In the introduction to The Burning Blade 12.4 I wrote of the reemergence of fascism and how movement in that direction in the United States appeared to be inevitable. In an essay in The Burning Blade 12.6 I wrote that we have embraced individualism to such a strong degree that our culture was suffering greatly because of it. So one might ask, "How can we be headed towards both fascism and extreme individualism at the same time?", and wonder if I am suffering from a sharp loss of long term memory that is typical among bloggers, pundits, and anyone else who takes a strong position on a regular basis. Compartmentalization it is called, which allows you to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time and yet see no conflict between them.

Well I am one of those writers who will admit a mistake. For instance, about two and a half years ago I predicted that the current economic crash would bottom out after eighteen months and end up a lot lower than it did at the end of twenty three months. About a year after my first prediction I extended my crash bottom date by another twelve months, stating that it would likely follow the same pattern as the crash preceding the Great Depression with one big leg down followed by a partial recovery which would give way to another major leg down. I figured that the stock market would finish up at a level 80% below where it began, giving us a Dow Jones value of about three thousand. Well, unless the next month sees a seven thousand point crash in the market then I think that I can toss that prediction into the waste basket too. And though I think that we will still see another big leg down during this crisis, and maybe a few more, I'm not going to make any more predictions about when it will happen because I'm pretty much just throwing darts blindfolded at this point. We are deep in uncharted waters here folks.

However, when I pointed out two seemingly different trends in two different newsletters I don't think that I was making a mistake. I see compatibility between the descent into fascism that I wrote about half a year ago and our embrace of extreme individualism which I wrote about in the last newsletter. At first fascism and individualism appear to be completely incompatible. One conjures images of Hitler, Mussolini, the fiercely loyal SS, and brutal gangs of brown shirts, while the other conjures images of John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Easy Rider, and legions of westernized youths all trying to find their own personal identity. But I feel that the key which connects the two lies in a transitional stage of narcissism where the individualist's embrace of their own ideology and belief that it is the absolute truth leads to the desire to impose that truth on others in order to save them from themselves (as well as spare the individualist from the bad decisions of others). In other words, individualism will turn into narcissism and narcissism can lead to fascism or totalitarianism or other similarly suffocating ideologies. In the essay that follows I'll expand on this idea and dig deeper into the subject of narcissism and how it affects and distorts our behaviors, our religious beliefs, our politics, and our relationships with each other as well as what it portends for our future.

Carl Jung wrote that "The foundation of all Mental Illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering." For narcissists, who suffer from a permanent sense of dissatisfaction with, and even hatred towards, their current selves there is no such thing as legitimate suffering. They perceive themselves as always suffering unjustly, as struggling against a world which refuses to or is not able to appreciate them and which persecutes them out of jealousy. Any suffering, sometimes including that which they inflict upon themselves but for which they hold others at fault, is viewed as being illegitimate and feeds their persecution complex, reinforcing and deepening their narcissism. Ideology plays a powerful role in causing this mental illness and this can be seen clearly in the Christian religion, most notably in the parallels between a narcissist's self-perception and the life of Jesus. Jesus' role in the Christian religion is one of supreme importance. He is said to be the son of the Christian god and the savior of all mankind with the power to perform miracles, and yet throughout his life he was always persecuted by others who couldn't see his divinity nor accept the truth in his words. In the end he suffered more than anyone else ever had or ever will, dying an agonizing physical death during which it is said that he suffered for the sins of all mankind. This basic formula is how narcissists see themselves: that they are special and have wonderful gifts to give to others but they are constantly persecuted for their beliefs and actions. Jesus' story provides a template for narcissism and Christians are encouraged to emulate his life and actions, making them more narcissistic. Furthermore, Christianity fuels narcissism in other ways. For instance, narcissists do not love themselves as is the popular perception, but rather love an idealized version of themselves. In essence they love who they aspire to be and hate who they currently are. Christianity provides narcissists with a reason to hate their current selves since no one can be completely free of sin, and they provide the narcissist with an idealized version of themselves such as that they are a saint or a holy warrior or a humble soul bound for eternal salvation. And as they follow the teachings of Jesus they will run into conflict with the parts of the world which do not believe as they do. Jesus even expects this to happen ("I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother…"). When a Christian encounters strong reactions to their proselytizing it can be perceived as persecution, and the story of Jesus allows narcissists to view such persecution as a validation of their holiness. The more they suffer, the more they are like Jesus, which makes them feel like how they want to be, holy and pious, instead of how they are, wicked and sinful. Thus, Christianity provides a framework for encouraging and exploiting narcissism in its followers.

Of course, the more negative aspects of narcissism, such as superficiality, a strong desire for revenge, jealousy, immodesty, and especially their tendency to put up a false self image, are not things which Christianity teaches and in fact speaks against in its holy book. The trouble is that these aspects of narcissism are innately tied to the deep seated feelings of insecurity that Christianity, as well as other ideologies, instill in their believers in order to motivate them. A person immersed in self-hatred will have a great need for admiration as well as a strong reaction to any criticism. Their need to be loved and admired by others will lead them to feel jealousy towards those who receive the accolades which they do not as well as make them tend towards immodesty in their attempts to gain others' attention. And to gain the support of the large numbers of people which their insecurity demands it is almost imperative for them to create a false image of themselves and lie to others so that they can get what they need. Being honest is a strategy which works well if you only need a few friends and are willing to accept that there will be others who don't like who you really are. But if you want to be popular you generally need to be all things to all people, putting up a sterile, superficial image of yourself which has only good features and no bad side. Lying to others as a matter of course will make it necessary to keep your relationships shallow and the fear of being betrayed by a friend or cast aside by a lover, fears often rooted in painful first hand experience, will make the narcissist resist becoming too attached to any person or thing. The greater one's needs, the more one must embrace the negative aspects of narcissism to satisfy those needs.

Problematic is that narcissists can be very charismatic people who can inspire great numbers of others and spread an ideology far and wide. A narcissist is usually an accomplished liar, having had a lifetime to figure out what to say and how to act in order to get others to like them, and is good at telling people what they want to hear, building up their self image with compliments, and promising them a wonderful future if they follow the narcissist's recommendations. In this way the narcissist can make others dependent on them, building within them the need to hear the narcissist's words to make them feel good about themselves and their future. Many narcissists are natural leaders and the general public will accept them as such even though narcissists are no better at leading than anyone else and have serious, usually hidden, shortcomings. Thus, despite their personality flaws ideologies benefit greatly by turning their followers into narcissists since they are able spread the word of the ideology so well as well as inspire believers and convert non-believers. Not surprisingly narcissism is widespread in religion, politics, the performing arts, and anywhere else where appealing to a wide cross-section of people is critical to one's success. The last three presidents of the United States are marvelous examples of narcissists, especially the current one, all of them leaders who excel at being well liked and stirring great passions in others but who have dubious leadership ability and glaring flaws. And I would go so far as to say that it is rare that any politician, or leader in any field, could have attained their level of power without being narcissistic to some degree. Caring about others, being true to yourself, and not feeling inadequate will generally cost you down the road even though you may serve the greater good better than an awe- inspiring narcissist. And consider the recent trend in management towards inspiring, motivating, and leading one's employees to success as opposed to coordinating them, advising them, and overseeing their efforts. This is in essence narcissists applauding and encouraging their own narcissism. Managing people the old way requires hard work, attention, and diligence while doing things the new way places too much emphasis on things which can be accomplished with empty words and the fakery often employed by narcissists. While inspiration and motivation are powerful tools they will quickly give way to cynicism and lethargy if they aren't backed with substance. There are no shortcuts to lasting success.

Narcissistic leaders can be very dangerous given their personality flaws, especially their defensiveness, jealousy, lack of empathy for others, and often strong desire for revenge. Such a leader would be prone to start or escalate wars based on perceived slights and not exercise restraint given their lack of caring for the lives lost to champion their vanity. And when two or more narcissistic leaders discover that they have personal or national disagreements is it not unusual for the dispute to escalate in a series of retributions which won't stop until a catastrophe results. Narcissists have a tendency to clash with one another as they both tend to have the same needs such as becoming the best at something, winning the admiration of the same group of people, being the one in charge, etc., and due to their sensitivity to criticism and desire for revenge any dispute between them tends to get blown out of proportion, often quickly. However, since narcissists are very insecure they are also prone to being seduced by other narcissists who are able to build up their self image and give them the admiration that they feel that they deserve. This seduction can take the form of a boss exploiting an underling, an underling brown- nosing their boss, two equals forming a codependency bond, or several narcissists coming together to form a "mutual admiration society" or "echo chamber". Like-minded co-dependent narcissists can work together towards the same goals as well as shut down opposition to their goals and silence any criticism of their group, in essence acting like a single, powerful narcissist. Narcissism in large groups tends towards the "cult of personality" phenomenon where the public image of a leader is carefully orchestrated to attract throngs of loyal followers. Other narcissists who fall under the sway of a narcissistic leader don't need to be forced to support the leader as they have no small amount of their self image tied up in how their idol is perceived. They live vicariously through their idol and their idol's successes are their successes. By aligning themselves with a narcissistic leader the follower willingly becomes part of the echo chamber, saying only good things about them, shouting down any criticism, and identifying with that leader as if the leader and the follower were one and the same.

This is the process for how individuality can transform into fascism. As individuality devolves into narcissism, people become more insecure, more desirous of admiration, and more vulnerable to the compliments and promises of a charismatic and narcissistic leader. If you add to this mixture a severe shock to the system, such as a war, an economic collapse, or other social calamity, a narcissistic leader is often allowed to seize total power by the throngs of narcissistic followers who want a dictator to impose their will and give them back what they've lost. We are seeing many signs of rising fascism here in the United States. Political parties are becoming more and more like "echo chambers" and are intolerant of criticism and unwilling to compromise, individuals are arguing politics with the passion and hostility typical of narcissists, and rival cults of personality are doing battle with each other in the media and on the internet, polluting the public discourse with intellectually dishonest partisan rancor. Our personal narcissism is bonding with the narcissism of our favorite ideological personalities and we are becoming less tolerant and less respectful towards our opponents. In short, we are being seduced into becoming foot soldiers in an ideological war.

Now I'd like to go back to an earlier part of this essay about how the Christian religion tries to discourage its followers from having narcissistic tendencies. Even a casual reading of the New Testament reveals numerous instances of Jesus admonishing the selfishness, intolerance, and duplicity of the people he encounters in his journeys. In a sense the New Testament is a manifesto against narcissism, trying to pull people away from pettiness and materialism and towards caring for others and gladly suffering misfortune. One would think that it would dissuade people from being narcissistic and thus make them more resistant to kneeling before fascists, but the Bible fails at the former as well as the latter. As discussed earlier, the Bible fails to discourage the personality flaws inherent in narcissism because it exploits the insecurities of the individual and builds up their image as a holy warrior bound for heaven. By reinforcing one side of a person's narcissism it automatically encourages the other side, but instead of the negative narcissistic traits being self-centered ones, the Bible redirects these so that they become god-centered ones. Personal success changes from becoming richer than your neighbor to saving more souls or being more pure than your fellow Christians. Your goals become your god's goals and you are willing to accept poverty or suffering because you want to prove to your god, and fellow Christians, that you are able to pass tests of divine design. You still love the image of your idealized self but the image changes from one of material gain to one of spiritual accomplishments and the belief that you are attaining entrance to an eternal paradise. Furthermore, the character flaws associated with narcissism can manifest in uniquely Christian ways despite the Bible speaking out against them. Narcissists are notoriously resistant to self examination and are quick to point out the speck in their neighbor's eye while somehow seeing past the log in theirs. Projecting envy on to others and putting up a false holy image are things that many narcissistic Christians will indulge in to make themselves appear to be more pious than their fellows. Manipulating people, having a strong desire for revenge, and thinking that the end justifies the means can also be justified if one believes that they are fighting a crusade against the devil with the fate of millions of souls on the line. And if one puts their god before all else, as the bible demands, a reduction in empathy towards loved ones can follow as well as sheer contempt for those seen as evil. Narcissistic Christians will often wish to see sinful people punished harshly to fulfill their desire for revenge and reward their piousness.

Thus, Christian ideology encourages one to become a part of a cult of personality structured around their god. This makes them quite vulnerable to charismatic, narcissistic leaders who claim to speak for their god and who tell the congregation what they want to hear. In this way their faith can lead them into fascism and totalitarianism. For Catholics, their church is already structured around a rather fascist hierarchy which tends to make them subservient to the Pope's decrees, but papal power has waned in the last few centuries and especially the last few decades and the church is not as powerful a force as it once was. Protestantism was a movement away from a centralized church structure and in recent centuries has focused on a person's private relationship with their god with very limited amounts of religious politics, and thus it is very much like individualism applied to religion. But protestants are hardly immune from the seductive powers of men "aflame with the Lord", especially those who lead evangelical movements. And revivals like the first and second "Great Awakenings", the Azusa Street revival, televangelism, and the Promise Keepers movement have occurred frequently during the course of history where some degree of "Christofascism" has swept through nations and often resulted in the remolding a number of laws of the land to fit Christian ideals. However, the era of Christian domination over the state appears to be over as new ideologies such as democracy and communism have arisen since the Enlightenment which are resistant to the spread of Christianity. Though Christian movements occur in nations which follow these newer ideologies they tend to run out of steam before altering the existing ideology in any substantial way.

Christianity isn't the only ideology which exploits narcissism in order to enable it to spread, all ideologies contain elements which make believers feel inadequate and promise them a wonderful life or afterlife if they serve the ideology's goals. In the Fireaxe Theory this motivational scheme is described as the ideology instilling within the believer a permanent psychological deficit, a persistent feeling of inadequacy, which can only be alleviated, and then only for a short time, if the believer does something which serves the ideology. How this scheme works for various ideologies is described in more detail in The Burning Blade 12.4 and it matches up very well with what sociologists and psychologists have discovered about narcissism. The downside of exploiting narcissism is that an ideology's leaders will often be volatile, disingenuous, arrogant, and prone to addiction to forms of instant gratification. However, it is only in extreme cases of narcissism where these negatives outweigh the positives, at least the positives as they pertain to the ideology, and so from an ideological point of view moderate amounts of narcissism in its followers is not only tolerable but desirable, even if the afflicted individuals as well as those close to him or her sometimes suffer greatly because of it. Narcissists may spend their lives drowning in self doubt and self hatred, manipulating and abusing loved ones, and brutally punishing their rivals, but on the whole they tend to advance the causes of the ideology. One of the more disturbing "advantages" of an ideology exploiting narcissism is that in most cases it is a permanent and untreatable affliction. This can be a major problem for an individual seeking a cure for their problems, but for an ideology it is very useful since it makes it very difficult for rival ideologies to convert its narcissists to their belief systems or dissuade or influence them in any way. Narcissists are fiercely defensive and can often be highly resistant to logic when aroused. When fighting they can be vicious and unrelenting, seeking victory over their opponent at all costs. And when they are overwhelmed and face defeat narcissists sometimes completely capitulate, descending into their private hell of self loathing. At first it might seem as though this capitulation is a sign that a narcissist has conceded and will change their ways or beliefs, but in reality it is a defense mechanism which allows them to preserve the idealized self image which they are striving to attain while directing all the criticism towards their inadequate current self. In this way their self loathing can deepen their pathology and thus capitulating can make a narcissist even more committed to what they believe. Examples of this bipolar-esque cycle of Christian narcissism and self pity can be found in a number of Psalms written by David in the Bible. A noteworthy one is Psalm 22 which most Fireaxe listeners will recognize. And so, ideologies benefit by encouraging their followers to seek conflict because, win or lose, it will end up making them more devout and more committed.

The permanent nature of narcissism makes it difficult to change the course of a group, organization, nation, etc., once narcissists take control of it. If you've encountered narcissists in your life, and you probably have, especially if you've spent time in any newsgroups or chat rooms on the internet where narcissists are often free to launch vicious flames at people they disagree with and seem to be locked in endless duels against other narcissistic foes, you understand how futile the act of trying to bring change can often be. Even when a narcissistic organization has become highly dysfunctional and the criticisms against it are stated calmly, rationally, and by many, those in charge will still resist change, often resorting to the pathological responses of their affliction such as manipulation, intolerance, and hostility to defend themselves, their policies, and their positions in the power structure. For example, a large group of dissenters might protest the dysfunctional policies of a particular government and march peacefully in the streets, counting on media attention to relay the slogans they chant and wrote on signs to the rest of the public. Heavy handed governments will reveal their intolerance of criticism and hostility by cracking down on the protesters, calling a media blackout, and sending the riot squads out to beat up, use tear gas on, and arrest and humiliate the protesters. Democratic governments have been known to be equally intolerant and use the same tactics, but they are often under pressure to appear to be more reasonable and their actions more justified so what they often do is use manipulative tactics to create the public image they want to project. This is commonly done by provoking the protesters into becoming violent by either planting instigators in the crowd or having riot police act overly aggressive towards them. This strategy often results in minor outbursts of violence or clashes between the rowdier protesters and the police even though most of the protest is peaceful and well behaved. The media however, can usually be counted on to show the violent parts of the protest almost exclusively, or at least can be manipulated to show only those scenes if necessary, so as to portray all of the protesters as being crazy anarchists who deserve what they got. This all makes the government looks calm and reasonable in contrast. Of course, using provocative tactics to smear your opposition instead of letting them have their say is an attack at the core of democracy itself, but a narcissistic government will have no trouble in doing so. The leaders believe themselves to be right and the protesters to be misguided at best or dangerous fanatics at worst and so they can rationalize such tactics as being necessary to save the misinformed majority of protesters from the seductive rants of their fanatical leaders. Furthermore, another common tactic is to take a few choice words or phrases from one of the nuttier protesters and attempt to portray the entire movement as embracing such foolishness. This is the straw man fallacy, but listen to any pundit for a few minutes and you'll think that the country is under attack by an army of straw men. Narcissists see no problem in using logical fallacies in order to support their positions.

And to finish on a darker note, if ruling narcissists refuse to leave power, even as the domain over which they rule crumbles around them, and if other narcissists refuse to give up the fight even though it is obvious that they have lost, it often becomes necessary to use force to remove them from power and prevent them from causing further damage. But there is a danger here, one that is familiar to Christians, that using force to silence a dissenter, especially using excessive force such as nailing the dissenter to a cross, can turn him into a martyr and turn people against those who wielded that force. Though a dissenter can be dangerous when they speak they can be even more dangerous when they are silenced and using force can make a rational person appear to be an unreasonable narcissist who is unfit to rule. This is especially so if rival narcissists are encouraging that perception. But when two opposing forces clash they are often both led by narcissists who have gained power by exploiting the narcissistic tendencies of their followers and thus they both tend to be unreasonable, prone to revenge, and resistant to change except by force. When ideologies become deeply entrenched in an individual or group it is often necessary to imprison or kill them in order to make them stop and when such actions are undertaken they invite similar retaliations as the leaders of the victims portray those violent acts as unjustified aggression and proof of the other side's depravity. This can "radicalize" moderates and motivate them to join the fight, escalating the conflict further. For terrorists and resistance movements, this escalation of retaliation is part of their central strategy and their goal is to draw as many people as they can into a conflict that they hope that they can win. The trick to beating them is not to fall for their game and to act rationally, but for narcissists resisting the urge to strike back is very difficult and they are more likely to launch a massive counterstrike or escalation instead. Thus, a few narcissistic fanatics are sometimes able to drag entire peoples into wars and turn us all into Food for the Gods.