Throughout
history there has been a belief in the ability of man to reach his humanistic potential.
Today, there are others that favor a nationalistic ideology. This essay contrasts
these two ideologies with religious examples. I shall not address the why, the
how or the dynamics underlying the forming of these narcissistic religious
groups.
We know that
the young are first faced with uncertainty, anxiety, dependence, and require
sustenance, a protector for survival. We also know the importance of narcissism
in the development of man. Man has a great capacity and drive for survival. He
realized that a union with another, as in two heads are better than one, were to
his advantage. Man further realized that becoming part of a group, group
narcissism, increased and bettered his chances for engaging in the world.
Let’s begin
our story by taking a snapshot at a few of the religions of the world. The
Hebrew Scriptures, prophets and kings like Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Joshua,
Samuel, David, and Saul go back over 5,000 years. According to Moses, God
identified, in the 10 Commandments, a number of inappropriate behaviors between
man and man: honor thy father and thy mother; thou shall not take the name of
the Lord thy God in vain; thou shall not kill; thou shall not commit adultery; thou
shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor; thou shall not covet
[neighbor’s house, neighbor’s wife, slaves, or anything else] and thou shall
not steal. Clearly, these are sadistic behaviors. It wasn’t until the Exodus, when
these slaves wandered in the desert for 40 years, believed in the Lord and
became his chosen people. This resulted in the 10 commandments forming the
basis of Jewish law or right and wrong. Not only that, these Hebrew slaves
became one. They belonged to a special group of Homo sapiens and are referred
to as Jews and group narcissism.
Roughly 2,000
years ago there was a Jewish prophet, preacher, leader called Jesus of
Nazareth. Jesus was a Galilean Jew, was baptized, began his own ministry and
was called Rabbi. He debated other Jews about God, engaged in healings, taught
in parables and gathered followers. He was arrested, tried, and turned over to
Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. After his death, his followers believed that
he rose from the dead, and Christianity followed. Now, we have another group of
Homo sapiens called Christians and group narcissism.
In Islam,
Jesus was considered one of God’s important prophets and a Messiah. They
believed Jesus was born a virgin, but was neither God nor a begotten God. They
stated that Jesus never claimed divinity and they don’t believe he was killed
or crucified .They believed that he was physically raised into heaven by God.
In Islam, there are Sunni, Shia, and a number of other narcissistic groups
within that religion.
Judaism does
not believe that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, neither fulfilled Messianic
prophecies, nor was he divine or resurrected. In Judaism, there are three main
narcissistic groups, the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.
In the 15th
and 16th century there was a rebellious, anti-Semite,
sadomasochistic German professor of theology named Martin Luther. He was
excommunicated by Pope Leo X and condemned by the Holy Roman Emperor. An angry,
hateful temper driven Luther called for the death of the Jews and burnings of
their synagogues. His anger and hatred was also directed toward Roman
Catholics, Anabaptists, nontrinitarian Christians and sometimes at God. He was
extremely superstitious and had a strong belief in spirits and the devil.
Luther
taught that salvation and consequently external life are not earned by good deeds,
but are received only as a gift of God’s grace through the believer’s faith in
Jesus Christ as Redeemer. He challenged the authority of the Pope by teaching
that the Bible was the only source of divinely revealed knowledge. He opposed
sacerdotalism and considered all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. His
narcissistic group are called Lutherans and he was instrumental in the
Protestant Reformation. Today, about one third of Christians are Protestants.
A short
deviation pertaining to Luther follows. There is a controversy as to whether or
not Luther, the priest, at the age of 23 in 1507, while celebrating his first
mass, had a “fit in the choir.” Was Luther mentally ill, possessed by demons or
both when he fell to the ground in the choir of the monastery and roared with
the voice of a bull “it isn’t me or I am not” depending upon the German or
Latin translation. Early biographers have different interpretations of this
event.
