Writings on Narcissism, Part 1

Rastinews — Today's narcissist is like a god who created himself…

A concentration camp for narcissists…

Narcissism has undergone a striking shift in meaning, especially since the 2000s. Once treated as a structural, unavoidable dimension built into the very formation of the self, it has increasingly been reduced to a moral category — even a character flaw, a "disorder label." Today narcissism is not just a defined structure but an accused position. In everyday speech and pop-psychology discourse, the "narcissist" has become something like a new scapegoat. Headlines such as "How do you spot a narcissist?", "How do you get rid of a narcissist?" and "How do you deal with a narcissist?" produce not just a clinical category but an other who must be cast out. This discourse grows steadily more normative and exclusionary: narcissism stops being a psychic structure to be understood and starts being presented as a threat to be eliminated.

What stands out here is that this harsh stance toward narcissism carries a narcissistic structure of its own. Externalizing one's own fragility, grandiose fantasies and dependencies and loading them onto the figure of "the narcissist" is a classic projection mechanism. The person thereby manages an inner conflict by locating it in a figure placed outside themselves. The discourse of fighting narcissism sometimes reproduces narcissism itself — narcissist-hunters are often people looking to hunt their own narcissism in someone else. Yet narcissism is not a pathological deviation of the human psyche but a constitutive element of it. It is understood as the structure that makes possible the continuity of the self, the preservation of self-esteem and the subject's experience of selfhood. Human beings have narcissistic needs, and these needs never fully disappear over the course of development — they only evolve into more mature, more relational and more realistic forms. The problem, then, is not the existence of narcissism but its frozen, fragile forms that have lost contact with reality. What is pathological is not narcissism itself but an organization of it that cannot flex, cannot tolerate encounters with the outside world, and has become permanently dependent on external validation.

This harsh, exclusionary language directed at narcissism today reflects, on one hand, the growing fragility of social relationships, and on the other, the subject's difficulty coping with its own feelings of inner inadequacy. The narcissist is not just a clinical category — it also mirrors the troubled relationship the contemporary subject has with itself. Perhaps, then, the real issue is not to "fight" narcissism but to accept its inevitability and understand its forms. A subject purged of narcissism is not possible. A person can exist only to the extent that they can feel themselves valuable, special and meaningful to some degree. What mental health requires is not the absence of narcissism but its transformation. This populist discourse does more than stigmatize narcissism — it turns everyone into a kind of narcissist-hunter. Narcissism stops being a clinical concept and becomes one of the most easily circulated labels in everyday judgment. Almost everyone starts speaking with an implicit claim to "expertise" on narcissism. This points to a blurring of the line between knowledge and judgment. A psychic structure that calls for careful clinical attention turns, in popular discourse, into a reduced, simplified and instrumentalized category. The point is no longer to understand but to diagnose — and more than diagnose, to brand.

This widespread posture of "expertise" also functions as a way for the subject to avoid confronting its own fragility. Labeling someone else "a narcissist" renders invisible one's own narcissistic needs, dependencies and hurts. Narcissism thus stops being a dynamic to be worked through internally and becomes an object to be hunted externally. What results, paradoxically, is a narcissistic struggle waged against narcissism: a field in which everyone positions themselves as more "healthy," more "aware," and therefore superior.

Narcissism on television… "I'm a very sensitive person"…

Certain narcissistic patterns of speech become so naturalized that no one notices they are narcissistic at all. Precisely for that reason, the least visible form becomes the most powerful one. Here narcissism is not content but a mode of speech. Phrases common in the media — "nothing like this exists anywhere in the world," "nowhere else on Earth…" — look at first like mere generalizations. In fact, such sentences place the speaker at a vantage point commanding the entire world, implicitly positioning them as someone who "knows everything." This amounts to an illusion of a god's-eye view. In reality, no subject occupies such a position. Human perceptual capacity, range of experience, memory and knowledge are necessarily limited. Every judgment formed about the world is partial, situated and incomplete. Yet the subject speaks as though this limitation did not exist, presenting their own outlook as though it held universal validity. This move toward universalization is exactly what is narcissistic here. This pattern of speech is so widespread and so invisible precisely because it has been internalized at a collective level. It isn't only people on television — in everyday life, all of us reach for similar generalizations. Narcissistic speech thereby stops being an exception and becomes an ordinary part of language. What stands out here is that narcissism now operates not merely as an inner organization of the self but as a discursive practice. The subject does not simply see itself as grand — through its manner of speech, it places itself in a position that encompasses everything. This produces a kind of illusion of superiority, wisdom and expansiveness: the limits of knowledge are erased, and the subject's view is presented as though it were universal. This false but assertive discourse also aims to foreclose criticism.

The issue, then, is not just "narcissistic people" but a narcissized language and the experience of reality that this language produces. Narcissism here is not a pathological deviation but a normalized way of taking a position that has seeped into everyday speech. Another phrase we often meet in daily language is "I'm a very sensitive person." At first this sounds like a declaration of fragility and vulnerability, but it is often the announcement of a narrow boundary the subject has drawn around themselves. Such a statement does not merely describe a trait — it also carries an implicit demand and warning: "Don't hurt me." Sensitivity thus becomes a regulator within the relational field. By centering their own vulnerability, the subject restricts the range of the other's behavior. In this sense, sensitivity is less a passive state than an active positioning. What is often at stake here is not heightened sensitivity but the thinness of narcissistic boundaries — the subject's sense of self shows low tolerance for small differences, criticism or indifference coming from the outside world. Even the slightest friction is experienced as a narcissistic injury. So the phrase "I'm very sensitive" sometimes also means: "My self has not grown thick enough to withstand the friction of the outside world." The issue, then, is not just emotional delicacy but the fragility of the self's relationship with reality. Sensitivity is, of course, a human and valuable capacity. But it becomes functional only within a structure where the subject can stretch its own boundaries and tolerate the other's difference. Otherwise, sensitivity can turn into a mechanism that narrows relationships and demands constant attention and care from the other. In the end, here too we encounter a subtle form of narcissism: the subject centers its own vulnerability and tries to organize the relational field around that center.

Here, a narrative — a politics — of hurt is built around injury and sensitivity. The subject uses their own vulnerability not merely as an experience, but as a position and a tool. Hurt stops being a passive affect. It becomes a language that regulates relationships, draws boundaries, and even produces power. Hurt, in other words, is sometimes instrumentalized, and a protected space is built around it. In modern society, the subject increasingly defines itself through its capacity to be hurt. The phrase "You hurt me" is not just an expression of feeling. It is also a claim to rights, an appeal to legitimacy, and often a way of pressuring the other person. Hurt turns into victimhood. In this sense, like victimhood, hurt produces a position of ethical superiority: the injured subject places itself in a position that is righteous and untouchable. Such cases resemble a collectivized form of narcissistic injury. Because of its sensitivity, and to protect itself, the subject codes the outside world as a constant zone of potential threat. The relational field narrows as a result. Difference, criticism, or conflict all get filed easily under "hurt." A paranoid system takes shape, without anyone noticing. The politics of hurt also displaces responsibility. Instead of understanding and processing its own affect, the subject attributes it directly to the other's action. A field that requires inner work turns into a language of external blame. This weakens a person's contact with their own psychic processes, while making their relationship with the other increasingly fragile. Here is the paradox: this language of sensitivity, built around hurt, starts out aiming for protection, but over time turns into a structure that produces more hurt. Because instead of loosening their own fragility, the person fixes it in place, and starts experiencing every encounter as a potential threat. Put simply: strategies of hurt built around the narrative of "I was so hurt" or "I'm very sensitive" are not just a matter of individual sensitivity. They are also a polite, even sanctioned, expression of contemporary narcissism. In this discourse, the person places themselves at the center. They turn their own feeling into the measure, and set out to organize the relational field around that measure. Hurt then stops being just an affect between two people. It becomes a principle that sets norms, draws boundaries, and determines the other's room to move. In this sense, hurt is as much a form of regulation as it is an expression of fragility. And precisely for that reason, it points to a powerful narcissistic organization even in its most "soft"-looking guise.

The narcissism of psychologists…

A similar narcissistic discourse sometimes emerges from within the field of psychology itself. When some psychologists say things like "psychology says so" or "psychology explains it this way," it gives an impression of professional certainty at first glance. In fact, it is deeply problematic, and points clearly to a narcissistic positioning. Because "psychology" is not a single, unified field of knowledge. It is, instead, a plural field containing different theoretical frameworks, methods, and ontological assumptions: psychoanalytic approaches, cognitive-behavioral models, phenomenological perspectives, neuroscientific explanations… Each defines the human being from a different vantage point, and builds a different regime of truth. The phrase "psychology says so," then, erases this plurality and puts itself in the place of a universal authority. In statements like these, the subject does not simply voice an opinion. They substitute their own position for the entire field. They present their own knowledge as though it were the knowledge of the whole discipline. Seen this way, it is a narcissistic act of expansion: the psychologist places themselves in the position of "the one who knows," speaking as though they held complete, undisputed knowledge.

Yet scientific thought is grounded, precisely, in keeping a distance from claims of this kind of certainty. Science operates through plurality, debate, and an awareness of its own limits. Every theory offers a particular perspective. No single theory can capture the full complexity of the human being on its own. Scientific language, for this reason, builds conditional and contextual propositions rather than producing universal certainties. So the problem here is not just a faulty generalization. It is the very relationship established with knowledge. The sentence "psychology says so" reduces knowledge from a plural field of debate to a single claim of truth. That reduction produces a narcissistic position in which the subject absolutizes their own knowledge. Narcissism, as a result, shows up not only in content but in the very way knowledge is expressed. Language that claims to speak in the name of truth often turns into a tool for the subject to absolutize their own position.

Highly emotional people…

While we're at it, another phrase common in everyday language is "I'm a very emotional person." At first glance it seems to point to a rich capacity for feeling. In practice, though, it usually foregrounds not the diversity of emotions but one particular kind of affect — especially a tendency toward hurt and tears. Yet a person's emotional repertoire is extremely wide: shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy… Each of these is part of affect, and each demands a certain capacity for inner work. In this sense, "being emotional" is not just about getting hurt or crying. It is the ability to carry and work through this whole complex field of feeling.

In everyday use, though, "I'm emotional" usually implies not this breadth but one specific kind of sensitivity. That sensitivity comes with an implicit boundary line: "Don't touch me." Here, emotionality turns into a declaration of fragility rather than a form of richness. The subject defines themselves as someone quick to be hurt, easily affected, and organizes the relational field around that definition. So the subject who says "I'm emotional" is often also saying: "I cry easily, I get hurt easily." Crying, being the most visible and most easily recognized form of affect, gets culturally equated with "being emotional." But the capacity to cry and emotional depth are not the same thing. Emotional depth usually has to do with the capacity to tolerate, and stay in contact with, less visible feelings — guilt, shame, or fear, for instance. A narcissistic dimension enters here again. This sensitivity, expressed under the name "emotionality," is often a form of narcissistic touchiness. What's at work, in other words, is a low-tolerance structure in which the self experiences even the smallest friction from the outside world as an injury. The issue, then, is not whether feelings exist, but how they are lived and what they represent. "Being emotional" usually signals not, as we tend to think, an abundance of feeling, but the centering of one particular kind of hurt. Real emotional capacity, by contrast, lies in the power to carry not just hurt, but harder, more complex, and less visible feelings too.