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Narcissism and Power
Within Foundational Steps of Personal Empowerment, section 1.4, it says:
Nobody has the right to abuse you, humiliate you, or disempower you in any way.
From a rude waiter to a boss yelling at you to a cop pushing you around to a high school bully to a GF/BF making fun of you, nobody has the right to disrespect you.
"Nobody should disrespect me" is something I've become all too familiar with, and an obsession around being "respected" seems to align with several narcissistic personalities I unfortunately came to know very well.
Narcissists tend to pursue respect, and I've discussed narcissism at length with a therapist in the past regarding a former business partner. While I understand the meaning within the context of the content, it also sounds like something a narcissist would say. Is there a link between power and narcissism?
It's a good point, the law of balance (almost) always applies.
And for sure there is a connection between dark triads and wanting power, "power sensitivity" and even getting power.
Still, the law of balance means that many folks do need more of that, not ness -and many of those who go thorugh the course are in that category-.
May make a note about that in the next upgrade, maybe even with a video.
Understood, thank you, Lucio. I appreciate your guidance.
Hello Lucio, Rogue
I think it's an interesting reflection.
But I think this case is far from being that of an obsession around being respect. It's more about demanding a very basic level of respect (not being abused, humiliated), something that every human being is worthy of. Even if a narcissist would also say that, a narcissist would that manipulatively, disguising as "respect" some unreasonable demand that is ultimately win-lose.
An example: recently a relative yelled at his housekeeper for some minor thing in front of the whole family. I was staying at his house, but I don't tolerate this kind of abuse, so I spoke up in her defence – and I did that in a respectful tone, acknowledging his status as a host. Then he turned against me, and after the altercation, he went to talk 1-1 with me saying that I was "disrespecting" him because I was against him in front of everybody.
Did I disempower him? Yes, I did. But was he right from a moral point of view? Not even a little bit. So his demand for respect and his accusation that I was "disauthorizing" him was manipulative, because he was putting his image above principles.
In the end, I also think that it all boils down to the law of balance concept that Lucio proposes.
Yes, that was exactly the spirit of : demanding and expecting that basic.
I think what Rogue meant is that narcissists go overboard in demanding nad expecting respect, and I think that's absolutely true.
As a matter of fact, I believe that one of the best ways to recognize dark triads is to see how they react around any potential power move or anything that could cost them status and/or loss of power/face/ego.
As for your situation Kavalier, that's super interesting and much respect to you for having the courage and integrity to speak up.
Depending on the situation, I may have spoken to your uncle 1:1 because there was no way he wouldn't see that as a big, direct attack to his status.
Feel free to open a thread about it, may be interesting.
Super interesting indeed.
My experience has been that narcissists and psychopaths do tend to go overboard in expecting respect, but -
when respect is not coming, they often prefer covert aggressive ways to punish the “disrespecter”, rather than assertive talk.
And they also tend to see disrespect even when none was there.
One could say that:
- they always see disrespect everywhere in others,
- they interpret others checking their power moves as “unwarranted disrespect”,
- and they crucially also justify their own constant disrespect of others as “due” to their own skewed “justice” reasons.
Yeah, above a certain threshold of seeing attacks where there aren't any, it isn't just a thing of dark triad, but starts becoming paranoia (we've seen an example).
Not sure how and if dark triad and paranoid personalities are connected, but there may be something.
What I wanted to add now is the other side of the coin we originally mentioned:
You can certainly be "too OK with disrespect" or generally too accepting of takers/assholes.
I remember my last office job.
I completely checked out when I saw the boss behaving in a way that I thought was manipulative, predatory, and just plain unacceptable towards a colleague.
But what wat struck me almost equally was my colleague's reaction.
She was OK with it all. Still didn't like the former boss because, well, few people like a total asshole. But still, there was complete acceptance from her. "That's how it goes, what can you do", she said, and kept talking with the boss almost normally.
That's way too accepting.
