A Clear Example of Narcissistic Rage | Clarissa's Blog
You know, in the past I would not have had the capacity to analyse character through a text in that way, but I am starting to see how it makes sense to do so. I would have analysed it purely formally, in the sense of assuming the writer had a lot of things on her mind that she wanted to draw together, and that she was starting with a big picture, drawing it in to make a very small picture (herself) and then drawing away again from the small picture and back to the big picture focus. It might seem a rather strained piece of writing, in the formalistic sense, but it was written for a vaguely feminist outlet, Jezebel. So maybe she wanted to talk about women and child-bearing within a context of acknowledging the reality of global violence.
I am sure the writing can be viewed that way, and that appraising its qualities in a formal, literary sense, rather than a psychological manner is often important to do.
On another level, though -- the level of cultural critique -- one could ascertain that the writing is narcissistic. That's because there is so much that comes out on the Internet that does not even attempt to take the individual outside of herself or himself and place them into the broader context they have mentioned. Instead, the world must shrink to occupy the smaller space of the self. There should at least be a two-directional pathway between the broader world and self, with information flowing in BOTH directions. If information flows only one way, that is a sign that the writer may not be a deep thinker.
Having said that, I will now talk about myself. My original position was diametrically opposite to that of the writer who channels everything into the smallness of herself. As dramatic as it sounds, I used to have almost no sense of the self at all. Everything used to be outward-looking. As a result, As a result, after migration, when the environment changed, I aggressively attacked myself at an unconscious level, in such a way that it played havoc with my immune system and left me perpetually exhausted. I don't know how this happened, but I think that having been brought up in a time of war, all our energies were directed to the next episode of attack or defence or what was on the news (who was killed, who remained alive), so there was no focus on developing and inward sense of self and no time for it.
Even now, having developed an outward-looking character structure, even the intense inward focus of the writer tends to register to me on a literary-formalistic rather than individual-as-subject level.
I am actually just learning, these days, from an individual that Clarissa wrote to on my behalf, how this individual-as-subject level of reflexive interpretation works. I've really always been blind to it. For instance, I keep saying, "shamanism is a formal structure of experience that one passes through," whereas it seems he says, "shamanism is the capacity of the individual to perform effectively." Even this difference of perspective indicates how little prepared I am to take the individual as a separate structure unto himself all that seriously. While I can do so, that is not my reflex and is really a second language I am learning.
Speaking a different language from others, by reflex, though, is not always the best for analysing the world. So I must make a shift from viewing the whole world in terms of literary formalism and start taking the individual expresssions of the self more seriously.
You know, in the past I would not have had the capacity to analyse character through a text in that way, but I am starting to see how it makes sense to do so. I would have analysed it purely formally, in the sense of assuming the writer had a lot of things on her mind that she wanted to draw together, and that she was starting with a big picture, drawing it in to make a very small picture (herself) and then drawing away again from the small picture and back to the big picture focus. It might seem a rather strained piece of writing, in the formalistic sense, but it was written for a vaguely feminist outlet, Jezebel. So maybe she wanted to talk about women and child-bearing within a context of acknowledging the reality of global violence.
I am sure the writing can be viewed that way, and that appraising its qualities in a formal, literary sense, rather than a psychological manner is often important to do.
On another level, though -- the level of cultural critique -- one could ascertain that the writing is narcissistic. That's because there is so much that comes out on the Internet that does not even attempt to take the individual outside of herself or himself and place them into the broader context they have mentioned. Instead, the world must shrink to occupy the smaller space of the self. There should at least be a two-directional pathway between the broader world and self, with information flowing in BOTH directions. If information flows only one way, that is a sign that the writer may not be a deep thinker.
Having said that, I will now talk about myself. My original position was diametrically opposite to that of the writer who channels everything into the smallness of herself. As dramatic as it sounds, I used to have almost no sense of the self at all. Everything used to be outward-looking. As a result, As a result, after migration, when the environment changed, I aggressively attacked myself at an unconscious level, in such a way that it played havoc with my immune system and left me perpetually exhausted. I don't know how this happened, but I think that having been brought up in a time of war, all our energies were directed to the next episode of attack or defence or what was on the news (who was killed, who remained alive), so there was no focus on developing and inward sense of self and no time for it.
Even now, having developed an outward-looking character structure, even the intense inward focus of the writer tends to register to me on a literary-formalistic rather than individual-as-subject level.
I am actually just learning, these days, from an individual that Clarissa wrote to on my behalf, how this individual-as-subject level of reflexive interpretation works. I've really always been blind to it. For instance, I keep saying, "shamanism is a formal structure of experience that one passes through," whereas it seems he says, "shamanism is the capacity of the individual to perform effectively." Even this difference of perspective indicates how little prepared I am to take the individual as a separate structure unto himself all that seriously. While I can do so, that is not my reflex and is really a second language I am learning.
Speaking a different language from others, by reflex, though, is not always the best for analysing the world. So I must make a shift from viewing the whole world in terms of literary formalism and start taking the individual expresssions of the self more seriously.
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