At the Intersection of Narcissism and Legal Standing

Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the convicted the former President of the United States broad impunity from criminal activity and the consequences of what has looked like treason to many. On the heels of the SCOTUS ruling on the Chevron case, it has been a discouraging time for either democracy or the environment. On the sidelines, it looks to me like the triumph of malignant narcissism, spiked with lessons in learned helplessness and validated by SCOTUS.

The first step in freeing oneself from and solving any challenging problem is to name it. I will argue here that we live in a culture of narcissism. I believe the second step is to recognize the elements of the system that must change.

These are some common strategies narcissists employ in personal relationships to maintain a system that leaves others feeling enthralled, insecure and sustains attention on themselves.

1. Posing as the charismatic hero/ heroine with profound underlying insecurities

2. Maintaining chaos to create a steady state of uncertainty in the other.

3. Systematic gaslighting, discrediting the audience so that they come to believe what they see, feel, believe or think isn't true, to attach an audience and create dependency.

4. Creating "flying monkeys" who affirm the narcissists’ POV, while separating the audience from other sources of support & affirmation.

5. Projecting feelings and thoughts onto another person that properly belong to the narcissist to perpetuate the illusion that the narcissist is perfect, and the victim is inadequate.

6. Incapacity to introspect or feel empathy for the pain of others, especially pain caused by the narcissist.

In the public arena, all these goals can be efficiently accomplished with disinformation alone. Once the goal of enthrallment has been accomplished, the narcissist will drain the source, eventually discard the emptied supply. but then "hoover" back to replenish supply.

The problem most normal humans have with accepting these strategies, is accepting the probability that the narcissist cannot feel remorse or empathy, regardless of how devastating their effects may be or what evidence might be presented.

Democracy requires including as many voices and points of view as possible before coming to conclusions. Empathy demands that inclusion. Fascism demands a monoculture in every way. It is the exact opposite of democracy or inclusion. It enshrines the outsider status of the disenfranchised, for those who have fallen silent and been rendered invisible it drives justice further underground with calculated cruelty.

Politically, the "flying monkeys" in this case, are all the officials and industry leaders who enable extractions from people, other animals and habitats to the point of ecocide. The majority opinions on SCOTUS right now appear to be flying monkeys for the former president and all corporations that extract supply from Mother Earth.

A hallmark of narcissism is the presumption of personal perceptual authority over another. The worldview of the narcissist is inviolable. A facade of flattering perceptions & deferential behavior from others is essential to maintain the beneficent mirage. All dissenting opinions. must be immediately quelled. That prerogative to suppress is the presumption of any totalitarian or fascist regime, a ruler, emperor or a patriarch in a family. In every case, the assumption is that one individual can determine the rights and define the experience of another.

In a court of law, those are arguable presumptions. When a plaintiff steps forward, their right to be heard is called "standing ((locus standi)" Standing is the right to bring suit before the courts to redress material harm. Harm may not be only financial.  It can be emotional or a matter of harm to reputation - https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C1-6-1/ALDE_00012992

As I write, the world faces down another round of fascism, embodied in the United States by the former president and the RNC and in Europe by recent far right wins. The world outside the narrow culture of the Right requires legal standing.

We face an historic turning point. So many thirst for justice in so many ways. It is a hard time to have faith and patience, to believe justice can assert itself against evil forces, that all who are entitled to standing will receive justice, let alone, manifesting under the ephemeral banner of art.

Applying trigger point theory, to what I have considered and written above and, in the past, I would argue that anthropocentrism, the idea that humans are the center of the world, is simply narcissism scaled. Trigger point theory leads me to believe we are at the intersection of narcissism and fair legal standing. I think we need to consider the power run amuck at that intersection, as much personally as politically. Art will be one way to explore that intersection.

It will be a task, to hold fast, to make silence eloquent, to bring forth the invisible, even as tyrants shriek their dark messages and teach lessons in learned helplessness, especially for art.

In a recent book chapter that reviewed my work in the early seventies, Jacob Stewart Halevy wrote of my approach to revealing the hidden as reflecting the paradigms extant then and borrowed from encounter groups. He wrote, “...the works take the very forms of disclosure demanded of individuals who have submitted themselves to the “tensions” and “energies” of the encounter groups."

Today, I continue to contemplate the causes of and litigations for ecocide, while exploring what models may emerge from artmaking to resist learned helplessness. Surely, we must begin with revealing and verifying the hidden, equally giving standing to and empathy for the disenfranchised and accountability for false heroes.

That is also a task: to exercise accountability without adopting the same cruelty as our perpetrators. I feel myself unbalanced at the brink as much as anyone, searching for the right path forward with a level gaze. I fear the surprise of dark, yawning chasms.

This is a time for courage and clarity, as we can plan next steps together to protect standing for the whole Earth, human and non-human.