We've seen it in baseball -- the steroid scandal of the past few years.
We've seen it in government -- just pick a scandal -- how about the 'Ad-Scam' scandal of the Liberal Government in Canada a few years back.
We've seen it with the owners of large corporations -- just look back to the Conrad Black trial. Or the owners of the large oil companies -- either in the Middle East or in America.
We've seen it in history -- just name your time period. How about the overthrowing of the French government and aristocrats in the French Revolution. Or the Americans overthrowing the British government in The American Revolultion.
We've seen it in philosophy -- Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer, or how about Ayn Rand and 'The Virtue of Selfishness'.
Try as we might, we can't escape the 'drive of human narcissism'. Some people are less narcissistic than others. Some religions are less narcissistic than others. They all try to at least partly condemn human selfishness but most religions get caught up in narcissistic drives themselves. Budhism seems to be better than most but perhaps they go too far the other way)
We all need a certain percentage or degree of narcissism in lives -- call it self-awareness, sensory awareness, staying in touch with our feelings, staying in touch with what we want, self-assertion, a certain amount of hedonism (pleasure-seeking).
The human mind and body is programmed to pursue pleasure and happiness.
This is not the problem of narcissism that I come back to again and again.
The problem of narcissism that I come back to over and over again is 'unbridled narcissism' -- narcissism out of control. Too much narcissism turns into exploitation and human exploitation can occur in any type of economic and/or political system -- Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Feudalism, Dictatorship, Democracy...
Too much narcissism -- and resulting exploitation -- can happen in any kind of religious and/or atheist system.
So let me count two ways in which narcissism can be, and is, pathological.
Narcissism is pathological to the extent that it leads to destruction and/or self-destruction. (Violence, drug addiction, any kind of addiction, abuse of one's own body and/or someone else's...)
Narcissism is pathological to the extent that it leads to social, sexual, economic, political, and/or legal exploitation.
In Canada, we all want a piece of the Canadian Pie, the Canadian Dream...
Same with America...or visa versa.
Corporate owners and shareholders want their share of the Canadian and/or American Pie.
Managers, supervisors, white collar workers, blue collar workers...they all want their share of the Canadian and/or American Pie.
The goal of Capitalism is to 'stretch your/our limits as far as you can' -- let the market determine your value. What people are willing to pay you -- that is what you are worth.
But somewhere in here is also the need for 'homeostatic balance' -- we can see this in sports franchises: the more out of line with the 'salary cap' -- and the total salary of the team -- one individual's salary becomes, the more this salary is going to create a problem of 'homestatic balance' relative to the team salary as a whole.
Corporation owners are for the most part going to strive for as much of the Canadian and/or American Pie that they can get in the Capitalist-Market system that they are working in. To a certain extent, the market determines the 'homestatic balance' of people's individual incomes and salaries. If I can't get the salary I want in this organization, then perhap the organization down the street is willing to pay me closer to what I want. Same with free agents in whatever the particular sport is -- baseball, hockey, football, soccer, with individual rules governing each sport and each league.
In corporations, there is a reason that 'unions' came into existence; there was too much worker exploitation with almost all of the power in the hands of the corporate owners and very little power in the hands of the individual workers. So individual workers started to group together, form unions, the unions were legalized by particular governments, and the workers gained more collective and individual power -- and rights. Less corporate exploitation.
But this gave rise to the phenomenon of 'union exploitation' -- either against the workers in the union, and/or against the company that the union was/is involved with.
The one underlying principle of all of nature and all of human activity is the principle of homeostatic balance -- and the interactive process of: one bi-polarity; a second bi-polarity; and the dialectic interchange between them. Thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis striving for that ever-allusive and ever-changing homesotatic balance.
A relationship, a marriage, is dialectically stable until something throws instability into the relationship, into the marriage, and either a confrontation ensues, or it doesn't, but either way, the relationship, is thrown into instability, thrown into uncertainty. Will the relationship re-stabilize -- or completely unstabilize to the point of one party or the other withdrawing from the relationship.
The 'power dialectic' and/or the 'democratic dialectic' is always taking another swing, one encounter at a time, one moment at a time, and if resentments, conflicts, and/or instabilities are not processed, negotiated and resolved, then they build up over time until the relationship collapes.
