liberal/social democratic approaches to political and economic policy?

Feel free to comment on any other aspect of the book you'd like to as well. I'm looking forward to a great discussion with all of you!

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is an American author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She has written some of the acclaimed American novels including The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Soloman. In her writing, she traverses the experience and roles of black women in a racist and sexist society. In A Mercy, her latest work, Morrison uses her storytelling to transports readers back to a time (1680s) in America when religion, class differences, prejudice and oppression were as familiar as American apple pie. That was a time in American history when the seeds of slavery and racism began to take root.

The novel centers around the decision of Jacob, an Anglo Dutch trader, who despite his revulsion to the business of slavery, accepts a young slave girl as payment on a debt. The decision to take Florens, the young slave girl "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady" impacts the lives of other women living on Jacob's farm. There is Rebekka, Jacob's wife, who questions her God as she loses one baby after another to the harsh realities of the New World. A Native servant, Lina, a survivor of smallpox epidemic, who hungers for Florens's love to replace the family taken from her. And then there is Sorrow, a quiet black woman, who is a survivor of a terrible incident on a slave ship.


Use the following discussion questions to participate in our discussion:

Do you think Florens' mother showed her mercy by begging Jacob to take Florens?

How did the different viewpoints enhance the story?

Why do you think Rebekka started treating Lina and others badly after her illness passed?

What acts of mercy do the characters display?

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - wrapping up

Happy Groundhog Day, folks!

Just wanted to wrap up the White Tiger discussion. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I also wanted to share a few last thoughts before we start the next book:-

To Anonymous from January 24, 2009 (1:57):

Yes, I agree, fanatics are fanatics, no matter the country or creed. Although I don't believe that fanaticism as such was really a theme in the book. While there is that incident where Balram blackmails the other driver by threatening to reveal to his employer that the driver is Muslim, this was done for sheer economic and personal gain and not out of a sense of fanatic religious belief. In fact, right after this incident is a poignant moment where Balram experiences a brief pang of regret, which he then steels himself against, brilliantly showing Adiga's delight in exposing the very human quality of ambivalence, even in the face of fighting for survival.

To Preston:

You say:

I am always suspicious of the notion that certain elements of the reality of India are not appropriate for Western audiences. The unpleasantness is thought either to be too embarrassing or to be simply pandering to stereotypes or outdated notions.

I completely agree with you on the above, except for the "pandering to stereotypes" part, where my agreement is qualified by the fact that I do believe that many members of Western audiences (though not all) are only too ready to consume books and films which portray the dirtiness and poverty of the "east" in an imbalanced way. Perhaps it reinforces an inherent sense of superiority, the modern day version of the White Man's Burden? This is not to say that I think that either The White Tiger or Slumdog Millionaire are pandering to this perspective. But I can see how Indians in India would be touchy about such topics... If one has been stereotyped in a certain way for what seems to be eons, then one would have a propensity for kneejerk rejecting of such perceived slights, no? (Not that this tendency is justified, but it's good to understand where such reactions are coming from.)

I do think that much (though certainly not all) of the negative reaction from the Indian press about both The White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire comes from a sense of this kneejerk reaction mixed with a sense of (dare I say it?) sour grapes. Both works, though not perfect by any means, are powerful in their own right, but it is, I believe, their sheer success in the West that has drawn the ire of many an Indian blogger/movie star/critic etc... And, for interested readers, I should point out that Slumdog Millionaire the film was based on a book first published in 2005, which is available at Brooklyn Public Library for your reading pleasure.

But in the end I could not agree with you more when you said:

But India is too big, too old, and too complicated for any single work, even a lifetime of work, to chronicle the range of its vitality and degradation.

And with that, blog readers, our official discussion of The White Tiger is ended. However, should you like to write further comments that elucidate our understanding of the book, they will continue to be welcomed - and appreciated.

Further reflection on Aravind Adiga's Booker-winning The White Tiger

Dear Blog Readers,

Thank you for an energetic and thoughtful discussion in the comments to the initial blog post for The White Tiger!

One of our anonymous commenters (from January 14, 2009, 2:41 PM) asked, “How do you interpret modern day India and its disparities? Just curious.” While I have no ultimate be-all and end-all answer to this question, I must say this: India is a complicated, multifarious, contradictory society. For everything which is true, there is another thing that proves it to be untrue. Caste and class prejudice exist for some, not for others. Some are able to climb out of poverty; others are forever crushed by it. Some cannot imagine an Indian who is uneducated. Others dream of being able to go to school. Some see India as the greatest, largest democracy alive (in terms of sheer population numbers) while others find that Indian society beats down those who are already beaten down. When asked for my own opinion on all of this, I tend to become inarticulate, as the tension of all of these contradictions play within me and ultimately silence me. What is there to say? There is everything to say and nothing to say, at the same time.

As an immigrant from India, albeit one who arrived in this country as a child, I have always struggled when asked to explain, define, or categorize my country of origin. Is India wealthy or poor? How wealthy? How poor? Or, now, newly middle? Do people still believe in and act on caste-ist philosophies, or did that all die with Independence and is the modern era now upon us? Do people in India know how to speak English? Doesn’t everyone in India know how to speak English? These are just some of the questions that make me rub the back of my neck unhappily as I ponder whether to give the 15 second wrong-but-easy pat answer or the 45-minute ponderous, questioning lecture that would leave both me and the questioner querulous and glazed, with no satisfaction that the question had been answered at all.

I do think that The White Tiger, despite being uneven in places, gives one a glimpse into the simultaneously wonderful and terrible place that India can be for her own people. Personally I am unsure whether this book was better in literary quality than, say, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, which was a much more in-depth, rich exploration of a portion of Indian history which shaped the world. But I think that The White Tiger won the Booker because it is of the moment. It captures the essence of the current economic prosperity and struggle happening on a daily basis all over India, in homes of the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

While there are moments where Balram's character rings a false note, where his or his family's actions seem just amalgams of what the author thinks the poorer classes are thinking, there are many moments when his humanity shines through. And some would argue that it doesn't matter if Balram rings true as a real person or not, that he is a device used by Adiga to get across the sheer horror of class difference in India. And for that achievement, I agree, as do many of the commenters to the first post, that Adiga must be applauded.

I must confess though, that as a person of Indian heritage I have mixed feelings about how this book may be taken by a western audience. Of late the whole India Shining ideology coming full-force from the elite classes of India has been overpowering any other vision of India, making many middle class or privileged class Indians unwilling to admit any other reality coexisting with theirs. In my opinion this book strikes a welcome blow to that monolithic way of looking at India's present and future destiny, shaking the reader awake to the sordid reality of inequality that hasn't disappeared with the rise of the much vaunted "shining" middle class. And yet on the other hand, in purporting to reveal the underbelly of India is this book doing anything other than supporting the traditional western stereotypes of India as a dirty, poor, chaotic place?

Here is a link to a review written by Amitava Kumar, a diasporic writer of Indian origin, which corroborates this sentiment that the book plays to western stereotypes of India. In fact, in a recent conversation, another English professor friend of mine stated that even though the book intends to be controversial, it may actually be simply dovetailing with what folks already believe about India. And, perhaps, with what they feel comfortable believing in. I'd be interested in hearing from readers of this blog. What is your take on this perspective?