this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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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.
Bad take, that's fucking dumb and you know it, the common usage of the term relates to the disorder not the mythological character.
we ban calling people a sch*zo here, why shouldn't we ban calling someone a narcissist?
Personality disorders are divergences from normal patterns of thought and behaviour. In plenty of cases, they are caused by physical differences in the brain.
They are definitionally neurodivergance, and become disability when the resulting behaviours impact an individual's ability to function normally in society.
Well, you said that the word narcissist is useful because it helps people identify abusive parents. Which would imply you think there's some connection between being an abuser and having NPD. So the fact that you think a mental disorder is responsible for abuse is an example of that systemic, oppressive otherization that we narcissists experience. I was told by a former friend that I don't deserve to live, because narcissists don't have a shred of humanity. Is that not oppressive otherisation to you?
I agree that it's not desirable to conflate the two in common usage, but I don't really see how that can be done while continuing to use those specific terms.
What constitutes toxic behaviour is culturally subjective. Many people in the first group would have been considered a part of the second not so long ago.
In this case narcissist is being used as a general insult for someone where we have no indication whether she's a narcissist or not.
we don't ban the word because it could have general use for someone who's actually a narcissist in the same way we don't ban the word schizophrenic except when it's used as an insult
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?
The English word "narcissistic" existed long before the diagnosis, just like "Sisyphean" exists without an attached disorder (ODD in another timeliness, maybe).
I find your claim dubious, but in any case, the N word existed in english before it became a slur too. But centuries of racial abuse made it into a slur
Why do you think the N word existed in English as anything but a slur? Narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder are not equal. I'm open to changing terminology if it's doing harm, but I think this one needs to be that the term for NPD should likely change. From what I know (and correct me if I'm wrong please), the common usage of "narcissism" has very little to do with NPD, which was coined later and seems almost derogatory in itself (in effect, grouping those with NPD along with the type of asshole commonly called narcissists)
Edit: I have been convinced that this story I was told was wrong about NPD. There doesn't seem to be a usage of narcissism outside of attempted psychological prescription before 1900 in english, and only first in 1899 in German which caused its use in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger#Etymology_and_history
This says first use in english was 1574, first derogatory use was 1775
The separation of 'derogatory' and 'patronizing' as your link shows is not a difference in it being a slur or not, but a difference in social understanding of the word. It was always a slur
edit: I say this not as a disagreement about the term narcissism, but that it's comparison to the N word seems unfounded to me and not related, maybe even downplaying the relative harm of the N word.
That's an interesting thing. Most people are biased to think that everyone else sees things the same way they do. If Adam says pears are just as tasty as apples, and Bob thinks pears taste like shit, then Bob will jumpt to the conclusion that Adam thinks apples taste bad. Because Bob is incapable of imagining that Adam disagrees with Bob on the taste of pears. Whichever is the more deeply held belief is the one projected onto the one drawing the equation. If I say the N word and the other N word have a single thing in common, then I must be making light of racism, because people believe I must agree with their disdain for narcissists more strongly than they believe I must agree with their progressive views on race. Perhaps because they hold the disdain for narcissists more closely.
I actually do think the racial N word is a whole world more offensive and more serious than the other N word. I was just drawing a single point of similarity: They both have an older, non-bigoted root in another language. And I was just using that single point of similarity to attack a bigot's argument. But it's interesting how most people will turn a single point of similarity into a sweeping statement.
Marxism as a framework already answers many of these questions sufficiently for me by taking the social whole always into account as relativity van ABSOLUTE relativity. That's why I describe it as harm, not as some inherent good or bad outside of the social structure of its use. And I think it's relatively much more harmful to black people to be called the N word than to those with NPD being called the other n word (considering the ways that oppression occurs to such groups being actuele different). That is not an excuse to use the word tho
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.
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?
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?