"Since intellectualization is one of my favorite coping mechanisms!" Same. My therapist is always saying, "Before you intellectualize this, how are you feeling? What do you feel in your body?" All that said, this was a great piece and very necessary. Thank you!
Jul 30, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023Liked by Christine Greenwald
Love this analysis, Christine. Isn’t America a narcissistic nation because of our entanglement with narcissistic religion from our colonial foundation forward? Our Puritan history positively drips with narcissism--an intractable belief they had to leave Europe and settle in lands that weren’t theirs because they had the only true religion and were led by god to create their own Christian utopia. Isn’t this the root of “American Exceptionalism,” our repugnant belief that we are the best in the world at everything--despite plenty of evidence to the contrary in most areas except commerce, where we have been exceptionally adept at narcissistic self-enrichment at the expense of anybody we could exploit. As a nation our emotional maturity will never rise to an adult level until white religion and white folks generally grow up and face our 400 years of abuse. Getting down to specifics, does the patriarchal narcissistic nature of our culture lead to a form of self-justification behind some men’s belief that they can do whatever they want to women? Is it behind deranged men’s raging gun violence? No other culture in the world does these things to the extent we do, and I wonder if it’s our narcissistic cultural history that underlies all of it. Sorry for that dark picture, but it was so perfectly clear to me as I extrapolated your ideas to our culture as a whole. Thanks for the intellectualization; you are leading us to do some important thinking.
(I think I’m seeing a book idea forming: How American Religion Created a Culture of Narcissism. When do we start our book collaboration? LOL 😂)
So interesting Christine! Thanks for this. I get really foggy on what a narcissist truly is - because a lot of times it just sounds like “ass hole” ...and wow, the idea that evangelicalism as a whole is narcissistic!! 😬 checks out.
Very glad you are writing about this! Your paragraphs on the "Dobson generation" hit very close to home for me. And I think maybe it unfortunately spans more than one generation of parents. I have cousins not too much older than me who raised their kids as taught by Dobson.
Also, when I had questions as a kid about the evangelical faith I was being raised in, parents and other adults in our church really could not meet me where I was. They just told me that ours was the best way and that they were sure of it.
I am soooooooo glad you are writing about this! The parents believing you are an extension of themselves is so real.
"Since intellectualization is one of my favorite coping mechanisms!" Same. My therapist is always saying, "Before you intellectualize this, how are you feeling? What do you feel in your body?" All that said, this was a great piece and very necessary. Thank you!
Love this analysis, Christine. Isn’t America a narcissistic nation because of our entanglement with narcissistic religion from our colonial foundation forward? Our Puritan history positively drips with narcissism--an intractable belief they had to leave Europe and settle in lands that weren’t theirs because they had the only true religion and were led by god to create their own Christian utopia. Isn’t this the root of “American Exceptionalism,” our repugnant belief that we are the best in the world at everything--despite plenty of evidence to the contrary in most areas except commerce, where we have been exceptionally adept at narcissistic self-enrichment at the expense of anybody we could exploit. As a nation our emotional maturity will never rise to an adult level until white religion and white folks generally grow up and face our 400 years of abuse. Getting down to specifics, does the patriarchal narcissistic nature of our culture lead to a form of self-justification behind some men’s belief that they can do whatever they want to women? Is it behind deranged men’s raging gun violence? No other culture in the world does these things to the extent we do, and I wonder if it’s our narcissistic cultural history that underlies all of it. Sorry for that dark picture, but it was so perfectly clear to me as I extrapolated your ideas to our culture as a whole. Thanks for the intellectualization; you are leading us to do some important thinking.
(I think I’m seeing a book idea forming: How American Religion Created a Culture of Narcissism. When do we start our book collaboration? LOL 😂)
So interesting Christine! Thanks for this. I get really foggy on what a narcissist truly is - because a lot of times it just sounds like “ass hole” ...and wow, the idea that evangelicalism as a whole is narcissistic!! 😬 checks out.
Wow. I'm super excited to see more of this!
Very glad you are writing about this! Your paragraphs on the "Dobson generation" hit very close to home for me. And I think maybe it unfortunately spans more than one generation of parents. I have cousins not too much older than me who raised their kids as taught by Dobson.
Also, when I had questions as a kid about the evangelical faith I was being raised in, parents and other adults in our church really could not meet me where I was. They just told me that ours was the best way and that they were sure of it.