What is not much known is that projection is correlated to another psychological dynamic, which could be called, "discrediting." It makes sense that when a person projects upon another, then the first person is ignoring real, true, good information about that other person in the process. At least in higher cognition. Nevertheless, that information does creep in, with reality, like the subtle cues during hypnosis.
Or - think of the auditory schizophrenic. It has been shown that, while this person experiences auditory hallucinations, he or she is simultaneously moving his or her mouth, forming and even producing words. This person mistakes the words generated as not coming from self, but as coming from outside.
The projecting person does the same thing, in reverse. While denying the true information of the subject, cognitively, the projector actually assumes that that information is not issuing from outside, the other, but from self. So, while cognitively discrediting the other person, the projector actually takes credit for the information the other person generates.
So, they can be parasites on the more creative person, as they project their anti-creative views on to him or her, hating and blaming, while simultaneously gaining the ego boost of believing that they are being very creative and insightful, when what they are actually doing is stealing. While they discredit, they are taking credit. So, the process of projection usually also involves this process of ego-boosting denial at the same time. Seeing the two processes as related explains a lot of things!
For example, it helps explain why narcopaths are so low or empty when it comes to empathy and the ability to really connect intimately, while at the same time are addicted to 'empowering' themselves by feeding off of the energy, etc., of others. Or why they must lie and manipulate others to their purposes, or even controlling for its own sake, so conforming others to their rigid projections. It is a problem and bias of information processing, driven by the emotional, childlike, limbic areas of the brain. As I have said many times, these people remain in their childhood brains and resentments, and so on, and use their adult higher brains to facilitate those more emotional urges and illogics.
This is different to how normal people develop. Most children use their developing higher brains to explore new possibility for growth, or figuring things out, or amending or correcting what they once assumed was true, like the belief in Santa Claus. This is the healthy and necessary process of weaning oneself from the narcissism with which one begins life, like the assumptions that one is at one with the universe, or with mother, or with family, and so on. That whatever the baby's brain wants, it must get.
As children become adults, they use their higher brains to subdue their ids, and learn how to fit in with society and with reality. They don't use their higher brains to, e.g., perpetuate and utilise resentments against the sibling who told them that Santa Claus does not exist, and so on. I am thinking Stewie Griffith.
Psychopaths, on the other hand, are people who play out the crap of yesteryear, by finding new ways to control or to kill other people, complete strangers, who are proxies of people they hated in the past. Projections. They use their higher brains to legitimise and manifest the destructive designs of their more base lower brains. And they believe that the Machiavellian logics so constructed in their higher brains is clearly how the rest of the world works. And so they are dumbfounded when they meet people, innocent people, who do not think in the same way. Instead, they become bored and abusive of these people. And feed upon them.
"So hateful of anyone who is happy or free." - George Harrison.
And, just a note: If someone is referring back to the earlier, baby brain in order to deal with the here and now? Wouldn't that involve some degree of dysfunction in the cognitive-emotive, (and observational-creative), processing of Time (aka space) itself? Stay tuned...
I have noticed that, in many, though not all, cases, known psychopaths display smaller skulls than normal, especially at the forehead. Roughly, this area slopes from the brow-ridge straight to the rear cranium. This observation is in line with the idea that such people are relying more on their more limbic, emotional brain, and that there is some kind of dysfunction going on in the higher brain, especially the frontal, “planning”, lobe, in regards to regulating lower impulses. Such people may or may not be genetic throwbacks to our more primitive, animal existence. However, they could be considered, in either case, to be analogous, functionally. There can be many reasons why there may be problems with brain development.
However, by no means do all psychopaths or narcissists carry this characteristic. This is because these psychological conditions are not usually genetic, but are instead psycho-sociological. Indeed, some of the most successful narcopaths may have very large brains. A more developed higher brain can serve purposes of rationalising the urges of the lower brain more successfully than would some poor fool who had a smaller higher brain. More importantly than genetics, past psychological trauma or upbringing is what usually is correlated to how well a child might develop into adulthood, and whether that person might vear in the direction of psychopathy, rather than taking the normal course of weaning himself or herself from childish narcissism.
There are other ways that narcissism, and so psychopathy, can arise, aside from genetic or childhood trauma/parenting. One way is intoxication, whether that be permanently from mercury, or temporarilly from alcohol, or so on. Another way is brain inflammation, as from a toxin, an illness, a chronic health problem, or an injury. And, finally, to wit, narcissism can emerge in society in correlation to such changes as increased wealth, new and easier technologies, increased communication, increased urban density and stress, changes in social mythologies or mores, the threat of war, and so on.
