Playing God with Vices and Virtues

As long as mankind has had standards, rules or laws as it relates to behaviors and actions, we will have had people who press hard on others to follow them, while they secretly break them.  There are many ways to describe this behavior.  How we describe this behavior goes by many names (below of which are but just a few):

• Duplicity
• Hypocrisy 
• Sanctimoniousness
• Cognitive dissonance

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For the sake of discussion, let's just call out a few examples of this behavior:

• Publicly preaching tolerance (religious, racial, sexual...), while privately condemning or discriminating those whom they preach tolerance about.
• Railing about the depravity of gambling, while going in the gas station and picking up a handful of lottery tickets.
• Lifting oneself up as a champion and protector of kids, while engaging in inappropriate behavior with kids on the side.
• Calling for others to conserve energy or water while extravagantly using them.

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Most people see this behavior as hypocritical, which it is.  I believe many see this type of behavior as being contemptful towards perceived 'lessors', which it can be.  While this behavior can fit both of those perceptions, it can also be an indication of deeper psychological or spiritual problems.  I believe a person who engages in what we see as hypocritical behavior--do as I say and not do--can get to a point where they are so far passed the appreciation of their hypocrisy and consideration of contempt.  They can get to a point where what we are seeing is a spiritual or psychological battle played out before us.  From my observations, I see this play out in one of two ways:

1. Feeling like they are pushing so hard to help others or society at large that are entitled to not having to fight the struggle.  Mindset includes such thoughts as:
• My fight against the ill is so draining or taxing that I simply don't have the energy to fit the temptation in my own life.
• As someone who is heavily involved in fighting the ill or vice, I am familiar with how not to take it to an extreme, but the public or groups I'm talking to not so much.
2. Feeling guilty for having that vice or behavior rule their life that they have to 'atone' for it somehow.  Mindset includes such thoughts as:
• I know I am a bad person for engaging this vice, but if I prevent others from doing so, then on the moral/spiritual scale, I will have done more good than bad.   Therefore, will have atoned for my own behavior/failings re: this vice.
• I'm not such a bad person.  Sure I may have this problem--deviancy, for example--but when you consider what good I've done for society in helping others, why its small in comparison.
• How could I be that kind of person--bigoted or intolerant, for example--after all look at who I associate with, treat well or champion.

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In AA, such behavior is referred to as "stinking thinking".  The way I see it, in essence a person who engages in this behavior or thinking is effectively playing God with their vices and virtues, hence the title of the blog post.  Effectively, they are engaging in one or more of judgments in their own life that we normally think it is the role of one's Higher Power to determine:

• Judging their own inherent goodness and therefore what they are 'entitled' to.
• Judging, by themselves, their own strengths and weakness rather than including or being open to their HP for wisdom.
• Judging what 'sins' they need to atone for and how to do it on their own terms rather than on their Higher Power's.
• Judging or determining what is a 'real' sin and what is a big deal.

Anyway, just my thoughts for the day and what I feel I have been led to say.  While we may be right in determining a person to be a hypocrite and maybe contemptful based on their 'do as I say, not do behavior', as I spelled out above, I really do believe sometimes the psychology of 'hypocritical' behavior shows a deeper spiritual problem.  Namely, playing the role of God with virtues and vices and the associated rationalizations and thinking that goes along with that.

Whether you agree, disagree or are somewhere in between on this point, I appreciate you taking your time to read my thoughts and analysis on this subject matter.  My goal with the analysis in my posts isn't to be 'always right', bur rather to perhaps give an alternative or less considered perspective.

Thanks for reading,

Rich

Positive narcissist vs. negative narcissist vs. balanced view

A while bac, I was having a conversation with a person whose kid sees himself negatively.  While I don't necessarily think what I am writing below applies directly to the kid,  the conversation did remind me of a theory or view I had developed on narcissism.

We all have ran across someone who behaves as if their stuff doesn't stink.   Similarly, we all have run across someone who is like  Eeyore who is gloomy, negative and often rates his or herself no good.  I call the first type a 'positive narcissist' (or simply a 'narcissist') and the second type a 'negative narcissist'.  I will elaborate on why I see both types as narcissists.

I don't know when, but it occurred to me that both types actually have a lot in common:

• Each type of person is being emotionally, intellectually, mentally and/or spiritually lazy.
• It is easy to label and/or rationalize to yourself that you are either just good or bad.   If you decide that you are either 'perfect' or 'rotten' by nature then you don't have to continually evaluate yourself.
• It takes much more work to actually dig and effectively evaluate yourself.  It takes much more work to separate the flaws from the virtues. 
• Each type is disconnected from his or herself.  
• Once again, labeling yourself as just a great person or horrible one or the other frees you from having to process or evaluate yourself.
• You can easily stay at the surface level and find an example or two to support your contention.
• Each type disconnected from others.
• A narcissist by his or her very nature has hard time has accepting anything that could be seen as criticism.  By itself, this shuts down much of the conversation that is possible with others.  Furthermore, the self-focus drowns out the ability to see ability to see past oneself and really see others.
• A negative narcissist by his or her nature has a hard time accepting anything that could be seen as a compliment.  Once again, this shuts down much of the conversation that is possible.  Once again, the self-focus gets in the way of being able to really others.
• Each type has issues with humility.  
• A narcissist lacks humility.  He or she may feign humility, but it's usually pretty easy to see through the false humility.
• A negative narcissist in a way lacks true humility too.  He or she may come across as not wanting to be egotistical, but what I see it as is really a defense mechanism.  To accept praise or to self-praise requires one to step outside his or her predefined role as a 'no-good' or 'worthless' person.  In a way, in the deflecting praise is not being modest, but rather a way of avoiding the shattering the 'negative self-portrayal'.
• Each type gives a way of freeing the individual with the given personality of culpability or responsibility.
• A narcissist will tend to think of his or herself as being incapable of making a bad decision or failing.   When they actually do make a bad decision or fail, he or she will either:
• Push fault on another (scapegoat).
• Push fault on the cosmos (it was beyond me control, even if it wasn't)
• Spin the poor decision as a good decision (or intentional) and the failure as insignificant or really actually a success.
• A negative narcissist will portray themselves as fatally flawed and incapable of doing anything but making bad decisions or failing.
• In their mind and heart this frees them.  After all, if I am destined to fail, in a way what does it matter how I got there?  In other words, since I am going to fail anyway, I can choose the 'selfish' option as it will end up bad either way.
• If I blame myself for everything, then in a way I am blaming myself for nothing.  In other words, I am not really evaluating my role, but rather just sticking a label on myself and the situation.  Just like sticking a label on a batch of cookies that look good without actually sampling them to make sure it is good.
•  Each type has esteem issues.
• Narcissim is often a way overcompensating for insecurity.  A narcissist, in buying into their inflated sense of self, often is trying insulates his or herself from the effects of their insecurity.  After all, if I buy my own hype, then I can suppress and otherwise ignore my deeply buried insecurity.  Thus anyone who poses a threat to bring them down to earth, threatens their cushion against insecurity.
• A negative narcissist in a sense has bought into his or her own insecurity or low esteem.  When assessing his or herself, a negative narcissist has effectively conceeded that their insecurity or esteem problems are legitimate.  In other words, they've decided that they are implicitly bad and/or a failure and therefore will tend to focus on that which 'supports' their contention.

I think most people have an element of each--positive and negative--narcissism in them.  It is healthy to think of oneself as inherently good.  But, it is also healthy to think of oneself as having the ability to make mistakes.  It is when a person doesn't attempt to balance out the ledger--see the good and the bad--that a person is not really mentally, emotionally, or spiritually healthy.