When I saw Putin crying when he won, the only thing I could think of was Sally Fields also crying, and saying “you like me” in her Oscar acceptance speech.
Look at this man, who misses no chance to show the world how wonderful he is. He is in my view a clinical narcissist. He is someone who quite literally lacks the emotional ability to differentiate his own well being from that of the country as a whole. He assumes that what is good for him, what makes him feel good, powerful, whole, must perforce be good for Russia.
This basic dynamic, I increasingly believe, is ubiquitous in our public sphere. Lenin was a narcissist, as were Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot. FDR was, as was Kennedy, and as likely is Bill Clinton, and categorically beyond any possibility of doubt Barack Obama.
Such people seek power because they need attention, or what some psychologists call “narcissistic supply”.
Last night I dreamed of meeting Oprah. She said “glad to meet you”, and I responded “glad to meet you also”. She said “you don’t mean that”, which was true, as I am not a fan, but I responded honestly “that is half true”, but that was not good enough for her, and she showed me the door.
She is not the sort of person who can suffer half acceptance. If you are not fully in the thrall of admiration for her, she doesn’t want you around. She needs to be “loved”–I put it into quotation marks, for the reason that narcissists, lacking a self, are not able to receive or grant actual love–just as does Putin. In Putin’s case, being a man, being feared is sufficient, but I suspect he wants to admired as well for his virtue, good looks, and just general awesomeness he is quite willing to stage manage in order to improve. Does anyone seriously think he just happened to find an ancient urn while scuba diving? Of course not. Many of his photos are probably improved or even created digitally.
Does Putin feel an actual need to improve his nation, or Oprah to improve human lives? Yes, to the extent it makes THEM look good, and gets them more narcissitic supply. People miss the point that you can do actual good works for the wrong reasons. They also miss the point that if actual good works are not the goal, then wide deviations between rhetoric and reality are not just possible, but virtually inevitable.
Leftism is tailor made for narcissists, since it is big on high minded rhetoric, and indifferent to actual outcomes. They don’t care what happens as a result of their policies, since because they are perfect, whatever they do must be perfect, and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar and/or an enemy. Since “the people” chose them, then their enemies are the enemies of the people. If “the people” oppose them, then they obviously oppose them in error, meaning that someone out there–Trotskyites, Capitalist running dogs, the Koch brothers–must have gotten to them and corrupted their minds.
This basic concept, linking narcissism with political aspirations, governing style, and overall worldview, is an interesting one with much potential. I have seen the word megalomania used, but most narcissists do not think big enough for us to want to use that word. It is hard to think of Oprah as a megalomaniac, even if the term is appropriate, but not as someone who is self involved to such a high degree that she manifests ample signs of clinical narcissism.