Marriages collaps from self-destruction, and/or needs simply not being met any more. Unions either work or they don't work -- if they don't work, they are usually tossed aside at the end of the contract. If the union works to well in the workers' favor and the company's needs are not fulfilled, then the company could collapse from self-destruction. Same with governments -- they either achieve a good enough homeostatic balance with the people of the country, that the people want to re-elect the government and the leader of the government -- or if the government has failed in the eyes of the people, then the government collapses and/or is thrown out of power at the end of its election term, or in some cases, in a revolution.
If you live in the fast lane, you generally die in the fast lane. Marriages that try to live in the fast lane don't usually last. Marriages trying to live in the slow lane may not last either. Boredome -- a lack of new and exciting stimulation -- is another human reality connected to narcissism. This is both a good and a bad thing. Good in that it propels people together. Bad in that it tears people apart.
The successful marriage probably generally requires a combination of fastballs, curve balls, and change of paces. But don't ask me. I have never been married -- at least in the technical, formal, sense of the word. I guess I don't trust marriage.
Maybe I don't trust myself.
For the most part, I certainly don't trust corporations. How many ethical companies are out there? What is the percentage of ethical corporations out there compared to unethical ones? 5 or 10 per cent maybe?
To be sure, corporations need to stay in business or everyone employed by the company loses. But some times you just have to shake your head at some of the unethical things that are done. Customers are gouged. Unethical marketing practises and promises. I'm not talking about making a product or service 'sexy'. I'm talking about blatant lying, blatant cheating, blatant stealing. Collusion, Conflict of interest. Networking in back offices. Lobbying behind the scenes. Feeding. Two people or groups of people are 'fattened up' with contracts or money or both -- while a third party, or a third, fourth, and fifth party, are all left out in the cold to starve or suffer.
I remember back in the mid 90s when there was a whole mess of government down-sizing. I was a part of it. My job, my department was declared 'redundant'. They had brought in a computer to do my job.
That's fine. You can't stop technology and technological 'advances' (human evolution?), good and/or bad in its consequences.
The company I worked for didn't have unionized white collar workers -- and many of these workers lost their jobs -- while unionized drivers and blue collar workers were barely touched. The white collar workers had voted down a union just the year before as management continued to promise them the same benefits as the blue collar, unionized workers and drivers -- without the union dues. And as it happened a year later -- without the union protection. Many middle managers were eliminated as well as white collar administration workers.
Again this was all fine and good -- not for the workers who lost their jobs of course although many of them got decent to very good severance settlements -- but if the country was so far in debt that it needed to elminate these jobs in order to help eliminate some of the government's -- and country's debt -- then so be it.
But the final touch was the final coup de grace. All the top managers voted themselves 'nice fat raises' to reward themselves for all the people they had cut and all the money they had saved the company while the remaining white collar adminiatration workers were left with twice as much administration work to do and no such fat raises, indeed, no raises at all. And of course, the down-sized workers had no jobs left.
What do we call this? Law of the jungle? Survial of the fittest? Lord of the Flies? Schopenhauer's world? Or management feces running downhill? Which is not to say that in the case of human narcissism, feces can't defy the law of gravity and roll uphill too. With human narcissism -- anything is possible -- and likely.
I mean no disrespect for those corporate ownere who are fair and who treat their employees and customers well -- who treat their employees with respect, as being human. Too be sure, there are some good fair owners and companies out there.
But for the rest, what do we say?
Is there any limit to human greed? Is there any limit to human cheating and/or exploitation. Drivers for companies being nickeled and dimed, short-changed, charged back, charged late fees, made to do runs that they don't get paid for, or don't get paid enough to cover their time and/or expenses, charged for administration fees, charged for dispatch fees, left to deal with rising gas expenses with no compenstations from the companies that employ them and/or contract them. Contracting them is better than employing them -- less responsibility and accountability. Besides, contractors you don't have to pay benefits. Same with part-timers. Part-timers you can pay less wages for a certain time with no benefits. Advantage company. Let's make every Canadian and/or American employee a contractor and/or a part-timer. Less expense for the business and/or government.
Drivrs being paid $400 to $500 -- doesn't sound too bad if you can't get anything else -- until you hear it's on a seventy or eighty hour work week. What's that? About $5 per hour? No taxes paid. Got to pay your taxes. What's that bring it down to -- $3 an hour? That is slave labour. Mexico couldn't make it any cheaper.
