How Fox News created a new culture of idiots - Salon.com
The asshole behavior is culturally learned.
I should add, though, that even this USA-originating criticism of the culture of narcissism makes me feel on edge, because it accepts a paradigm that some people are deserving, some not, and that everybody has to be morally judged in relation to their talents and whether they are blowing these out of proportion or serving the community with them.
Whilst criticizing assholes, the author tacitly employs a dichotomous set of values, where you are either one thing or another, and perhaps not deserving of recognition unless the community applauds you as being of service, rather than as having "failed".
Isn't this the very sort of bifurcation of thought that leads to the development of assholes in the first place? They are set up to feel insecure because their status and abilities depend on whether the community feels that the artist benefits them. But, logically, how does one get people to feel that you are benefiting them without flattering them? The narcissist flatters others in order to reassure himself that his position is secure. He thereby coaxes morality to his side.
Morality and narcissism are two sides of the same coin -- not worlds apart.
Quote: It is not just Fox News commentators but Fox News itself that has the appropriate, in-your-face, I’m-entitled-to-do-this, especially-because-you-dislike-it vibe.
Quote 2: Cable news assholes are distinctive for their knowing awareness but willful disregard of how they are perceived by others. They are flush with Frankfurtian “bullshit,” where bullshitting (speaking without regard for the truth) is something that can be done with a tacit understanding among speaker and audience that truth is not being told. A quite different class of asshole, by contrast, is marked by his utter failure to appreciate how he is seen.This article outlines what has occurred when I have encountered many Americans online.
The asshole behavior is culturally learned.
I should add, though, that even this USA-originating criticism of the culture of narcissism makes me feel on edge, because it accepts a paradigm that some people are deserving, some not, and that everybody has to be morally judged in relation to their talents and whether they are blowing these out of proportion or serving the community with them.
Whilst criticizing assholes, the author tacitly employs a dichotomous set of values, where you are either one thing or another, and perhaps not deserving of recognition unless the community applauds you as being of service, rather than as having "failed".
Isn't this the very sort of bifurcation of thought that leads to the development of assholes in the first place? They are set up to feel insecure because their status and abilities depend on whether the community feels that the artist benefits them. But, logically, how does one get people to feel that you are benefiting them without flattering them? The narcissist flatters others in order to reassure himself that his position is secure. He thereby coaxes morality to his side.
Morality and narcissism are two sides of the same coin -- not worlds apart.
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