A nasty review that considers a book nasty because it seems only to say look at my breasts begins with 2 sentences that say look at my breasts.
Showing posts with label narcissism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label narcissism. Show all posts
"'I couldn’t be a woman,' Steve Martin once joked, 'because I’d play with my breasts all day.'"
"Now he has written a novel about a young woman, but nearly the only thing he can imagine about her is wanting to play with her breasts. The Object of Beauty is a nasty exercise in narcissism, particularly in the narcissism of the famous."
A nasty review that considers a book nasty because it seems only to say look at my breasts begins with 2 sentences that say look at my breasts.
A nasty review that considers a book nasty because it seems only to say look at my breasts begins with 2 sentences that say look at my breasts.
"In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks: ... And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy."
A book title... on the list of things readers have bought via my Amazon portal...
... which I encourage you to use, of course, in case you're looking for a way to show your love for Althouse, the blog... and Althouse, the chick.
Now, I'm doing a search inside that book — it's by Adam Corolla — and — what can I look for? — shorts! What does Corolla have to say about men in shorts?
Anyway, cargo shorts... wear them, guys, to walk toward the future in which you will all be chicks.
... which I encourage you to use, of course, in case you're looking for a way to show your love for Althouse, the blog... and Althouse, the chick.
Now, I'm doing a search inside that book — it's by Adam Corolla — and — what can I look for? — shorts! What does Corolla have to say about men in shorts?
When the Patriot Act cam back in the news in 2005, every single one of my faggoty, lefty Hollywood friends squealed like a stuck pig. "I don't want the government eavesdropping on my e-mail exchanges or listening in on my cell-phone conversations." Everyone had their cargo shorts in a bunch over it. I was the only one I knew who was like, "Hey, Agent Double-O Douchebag, if the government intercepts any of your e-mails all they're going to find out is that you're not funny. And how about spending a little less time worrying about the government and a little more time focusing on your narcissistic disorder, the one that leads you to believe the government actually gives a shit about you."It's dangerous for a comedian to do a riff about how other people are not funny. He'd better be seriously funny at that point or he's asking for it.
Anyway, cargo shorts... wear them, guys, to walk toward the future in which you will all be chicks.
Depriving people who crave attention from getting attention?
DSM-5 eliminates narcissism as an official personality disorder.
The conflict is nowhere near as amusingly ironic as my post title or the headline at the link suggests.
The conflict is nowhere near as amusingly ironic as my post title or the headline at the link suggests.
The unnatural complexities of marriage and motherhood.
A new translation of Simone de Beauvoir's "Second Sex" is reviewed by Francine du Plessix Gray. Here's a paragraph about marriage and motherhood:
Wedding nights “transform the erotic experience into an ordeal” that “often dooms the woman to frigidity forever.” It isn’t surprising, she adds, “that ‘conjugal duties’ are often only a repugnant chore for the wife.” “No one,” she argues, “dreams of denying the tragedies and nastiness of married life.” Conjugal love, in Beauvoir’s view, is “a complex mixture of attachment, resentment, hatred, rules, resignation, laziness and hypocrisy.” Even marriages that “work well” suffer “a curse they rarely escape: boredom.” Already alarmed? Wait until you come to the discussion of motherhood. A woman experiences the fetus as “a parasite.” “Maternity is a strange compromise of narcissism, altruism, dream, sincerity, bad faith, devotion and cynicism.” “There is nothing like an ‘unnatural mother,’ since maternal love has nothing natural about it.” It is significant that the only stage of a woman’s life Beauvoir has good things to say about is widowhood, which, in her view, most bear quite cheerfully. Upon losing their spouses, she tells us, women, “now lucid and wary, . . . often attain a delicious cynicism.” In old age, they maintain “a stoic defiance or skeptical irony.”...
[A] pivotal notion at the heart of “The Second Sex” ... is her belief that... “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” This preposterous assertion [is] intended to bolster her argument that marriage and motherhood are institutions imposed by men to curb women’s freedom....De Beauvoir herself, did not marry. But her longtime companion Jean-Paul Sartre did propose to her. She told him he was being "silly."
The bookishness of Presidents.
Apparently, our Presidents tend to read a lot, but not necessarily to good effect. Like, for example, Jimmy Carter:
Anyway, did you read Christopher Lasch's "Culture of Narcissism" back in the 1970s when it was a best seller? If it was such a best seller, why didn't America appreciate Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech? I just watched that speech again at the link. I heard it in real time back in 1979. I must confess that it appealed to me at the time, but it's scarily bizarre by present-day standards.
Here's the spiffy, non-lugubrious way we talk about narcissism today — a fun-loving article, not a scolding, depressing book.
