One of the better demonstrations of narcissism American style is through our popular culture. From Frank Sinatra to Rick Ross, Mae West to Nicki Minaj, we have a century's worth of pop culture divas as examples of narcissism at the level of prominent American individuals. The narcissism is so normal that we have benign terms for it, like "self-promotion" or "self-love." People, especially in the pop culture world, should promote and love themselves, of course. But at what point is narcissism a self-defeating process of "me as triumphant," "me as the center of the universe," "me for everyone to like/love more and more?"
A clear-cut example of art imitating life imitating art for me around narcissism would be a Star Trek: TOS (The Original Series) episode. Season 1, Episode 2, September 15, 1966, was the airing of the "Charlie X" episode on NBC. It was the one in which a seventeen-year-old who had been stranded on an alien planet since the age of three was taken up to the Enterprise by a transport ship. Once on the Enterprise, the teenager displayed both petulance and his toolbox of god-like powers, hurting crew members or making them disappear at a whim. All because they either unknowingly insulted him or made him jealous in some way. As one story line summary for the episode reads, "Captain Kirk must learn the limits to the power of a 17-year-old boy with the psychic ability to create anything and destroy anyone."
The Charlie Evans character became fixated on a female crew member — consistently called "a girl" in 1966 (that wasn't acceptable even back then) — in one Yeoman Janice Rand. Charlie's obsession with having her, his dislike for criticism and being told what to do, his inability to check his emotions, his destructive responses, were all based on his needs from moment to moment. Every potential slight, every action that he couldn't control led Charlie to do some damning things. With his thoughts, Charlie took away Lt. Uhura's voice, broke Spock's legs, blinded another crew member, took away one woman's face, aged another woman, and made one other woman disappear. When Charlie couldn't win at chess, he melted the chess pieces. "I can make you all go away! Any time I want to!," Charlie exclaimed at one point in the episode.
Within a scene or two, just before the episode's climax, Kirk finally said, "Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are." This was when Charlie was on the verge of taking over the ship and possibly wiping out the Enterprise's crew. But then, the Thasians came (the aliens who'd given Charlie his powers in the first place) with their own starship to take Charlie in as one of their own. "We gave him [Charlie] the power so he could live. He will use it - always. And he will destroy you, or, you will be forced to destroy him," the face of the Thasians said. Then, the Thasians disappeared Charlie to their starship, with Charlie's final words, "I wanna stay... stay... stay... stay... sta..." lingering on the Enterprise's bridge.
If this episode doesn't serve as a metaphor for America as a nation and Americans as 320 million individuals with varying levels of narcissism, I don't know what does. America has always declared itself at the center of the world, centuries before it became a world superpower. Any affront — real or perceived — has often led to skirmishes and wars, embargoes and removals. America's relatively short history includes Indian wars, Barbary pirates, the War of 1812, the American Revolution, Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War, the Monroe Doctrine, Banana Republics and Cuba, Manuel Noriega and Panama, Beirut and Grenada. The central theme of American history and foreign policy has been to self-aggrandize, to settle scores, to challenge other countries to duels, to take advantage of those in the most vulnerable places in the US and around the globe.
So too has narcissism been a part of ordinary Americans' lives. Just watch a rerun of Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America or on FOX. Any criticism delivered by soccer coach-chef Gordon Ramsey is received about the same way as a toddler reacted when their favorite toy goes missing. Taunts, tantrums, threats, gnashing of teeth, juvenile guilt and despair.
And, for a moment, there may even be a haunting realization that your intellect and experiences aren't at the center of the universe. But just for a moment. After all, there aren't any Thasians to check and balance America's narcissism. Still, narcissism has a way of using up people and nations. Maybe in a hundred years, maybe in 500, but some time in the future, historians will write about American narcissism the same way many historians write about the gross inequalities of an over-glorified ancient Rome.
First, one should separate the 'people' or the 'masses' from the oligarchs and their puppets, as well as all those in the media field, be it propaganda, religion or entertainment, as getting 'up on stage' to perform is the main part of their role, one that takes a certain degree of confidence to do well.... and this can most easily be done by those that haven't taken any pain in life to heart... the shallow types find the media circus an easier task than those that have been 'touched' by that pain... the latter become sober and less 'entertaining' to the general masses, thus they don't receive the same acclaim or asset valuation for their performances.
Second, with the first point made, using an example of excess from that media field just proves the point of its less useful nature for discussing this issue of narcissism in America or anywhere, as the same principal and personalities are found wherever 'power' is found, usually represented in recent eons through money, property and control of the seats of power. Citizens of every empire are conditioned to be this way, narcissistic, self-centered and non-observant of the world around them, they do their masters bidding much easier and without dissent, like a well trained child. The problem is that such societies are always found at the top of the curve and not leading up to it... think of the media during the Depression... and how to handle the malcontents but through the same propaganda channels... again, condition the masses to blame all their problems on 'outsiders', noncomformists etc. This policy is found everywhere when a society is at this point of the civilization curve as many have pointed out over the decades.
You simply cannot blame 'the people' for what they are fed...... 'they know not what they do', and that is why they are so easily led astray into war, death and destruction of all... everything and everyone... isn't this what surprised the native people here in America when the Europeans conquistadors came to conquer the country? The native people just couldn't fathom humans raping and pillaging and killing everyone and everything like they did.... it was simply unfathomable, leaving them bewildered and easy prey for these predators... which again, as this site often does, brings up the basic elements of destruction found in every society that rises to power, that being psychopaths that move in, set up shop and take over everything and destroy it all without realizing what they are doing, same as their later victims, us, conditioned since birth to all the propaganda that tells us we are blessed, special and exceptional, when in fact we simply are not, we are just fools that have forgotten the lessons of our past, and so have our parents and grandparents.... it takes more than a village to raise an empire, narcissists are just their later children, who 'know not what they do'.