More
recently, Erikson, a clinician, was unable to give a clear diagnosis regarding
that behavior. Erikson believed that Luther was undergoing an identity crisis at
the time. It was known that Luther‘s father was a miner. Luther’s parents were
rigid, hard, thrifty, and superstitious and both caned their boy. Luther’s
school years were monotonous, cruel and exploitive. Needless to say this resulted
in making this child fearful for life. Luther was troubled, defiant and
stubborn. This factored in his conflict with his identity. Should Luther show
obedience to his father {and become a jurist} or obedience to the Father in
heaven? First, Luther had to endure
melancholy, depression and/or psychosis in silence and meditation for the next
10 years in that monastery, until 1507. Perhaps, he recovered, perhaps not. In any event, the rebel, reformer and
spiritual dictator nailed 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg.
Born in 1509
was the French theologian John Calvin. Within Calvin’s theology, are the
doctrines of predestination, absolute sovereignty of God’s salvation, the human
soul, and death or eternal damnation? He was a reformer during the Protestant
Reformation and influenced many congregations .Calvin broke formally from Roman
Catholic Church around 1530. Now, we have another religious narcissistic group.
We have a
lot of religious groupings and it’s safe to say, that belonging to a religious
group is an example of group narcissism. All these groups say that there is one
God. From there, there are differences per each group and each group clings to a
belief that they have the true or only answer. Not only that, but they are
right, true believers and anyone having a different opinion are not as
righteous. In fact, there have been numerous sadistic and hateful battles and killings
between the groups.
The hate
propaganda states that “Jews are killers of Christ” so they are the enemy.
English kings went to the holy land to fight and kill the infidels numerous
times. Shia and Sunni seem to have little difficulty murdering each other. Do
not forget the 30 years’ war from 1618 to 1648 when the Protestants and
Catholics battled in response to the election of Pope Ferdinand 11. 8 million
deaths, hunger, disease and the devastation of entire regions followed.
The European
wars of Christian religions were waged in Europe during the 16, 17 and early 18th
centuries. These wars essentially disrupted the religious and political
dominance of Catholic countries in Europe. Much later battles between the
Ireland Catholics and the Great Britain surfaced. This also resulted in many
civilian casualties. Thus, we have a
number of narcissistic groups.
I purposely used only a few religious groups
because they provided numerous concrete and historical examples for division,
hatred and the significant problem as in” my group is better than your group,” It
can also be argued that these wars were the result of revenge, power, accumulation
of money, acquiring geographical space, destroying the world of Islam,
challenging medieval learning by the philosophical and scientific ideas of
Arabic thinkers and political control. These explanations or reasons do not
seem to be divinely inspired nor for moral and ethical purposes. It goes back
to man versus man under the umbrella of religion but not the religious
teachings of humanism.
We have
humanistic teachings of “love thy neighbor” and “love thine enemy.” However,
during those times and in the times of Socrates and St. Augustine, the world, as
known by man, was very limited. Years, later from the 19th century
on, the existentialists Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre and
others extended those ideas and emphasized man fully developing. This meant a
more humanistic man, with man relating to man very differently than
historically. Humanism is diametrically opposed to narcissistic groups.
In fact, you
may be surprised by the writings of the German philosopher, economist,
historian, sociologist, political theorist, and socialist revolutionary Karl
Heinrich Marx. In collaboration with Frederick Engels, their writings can be
found in the reading room of the British Museum.
Marx has
been discredited by propaganda perpetuated by the United States by falsely
accusing him of being the creator of the economic policies of Russian and Chinese
socialism. So far from the truth. Marx was true humanist and believed that
one’s personality is highly influenced by the economic and social conditions in
which one must live, and not with ideas and slogans. His ideas were to liberate
man from the pressure of his economic needs so he could become fully human. In
other words, he was concerned with the emancipation of man’s individualism by
overcoming his alienation because of the monotony of his work. Then, he would
be able to restore his capacity. By doing so, man could relate to himself fully,
to fellow man and to nature. Man had to have more control over production. Marx
was opposed to an economic system based on materialistic practice, the greedy desire
for money, maximum profit, material gain and property. He didn’t believe that the
absence of private property was inhuman nor bad. He believed that man makes his
own history and he should be his own creator.