Presidential reading backfired on Jimmy Carter.... In the summer of 1979, with the economy struggling and the presidency shaken by the Iran hostage crisis, Carter delivered his infamous speech proclaiming a "crisis of confidence" in America. It became known as the "malaise" speech and is widely regarded as a major political mistake. The address, written mainly by adviser Pat Caddell, was inspired by Christopher Lasch's best-selling book "The Culture of Narcissism." Lasch had come to the White House for a dinner about six weeks before the address, and his ideas apparently stayed behind. Two days after the July 15 speech, Carter fired several Cabinet members, adding to the sense of drift that seemed to define the era. (In 1993, during the fourth season of "The Simpsons," Springfield unveiled a Carter statue; the inscription at the base read "Malaise Forever.")First, the obligatory foray into YouTube:
Anyway, did you read Christopher Lasch's "Culture of Narcissism" back in the 1970s when it was a best seller? If it was such a best seller, why didn't America appreciate Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech? I just watched that speech again at the link. I heard it in real time back in 1979. I must confess that it appealed to me at the time, but it's scarily bizarre by present-day standards.
Here's the spiffy, non-lugubrious way we talk about narcissism today — a fun-loving article, not a scolding, depressing book.
Marty Peretz on the President's narcissism.
"What I suspect is that the president is probably a clinical narcissist. This is not necessarily a bad condition if one maintains for oneself what the psychiatrists call an 'optimal margin of illusion,' that is, the margin of hope that allows you to work. But what if his narcissism blinds him to the issues and problems in the world and the inveterate foes of the nation that are not susceptible to his charms?"
Poor Obama! All his life people projected their hopes onto him and he learned how to step up and be a bright clear screen for these projections. What looks like narcissism is, perhaps, the realism that develops when you are immersed in an environment that is so persistently and consistently distorted to give you the feedback that you are magnificently and magically effective through your sheer presence.
The man who voted present and became President is tragically — touchingly — flawed.
ADDED (after an emailed suggestion): We're Always Touched by Your Presence, Dear President.
Poor Obama! All his life people projected their hopes onto him and he learned how to step up and be a bright clear screen for these projections. What looks like narcissism is, perhaps, the realism that develops when you are immersed in an environment that is so persistently and consistently distorted to give you the feedback that you are magnificently and magically effective through your sheer presence.
The man who voted present and became President is tragically — touchingly — flawed.
ADDED (after an emailed suggestion): We're Always Touched by Your Presence, Dear President.
"Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy," says Maureen Dowd, who wants to be sure you know that Sarah Palin is crazy.
Yes, yes, Palin is crazy. I'm hearing it and hearing it, and naturally, my working theory is that Palin's opponents are taking advantage of the opportunity to paint a vivid picture in the public mind. Crazy, crazy, cah-ray-zeeeee.
Dowd does the diagnosis, plucking a term out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or rather plucking a term out of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair hit-piece:
Memo to Purdum, Dowd, and the several people there in Alaska: Everybody who runs for high office will have a lot of check marks on the DSM list of symptoms of "narcissistic personality disorder."
I mean, maybe Fred Thompson didn't, but you see, it's a problem if you don't have these things. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, etc. etc. — who among them lacks a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, blah blah blah? Oh, but they have empathy, you burble. Bullshit! Watch all the Democrats try to claim the empathy loophole to the narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis. Ha! Bullshit! They all have it. And don't throw your money at a prospective candidate who doesn't. He'll poop out, like Fred.
Memo to the good folks who construct the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Consider constructing an official disorder definition that will perfectly fit the kind of people who try to understand human individuals in their vicinity by consulting DSM checklists.
The link goes, of course, to the NYT, so there's no link to the Vanity Fair article upon which Dowd relies so heavily. Link withholding — a symptom on what DSM disorder checklist?
Dowd does the diagnosis, plucking a term out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or rather plucking a term out of Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair hit-piece:
And so it was, Todd Purdum learned, as he traveled Alaska reporting on Palin for Vanity Fair, that the governor’s erratic and egoistic behavior has been a source of concern for people there.Oh! Lord help us! There were people there! There were several. Oh, my lord. Several! Several told Purdum that they were the sort of jackasses that go flipping through the DSM to leverage their displeasure with a powerful person in their vicinity.
“Several told me, independently of one another,” Purdum writes, “that they had consulted the definition of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy’ — and thought it fit her perfectly.”
Memo to Purdum, Dowd, and the several people there in Alaska: Everybody who runs for high office will have a lot of check marks on the DSM list of symptoms of "narcissistic personality disorder."
I mean, maybe Fred Thompson didn't, but you see, it's a problem if you don't have these things. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, etc. etc. — who among them lacks a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, blah blah blah? Oh, but they have empathy, you burble. Bullshit! Watch all the Democrats try to claim the empathy loophole to the narcissistic personality disorder diagnosis. Ha! Bullshit! They all have it. And don't throw your money at a prospective candidate who doesn't. He'll poop out, like Fred.
Memo to the good folks who construct the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Consider constructing an official disorder definition that will perfectly fit the kind of people who try to understand human individuals in their vicinity by consulting DSM checklists.
***
The link goes, of course, to the NYT, so there's no link to the Vanity Fair article upon which Dowd relies so heavily. Link withholding — a symptom on what DSM disorder checklist?
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