Sunday, December 15, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Help fight the undemocratic DCCC blacklist
Just months ago, the official campaign arm of House Democrats (the DCCC) announced that they would blacklist anyone who worked on a primary challenger’s campaign. That’s made it much harder for progressive challengers to get the resources, staff, and tools they need to win.
It’s clear that we need our own support system on the progressive side of the party. That’s why we’ve worked so hard to raise nearly $300,000 for progressive candidates and causes this cycle. But we need to do a lot more, and in order to do so we need to grow this movement.
Can you chip in $3 now to help our campaign invest in growth? More resources means we can support more progressive candidates in 2020.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aoc-blacklist
The DCCC is enforcing their anti-incumbent rules by requiring a “loyalty” pledge from the partners they work with. But what is that loyalty to? The values of the Democratic Party? Absolutely not.
It is only loyalty to incumbents — full stop. The DCCC has stamped down on progressive challengers while embracing partners and candidates that openly work with pro-gun, anti-choice, or corporate-friendly groups.
We cannot allow the DCCC to slam the door on candidates who challenge the status quo. That’s why we’re building the biggest possible support system for progressive candidates in 2020.
Our movement has helped challengers break through the establishment sabotage — can you chip in $3 now to help us do even more?
In solidarity,
Team AOC
The Epistemology of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Elliot D. Cohen Ph.D.
NPD involves a breach in norms
for processing and assessing truth and falsity
Posted Sep 19, 2017
People in relationships with
others who suffer from Narcissistic
Personality Disorder typically find it difficult to get along with
them; but the reasons for such difficulty are not abundantly clear from
psychological diagnosis alone, which is based on a cluster of symptoms that
define the disorder. As such, this blog attempts to provide a deeper,
philosophical understanding of the disorder, which can help to explain
precisely why such individuals think exactly as they do. I maintain that
NPD can usefully be understood as a breach in the ordinary manner in which
human beings process and assess truth and falsity; and that it involves a
deviation from basic epistemological norms that ground successful human
interaction. By “epistemological” I mean the area of philosophy that studies
theories of knowledge and truth.
The American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual (DSM 5) defines NPD as “a pervasive pattern of
grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy". The patient with
NPD has a grandiose sense of self-importance manifested in terms of
unreasonable expectations such as being recognized as superior or special;
receiving favorable treatment, and automatic compliance. Fantasies, in turn, revolve
around “unlimited success, power brilliance, beauty or ideal love” (pp.
669-670).
I submit that this cluster of
symptoms for diagnosis of NPD is rooted in an epistemology that turns the
ordinary conception of truth and falsity on its head. For the majority of
human beings, beliefs are true when they correspond to the facts; and false
when they fail to correspond to the facts. According to this conception, facts
are understood as having a status that can be verified by an average observer,
and are therefore independent of any single human being’s subjectivity. Beliefs
are conscious states that refer to objects outside themselves. For
example, in believing that there are dogs barking, you are referring to the
external state of affairs consisting of dogs barking. If there are dogs
barking, then your belief is true; if not, then
it is false. Aristotle long ago defined truth, and falsity, in this common
sense manner when he stated, “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is
not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is
not that it is not, is true.”
In contrast, for the person
with NPD, something is a fact when it corresponds to his or her belief and
false when it fails to correspond to it. As such, the person with NPD emerges
as the arbiter of what is true or false. “If I believe that p, then p must
be true; and if I believe that p is false, then p must be false.” Herein
lies the NPD philosophy of truth. Facts are verified by whether or not
they correspond to the beliefs of the person with NPD, not
conversely. Assumed here is privileged access to reality enjoyed uniquely
by the person with NPD; and all others are expected to build their worlds
around the expectations and demands of this individual. “If I believe that
I am gifted or special, then I am,
and you must also believe the same.”
Persons with NPD
also process other referential states of consciousness in the same way.
For example, some conscious states such as preferences refer to objects outside
themselves that are not ordinarily considered verifiable (validated as true or
false). Thus your preference for chocolate ice cream instead of strawberry
cannot itself be shown to be true or false. This applies to other referential
states such as desires, wants, hopes, and wishes. Your desire is neither true
nor false; nor are your wants, hopes, or wishes. However, the epistemology
of NPD breaches this ordinarily accepted epistemic rule. Thus, if the
person with NPD desires chocolate ice cream instead of strawberry, then
chocolate ice cream is, in fact, better than strawberry; and everyone else
should confirm this fact. The tastes, values, and other preferences of the
person with NPD are catapulted into veritable standards of reality to which others
are expected to “automatically comply.” Here, there is no room for
dissent, which is viewed with contempt by the person with NPD.
As such, there is no place for
empathetic regard for others. This is because the person with NPD does not
perceive any other perspective but his own as veridical. Those who
disagree with his perspective are “stupid” or otherwise misguided; whereas
those who agree are praiseworthy—at least so long as they continue to agree.
In this topsy-turvy
epistemological climate, it is not quite accurate to say that the person with
NPD tells lies or is a liar; for the liar intentionally tries to deceive others by saying
things he believes to be false. In contrast, a person with
NPD has the grandiose idea that he is judge and jury of
reality and that therefore, if he says something, then it must be
true. The disorder, therefore, lies in an epistemological deformity—a
breakdown of the ordinary constructs of truth and falsity that make
satisfactory interpersonal relationships possible.
Nor is it quite accurate to
say that the person with NPD is delusional; for the latter
implies that she does not recognize what others would consider to be
real. Instead, what others consider to be real is perceived to be based on
an inappropriate standard of reality, namely one that does not defer to his
perspective. If there is “delusion” here, it is in adopting such an
aberrant philosophy of truth; but this only gets us deeper into the muddy
waters of epistemological theory, and may even dignify the NPD’s position as a
source of “alternative facts.”
Indeed, there is a tendency
among us all to perceive reality through our own belief systems. After
all, we cannot escape our own subjectivity. Thus, you may think that a
certain sort of food is good and find it difficult to understand how others may
not also like it. The problem may therefore be one of degree where NPD
lies at the extreme end of a continuum of subjective assessment of
reality. At some point, most of us learn that the world does not
necessarily conform to our demands and
expectations, and we are prepared to draw a practicable line. In contrast,
the person with NPD does not draw such a line, or draws it in a manner that
leaves little room for the subjectivity of others.
Given that recognition of
objective truth and falsity independent of our own subjective beliefs and
outlooks makes possible inter-subjective agreement and cooperation, it is difficult
for persons with NPD to successfully relate to others in the workplace or in
other social and familial contexts. As with all personality disorders,
such a disorder is resistant to change. This is not to discount the possibility
of constructive change through therapeutic interventions, at least in some
cases. This blog suggests the possibility that such therapeutic interventions
may best take the form of philosophical counseling in which the
person with NPD works cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally to sideline
his radically ego-centric epistemology, and recognize, instead, that the world
does not, nor must it, conform to his subjectivity.
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