Political Narcissism
Ilo Trajkovski
Spring is around the corner. So, it’s time for the Narcissus flowers. And presidential elections are scheduled. So, it’s also time for narcissism. And this time as in any other previous seasons of spring there is an overlap between the rhythm of nature and the rhythm of society. From this perspective, the ambiguity of the word “narcissus” opens an interesting perspective on our current political developments. Narcissus in the natural science dictionary indicates the name of the flower. It is one of the earliest flowers that announce spring. The yellow color of the flower petals and the green of the stem seem elegantly and cunning in the period of the last winter days and first spring days. But its appearance and time of emerging are one thing, and the cultural symbolism associated with its name is something else. It does not arise simply from its appearance, but from the mythology of it.
The word “narcissus” binds the myth of an admirable handsome young man who has risen so heavily from his own beauty that he became incapable of falling in love with anyone else but himself! The legendary Narcissus loved himself so much that he walked to a shore of a lake every day to admire his own reflection in the waters of the lake. Until one day, blinded by the reflection of his own beauty, he fell and drowned in the lake. This is the classic legend of the egotistic Narcissus. But it has an even more narcissistic continuation. And this one’s more important for understanding our current political spring.
We owe the expanded notion of narcissism to the poet Oscar Wilde. He complemented this old Hellenic legend with the narrative of the individual, or let’s call it collective narcissism. According to Wilde’s story, after Narcissus drowned, the lake began to cry. And when the fairies, while comforting him told him that they understand why the lake cried for Narcissus’s beauty, the lake confusedly asked: was Narcissus really that beautiful?! To this the fairies confusedly replied that there was no one else who would know Narcissus’s beauty better than the lake itself. To this, the lake in the most narcissistic spirit replied: Yes, Narcissus came to my shores every day to look at me. But I do not cry for his beauty! I cry over Narcissus because whenever he came to my shore I could see my beauty in the depths of his eyes! The lake turned out to be a bigger narcissist than the mythological Narcissus himself. Political parties are more narcissistic than their presidential candidates!
This dilemma is being imposed on them during these early spring days. Encouraged by the benefits of warmth that radiate presidential elections on the surface of public life, more political narcissuses appeared – individual and collective. Understanding political narcissism and its impact on the course of the election campaign is an important assumption of the decision whether we will “fall in love” with any of the presidential candidates, that is, in some of the political lakes that are staring at the beauty of their candidates and vice versa!
The study of narcissism, especially its individual manifestations, is an old topic of psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy. Sociology and political science took up this phenomenon much later. During the 1960s, Christopher Lasch, for instance, detected the expanding of the so-called narcissistic personality structure in Western countries, especially in the United States. Today, many analysts find the supremacy of the exponents of such a culture in politics in many countries. In the US, for example, this is Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. In France, according to Michel Schneider’s analyzes, political narcissism bloomed with the election victories of Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande. As for Macron, the experts say he is a positive narcissus.
Sociological explanations link the expansion of narcissism to the politics of contemporary democracies with two other phenomena: the strengthening of the role of masses in social life in general and, especially in politics and the election campaign, on one hand, and with the rise of populism on the other. This is the real Bermuda triangle of democracy today in the world, as well as in our country. Mass media and social networks have become an omnipresent mirror. Through them, politicians appear on glittering screens – screens of smartphones, computers, TVs, and in the eyes of the masses of “likers”. Therefore, Michel Schneider cautionary named his analysis of political narcissism as “Policies in the claws of Narcissism”.
The problem with narcissism today is that the mass media and social networks, because of their role as omnipresent mirrors in politics, attract more narcissistic types of individuals than ever before. Politicians do not become narcissistic because of their political activity. It’s not bad politics that spoils good characters, but it is the bad characters that spoil politics. Politicians carry strong narcissistic personality traits even before they become politicians. If the motto of old politics was ruling in order to change something, today’s politics is guided by the motto of ruling to be seen.
In science, numerous narcissistic traits of the personality are recognized. From the point of view of our current election campaign, there are three presented to us as particularly vulnerable to democratic politics: the feeling of their own political size, the predisposition to be president, and the shortage of empathy towards others. This, in my opinion, are the key criteria by which the leadership of the two main political parties have been guided in the election of their presidential candidates.
The question is whether the list of nominated narcissuses selects those in which these traits are the most or the least prominent. Were the most narcissistic or least narcissistic candidates selected? We could not know it with certainty without proper analysis. But, basically, we can assume that by choosing one of the most candidates, the parties, that is, their leadership, were guided by their own collective narcissism. They chose those candidates whose faces see themselves as “the most beautiful”, hoping that such voters will see them as well. Analogously to the lake from the Oscar Wilde’s story, the parties here celebrate their presidential candidates not because of their exceptional qualities as such, but because they see themselves as the most beautiful through them. The expectation is that the citizens will alos see themselves as and will choose their mirror – just so they could see themselves as such.
The only thing that does not fit into this narcissistic model of explanation of the choice made is the so-called non-party profile of the two selected candidates – Professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova and Stevo Pendarovski. Both party leaderships, as the most important political mark of their candidate, highlight their profile of non-partisan public figures. Without going into the truthfulness of this show, we wonder how this should be taken? Could it be that the parties want to show that despite all, they are not so narcissistic, that they are not so convinced of their own grandness and predestination to lead the state and, nevertheless, show empathy to others? The analysis of the promotional speeches of the two party leaderships excludes this possibility. They are dominated by praise for their own past achievements and demonizations not only of the opposing party, but also of those who do not publicly declare themselves as supporters of their presidential candidate. Not long ago, the threat to the independent ones was very loud, that there was no such thing as independent, no such thing as undecided. Accordingly, the only reasonable explanation for the glorification of the non-party profile of the two selected candidates by both parties is the assumption that their independence has gone through the narcissistic drainage.