The Curse of Narcissism, Part VI | Clarissa's Blog

The Curse of Narcissism, Part VI | Clarissa's Blog

I wonder if this is why Nietzsche was so caustic about those who have (something to the effect of) a causal drive, or drive to look for causes. I was always confused about that passage, as I thought he was suggesting we should just live in the present and a-scientifically. But then one has to at last notice that Nietzsche’s area of speciality was almost exclusively the subterranean levels relating to psychology. Which is also why he counsels against “pity” — not to be a monster, but because the narcissists tend to appeal to pity. Also when he speaks about the danger of taking the hump away from the hump-back lest one deprive him of his solitary meaning and pleasure, he is not going all Ayn Rand and demanding that the poor remain poor, but referring to the fact that many people cannot make themselves fully whole, and due to this incapacity they need their injury to divert their attention away from other areas of paucity in their lives and thus give life meaning for them.

Anyway, that is a weird thing, that idea of a causal drive or instinct to find a cause, that somehow is supposed to alleviate the pain.

I actually do maintain that it is critically important to find the causes of one’s suffering, if at all possible, but it seems that many people are more likely to create a cause in their minds, rather than to actually determine what the real cause is for anything.

I think if one understood real causes, one would see oneself like an atom or a small stick going down a river, bumping into things and being deviated from one’s course, but all in all participating in life and having pleasure. Maybe, by contrast, the search for a moral cause is much more problematic, because you introduce false causes into the explanation when you look around for those who may be particularly “sinful” to blame for how you are feeling. Then we have a whole paradigm relating to false causes, and the idea that some people harbor evil, which makes other people justifiably angry at them.

This moral paradigm might therefore create and protect narcissistic behavior, for all I know, whereas the shamanic paradigm is impersonal and yet also pleasureful.

In the end blaming people is not good because it emotionally energizes or juices up the false paradigm. You have to have the shamanic coldness that doesn’t react except impersonally. That way those seeking to power themself up on other’s reactions get nothing at all and the better, more scientific paradigm begins to dominate.