And meanwhile, we parade ourselves around as being leaders in human rights and democracy. Democracy goes deeper than just voting our leader -- or at least it should. We think that we are 'humanistic' and 'democratic' but down underneath the surface of things we still have to ask ourselves how much of this is a fascade and a charade. As time goes by, is real government and corporate power being held in the hands of fewer and fewer people?
We don't believe that we have 'sweat shops' in Canada or America. Only in Mexico. Or China. Or Taiwan. We do have our sweat shops here and if an unethical company can't get away with one, then they have another alternative. Close down there manufacturing company here and open it up somewhere else in the world -- like Mexico, China, or Taiwan. They allow sweat shops there.
Now all we need is 'free trade'. Bring more and more of the cheap goods in from foreign countries with dirt cheap wages and no tariffs. The Narcissistic Capitalists love it. They call it 'Globalization'. And since the Narcissistic Capitalists -- are connected to the Government Lobbyists (if they aren't the same people) -- and the Government Lobbyists are giving the politicians money to help them stay in power -- and be wealthy also -- who cares about all the unemployed workers who are being flushed down the drain. That too -- is Capitalism -- we say. Maybe it is high time we took a hard look at Capitalism and where it is taking us -- and at least sort out the difference between 1. Narcissistic, Exploitive Capitalism; and 2. Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism. We need some new rules in the government about what ethical, Capitalist companies can and can't do. And enforce these laws. The Better Business Bureau and the Labour Board dont' really cut it. They can't see the real faces of human exploitation.
First and foremost, we all need to be our own ethical control boards. And at least partly police each other.
Rules are easy to bend and/or break to achieve narcissistic ends.
But sometimes the social and family cost is horrific.
We all need to know where to draw the line on our narcissistic drives.
A homeostatically balanced and stable society demands it.
Look at the collapse of the Roman Empire if you want to examine the factors leading to the opposite.
Or look at all the ethical transgrssions that are committed by the people you work with -- above you, beside you, and below you.
And sometimes we all need to take a very good look in the mirror.
-- dgb, August 6th, 2008.
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Post-Script
In case we are not clear on some or all of these points:
In this essay I wrote yesterday, I think I was going after corporate narcissism more than anything -- the type I see around me every day.
I don't want to turn anyone into a social prude or prune.
I want everyone to have fun, be happy, be in touch with their senses, pursue pleasure and the American and/or Canadian Dream -- within reason without self and/or social toxic consequences.
On the opposite side of things, I will take some religions and religious preachers to task -- just as Nietzsche did -- for being too anti-narcissistic, too anti-human. One does not need to be a slave to one's own moral-ethical code in order to live a balanced, narcissistic-altruistic life.
I just despise corporate and government corruption, exploiting others to climb higher on the corporate narcissistic ladder, and I hate to see families destroyed because of men and women who have no brakes when it comes to their outside socializing.
Aside from that, you can never completely stop the drive of narcissism -- and love, and lust -- from crossing boundaries where sometimes we just don't expect it. Unless, you are old enough to say that nothing surprises relative to love and sex.
Sometimes, despite all of our most ethical efforts, nature simply has the last word.
And what more can I say about that. Nothing.
My message is simply to treat others with dignity and respect relative to working with them, if you own a company, paying your workers their due share, and what is fair labour value, rather than copping another extra couple of bucks for yourself and/or your company that stretches outside the realm of fairness into the realm of unbridled (toxic) narcissism.
There's a lot of hard-working people out there just trying to pay their bills and feed their families. It pains me to see many of these people taken advanatage of by corporate narcissism -- owners squeezing and shaking every last dollar out of their employees in order to load up their own coffers.
To be sure, businesses have to survive but whe are not talking about business survival here. We are talking primarily about owners exploiting workers that are not unionized. I'm not a big union fan but there is a good reason unions came into existence in many companies.
People shouldn't have to become slaves at their work, enrage themselves, and/or dmean themselves in order to keep a job that they need to feed their families but which doesn't pay them fairly.
Have a great -- balanced narcissistic -- day.
-- dgb, Aug. 7th, Aug 8th, 2008.
See DGB Philosophy: Narcissism
