119
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I agree with you and you're being really correct, but narcissistic is a slur. The origin of the word comes from the disability Narcissistic Personality Disorder. You're obvious talking about neurotypical behaviour, so could you use a different word?

[-] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 62 points 1 year ago

The origin of the word actually comes from the Greek myth, and vastly predates the disorder but I'm going to assume you're just trolling.

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Narcissus is a Greek name. Narcissistic is an english word. The ancient greeks did not call anything narcissistic, because the word didn't exist.

The N word comes from Spanish but people who use it aren't speaking spanish, are they?

[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 50 points 1 year ago

The English word "narcissistic" existed long before the diagnosis, just like "Sisyphean" exists without an attached disorder (ODD in another timeliness, maybe).

load more comments (11 replies)
[-] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 1 year ago

An English word that existed long before anyone was ever diagnosed with NPD. I'm very sorry for your diagnosis but trying to make an entire existing word unusable for everyone else is kinda the definition of narcissistic also.

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

X to doubt on your claim there, but why does that matter? The N word and the R word existed before they were slurs too. Are you going to apply the same logic there or do you have a unique hatred for pwNPD?

[-] Harrison@ttrpg.network 8 points 1 year ago

You doubt that a word meaning "like Narcissus" was used to describe behaviour similar to the popular thousands of years old mythological figure, before modern psychological science used it to describe a personality disorder?

load more comments (19 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] kafka_quixote@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 1 year ago

Doesn't narcissism predate NPD through the story of Echo and Narcissus? Or through the works of people like Freud? Or is this a joke I'm just not picking up on?

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Suppose a white skinned american who doesn't speak fluent spanish were to call a black person "negro". When confronted about their obvious racism, they defend their language with "I'm just speaking spanish, and it's not racist in spanish". This is obviously a cope and the person is obviously a racist. While the original origin of the word may be from spanish, the word has passed into english through racialised use. Any use in english by a non spanish speaker must therefore be assumed to be racial.

While the word "Narcissus" has its original origins as a Greek name, the separate but related word "narcissistic" was coined by english speaking psychologists, and it passed into common english vernacular through Christopher Lasch's book The Culture of Narcissism, which presented the thesis that narcissistic personality disorder was becoming more common in comptemporary america. Given that most common use of the word narcissistic is derived from the cultural impacts of this book, it's safe to associate any use of the term in common discourse with the disorder. Especially since while 50% of the users of the word will respond like you did, the other 50% will respond with "Yes, I was talking about NPD because narcissists deserve to be hated for their disorder".

[-] WaterBowlSlime@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

But no one's pretending to speak Greek or any other language. The word has a common non-technical definition in English and that's what people usually mean when using it.

I don't get what you're saying, does the origin of a word determine how it should be used or not? Because originally, negro was the accepted term used for black people (in English ofc) before it became a slur. A more relevant example would be the word "moron" - even though it was originally a formal diagnosis, nobody who uses the word nowadays is thinking about psychology.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't choosing to maintain the fake sense of status that running an online community creates instead of deleting it because of the harm it does or will do definitionally narcissistic? Or is there a requirement here for such actions to be a lifelong pattern?

[-] HodgePodge@hexbear.net 26 points 1 year ago

i would just change it to self-centered. this is an online topic that’s not worth the argument and also narcissism unfortunately does have lightly ableist connotations now since the word has now been medicalized

[-] dinklesplein@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago

i think calling people narcissists is kind of a reddit-logoism in general and should be abandoned entirely for that reason when as you said 'self-centred' accomplishes the same aims.

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Narcissists are only 1% of the population, yet we see this behaviour from anyone who owns a large platform. Unless you want to present the thesis that people with NPD are privileged because we own all the social media sites, we must conclude that this pattern of behaviour is common to neurotypicals as well.

[-] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago

narcissism doesn't have to be disruptive enough of a persons' life to be a disorder diagnosis. Should we start calling anxious feelings something else because some people have severe anxiety that we label a disorder? petty narcissism isn't the same as NPD and this is the first time i've seen someone try to equate the two.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago

I'm not really against moving off the word I just feel a bit odd about it. Like you point out.

I think with anxiety there's a small difference in that it's never used perjoratively. Whereas narcissism is. But I agree with you that if anxiety can be used descriptively for a type of behaviour without meeting the standards for it being a disorder narcisisstic behaviour can be the same thing without meeting the standard.

In the same way anxiety could also be replace with "uncomfortable" or "scared" but this would not be as strong in tone, not really describing the seriousness of the emotion. In this same way narcissism shares that.

Again though, not really a hill I'd die on or anything. It is certainly overused for even incredibly minor things at times.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago

By analogy, there is a reason that megalomaniac are more likely to be corporate ghouls or sociopaths are more likely to be cops, there is an element of self-selection.

[-] LesbianLiberty@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago

Nah I think it's moreso the use of the word, but I've only ever known of it by that term; I'm not sure what other label would exist for it.

[-] DroneRights@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

Well the word for self-interested behaviour is "selfish"

[-] silent_water@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago
[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Egocentrism is something else. You're probably thinking of egotistical.

Egocentrists don't necessarily hold themselves in high regard, they just have a bias towards interpreting things as being about them. The most self-loathing person I know is highly egocentric.

load more comments (1 replies)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
119 points (100.0% liked)

chapotraphouse

13447 readers
997 users here now

Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.

No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer

Vaush posts go in the_dunk_tank

Dunk posts in general go in the_dunk_tank, not here

Don't post low-hanging fruit here after it gets removed from the_dunk_tank

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS