It's hard to imagine a more contrasting pair of psych experts than Sam Vaknin and Richard Grannon. But you don't have to -- they exist and they collaborate. Last night I watched a shared YouTube essay called "The Toxicity of Social Media," which was filmed at least partly in some quite grand and historic city I could not identify The point was to figure out the impact of social media (the "platforms" called Facebook, Twitter, and so on) where it came from, the damage it does, why and how, and what to do next. The two men agree until the end when personality intervenes. Vaknin wants authoritarian regulation from within the platforms, like shutting a viewer off after a certain amount of time or at least charging a fee for viewing. Grannon takes the independent and self-reliance point of view one would expect from an Aussie.
But there's the basic agreement, which comes out of the idea of psych as literature, mirroring and making metaphors out of the culture. The diagnosis is that we have lost our sense of history and place -- we have a loss of direction. Social media is not a cause, but a symptom, yet it exacerbates the condition. These two men are experts focused on narcissism. Vaknin is describing it as a result of a culture that demands each of us stand out, but because identity emerges from interaction with other people and social media cuts us off from this interaction, we are terrified of being dispersed, annihilated. So we claim a "part for the whole," such as sexism, racism, and other alliances with groups that supply an identity.
Vaknin refers to the formation of identity as a child and how our identity from that time both protects and reassures us. But we forget how to handle human interactions if all we do is post quips and arguments. In fact, our self-regulation as bodies comes from being with others, but shuts down in front of a glass screen. For a while about 2007, he argues, there were studies about this, but they ceased when the biggest donors to Academia were social media.
Grannon, with his base in the martial arts, sees this idea of presentation and belligerance as the old fashioned Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest. He doesn't mention gladiator competitions in the Coliseum but he means something similar. He notes that there are so many people, all demanding to hold the gaze of the crowd, that it's almost a form of cannibalism, because it is a zero sum game and based on the lowest values of the watchers, brutal, abandoning, lonely, never in this moment but always in the past or future. He says he is frightened. (His kind of martial arts are Asian, based on restraint and elegance. Their goal is peace.)
Narcisssism to these guys is therefore a metaphor for our whole society, as all the Identified and defined APA theories of psych disfuncation are, which is why they change all the time. Vakinin is quite eloquent about narcissism failing and then failed narcissism becoming borderline disorder which is worse. Grannon feels fascism is another response to an emergency, a state of war, and provable with "human fucking history."
Vaknin recommends narrative and feels the usage method of social media is the problem --not so much the content. He talks about the "stickiness" of the "like" button and how it is a kind of conditioning that makes you think you're actually communicating. He notes that the human mind wants stories and makes them even from bits and glimpses, so this is a sign of hope.
Here is a cutting point: social media was invented by teenagers, who didn't really understand what they were doing bit accidentally stumbled onto something that made them so much money that they are terrified of reform or any change at all, because the whole thing might collapse. They have no experience, no broad education. Their users are also loners, misfits, people lurking alone programming repetitive games. If challenged, they are fierce, have no restraint. High school teachers know the type very well.
Grannon identifies them with Cluster B characteristics. "Cluster B personality disorders are characterized by dramatic, overly emotional or unpredictable thinking or behavior. They include antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder." ( Mayo Clinic) He speaks of it as releasing the monsters of the unconscious human mind.
I have two responses to that. One is today's phenomenon of the gun owners demonstration in Virginia in which late middle-aged men with big bellies, red faces, and evidently enough discretionary income to afford a hundred pounds of military equipment including assault rifles, are filling the streets. The police are nowhere to be seen. If these bozos really understood, they would realize that if they don't shoot each other by mistake, there are police armored tanks waiting until their water hoses, unbearable sounds, and tear gas are justified. I saw no gas masks dangling from belts. For every bug there is a bigger bug, until we get to predator drones.
But I have another paradigm to explore. in the UU congregations there were people who loved to demonstrate to activate their identity and therefore identification with various people. But there were also alot of people who explored the issue of identity through reading: both fiction (esp among the women) and history. The two men agreed that there are two potent kinds of identity, one being narcissism or first person stories, and the other -- often demonstrated in social media -- which is the narcissist's victim. This SM, big/little, oppressive white man/oppressed black man, abusive husband/abused wife, overwhelming patriarch/crippled children is a dependable identity dyad through time. It prevents reconciliation or even conversation.
Book after book is based on this pattern. It is a strong precursor for social media and a pattern followed in the stories told there. What Vaknin and Grannon are beginning to explore is how to get beyond that formula to a new vision. But it's early days.
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