There were
Communities of Work programs based on a communitarian movement that took place
in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland. Founded by Marcel Barbu, who owned
a watch case factory. Briefly, he hired atheists, Catholics, Protestants,
materialists, humanists and Communists and they all worked together, found
common cause and created an ethical
code: thou will love thy neighbor; thou shall not kill; thou shall not take thy
neighbor’s goods; thou shall not lie; thou will be faithful to thy promise; thou
shall earn bread by the sweat of thy
brow; thou shall respect thy neighbor, his person, his liberty; thou shall
respect thyself; thou shall fight first against thyself, all vices which debase
man, all the passions which hold man in slavery and are detrimental to a social
life; pride, avarice, lust, covetousness, gluttony, anger, and laziness; thou
shall hold that there are goods higher than life itself: liberty, human
dignity, truth, justice etc.
These men
vowed to treat self and each other their best every day. The group also wanted
to educate themselves. Within three months, their productivity grew so much
that they saved nine hours in a 48 hour work week. They now had nine hours to use
for education. They were paid for the full 48 hours. They took courses in
engineering, physics, literature, Marxism, Christianity, dancing, singing and
basketball.
The
following principles on which the Communities of Work are based: 1. In order to
live a man’s life, one has to enjoy the whole fruit of one’s labor 2. One has
to be able to educate oneself 3. One has to pursue a common endeavor within a
professional group proportioned to the stature of man-100 families maximum 4.
One has to be actively related to the whole world.
Following this humanistic practice, psychologists
like Gordon Allport, Kurt Goldstein, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow,
Martin Seligman wrote about man’s ability to self-actualize. They saw this as
being very important for man. It’s important for man to become a human being .Only
then is he able to function fully, constructively so he can become trustworthy.
Man has to be free from defensiveness, open to experience, have the ability to
socialize, communicate with others in order to develop new heights of happiness
and achievement.
Abraham
Maslow researched a variety of individuals and was able to theorize about
humanistic psychology. Some of his subjects were alive and some were not alive.
In his theory he came up with 15 characteristics that described an individual
that reached self-actualization. This didn’t mean that they were perfect. They
could be ruthless, alienate others, and detached. A brief overview of a few of
their characteristics are as follows: 1. They tolerated uncertainty and
ambiguity more easily than others. As a result, they lived closer to reality
and to nature 2. They were especially spontaneous in their thoughts, other
covert tendencies, and unconventionality 3. They were not ego centered, but are
oriented to problems outside themselves, important problems to which they are
devoted as in a mission in life 4. They derived ecstasy, inspiration and
strength from the basic experiences of life 5. They experienced identification,
sympathy and affection for mankind 6. They respected people, learned from them,
and related to them, irrespective birth, race, blood, family etc. 7. They tended
to be philosophical and non-hostile in their humor.
Moses,
Jesus, Mohammed and other prophets gave humanistic messages to their followers
and thus individual narcissism was transferred to group narcissism. However,
the Roman Caesars, Popes, English and French Kings, Queen Isabella and her
Inquisition, Protestant Reformation figures and others with their slick
marketing, power, and narcissistic styles had no difficulty converting the
masses or group narcissism to their whims. It was like sheep following the
wolves. It was not about rationality, objectivity, and reason, it was about
having the” love “and protection from powerful father figures. When this happened,
the likelihood of my group is supreme, the best, the most religious and the
only one to follow occurred. This resulted in prejudice, hate and sadistic
destruction of others.
Unfortunately,
the behavior of the masses do not follow the modeling of Moses, Jesus and
Mohammed. The devil and group narcissism continues to be a major threat to
humanism. However, there is hope as Einstein said “Imagination is more
important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination
embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” I don’t know if this quote influenced John
Lennon and Paul McCartney for their classic “Imagine.” “Imagine there is no heaven it’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no
religion too Imagine all the people living in peace, you
You may say
I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only
one I hope some day you’ll join us And the world will be as one
Imagine no
possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing all the world,
you
You may say
I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only
one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one.
References
Erikson,
Erik H. Young Man Luther A Study in Psychoanalysis and History .WWW Norton and
Company Incorporated.
Fromm, Erich.
The Sane Society. Fawett Publications Incorporated.
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