In family dynamics, it is very common that the presence of one or more narcissists (or psychopaths) in a family will actually force the development of narcissism in other members of the family, as a defensive, coping response. A way of preserving a sense of meaningful self. And so it goes in cults, and so on. Masses of people can fall into cult (or mob) psychology, attaching their identities to the external, projected values and idols of a society turning to fascism, and the like. That’s whole lot of flying monkeys.
Societal conditions can encourage the growth of narcissism, such as when cunning narcissistic behaviour is not frowned upon. Or when great wealth or ease fosters irresponsibility, and success is attributed mostly to personality rather than to fortune or grace.
Narcissism can also be encouraged through continuous disappointment of one's own expectations, sometimes as a result in believing false promises.
The ways and mannerisms of narcissism, and sadism, can be passed down through generations. (This learnt or behavioural narcissism would in fact encourage true narcissism in society, in the same way that physical motion can itself teach mastery of some task. Similarly, a child will learn to abuse animals by observing a sadistic adult, and then go on to enjoy abusing animals for its own sake). It would be harder for someone so inheritting to change their behavioural narcissism than it would be for someone who acquired more cognitive narcissism on one’s own, or after childhood. And I think we are seeing this today.
In a narcissistic society, a wealth of projections by so many selfish idiots, all missing essential information, results in a cognitive atomisation of members of that society, where the focus moves from individual capacitation to the competition for power. This is where the rise of objectification and dehumanisation comes from, as a society becomes more fascistic, or such. But, more on that later, hopefully. See also, “value distention…” I forgot my name for it...
Back to the information processing problem… Which is a higher brain problem based on two things, mainly: Inappropriate emotional driver, which we could just call the, “emotivators,” and superstition, probably derived form paradoxical learning of the past, (see my tags).
When I say, “superstition,” I don’t mean black cats or religion, or etc. I am referring to inappropriate learning. The word, “superstition,” is derived from, (a state or act of being), “above or beyond the point.” This is a useful tool in thinking about superstitious learning. Just imagine someone with, say, a dart, shooting for a bullseye target. Someone who shoots below the centre or above the center, etc., would normal see the mistake and so correct his or her throw next time. Not the superstitious person. The superstitious person may never see the mistake, and so will keep shooting too high, too low, etc. Because that person has learnt that shooting off the mark is shooting on the mark.
In other words, a superstitious person somehow learns that doing A, which is totally unrelated to B, will somehow influence B. They don’t think straight. They think in incorrect associations. If only they perform some bizarre ritual or chant, then this will magically bring back their lost lover, or whatever. If they don’t walk under ladders, don’t step on cracks, and all that stuff. But, also, if they expect – project – one thing of another, then somehow this will magically make that other person comply. And if that person does not comply? Rage!
Why rage? Because all of this superstition has been manufactured by broken emotions, or trauma, etc. The narcissist is still emotionally expecting that reality will magically conform to his or her will and, if it doesn’t, then his or her very essence has been called into question and threatened. Since, after all, that person’s aim was true, right? He or she tried so hard, cared so much, put in so much effort. But, we shall see that this emotional attitude, (from the limbic brain), creates more and more chaos and strain, digging holes deeper and deeper, costing more and more, since it is adamantly contradictory to reality, and it insists, more and more, on remaining so. We are back to entropy, again, aren’t we?
A really useful concept I learnt once, while studying outside of college, probably reading some journal of psychology, and which is now roundly accepted, is that depressive and manic people process information differently. The depressive tends to interpret info with via negative emotivator, concluding the worst, attributing negative connotations to his or her own failure as a person, or his or her doomed future, etc.
Oppositely, the manic person interprets info via a positive (rose-coloured) emotivator, concluding too great success, attributing it to his or own amazing abilities, or manifest destiny, or etc. Both types are off the mark, and superstitious. And this can be a roller coaster for the bipolar person who alternately comes to the huge revelation that he or she has been shooting too low, and then shooting too low, etc., etc. They don’t easilly clear up the problem because there is a disturbed emotivator at the root of it.
Emotional mistakes make cognitive mistakes, because information is irrelevant unless it has some connexion to the emotions of the individual, or, “observer.” From poorly functional emotions comes actual mistakes in practical reality, including the failure to learn how to keep making the same mistakes, over and over again, in reality.
In mania, the person is emotionally certain that he or he Is hitting the mark, when this is not so true in reality. This person is more superstitious to the depressive person, hitting below the mark, who actually has a more realistic view of things. There are two reasons for this: 1 – The manic person is caught in a reward-addiction, and, 2 – Humans generally have less impact on reality than they think in the first place, since they tend to be biased from the start. The depressive tends to see cold stark reality for what it is. And this is not good, if one wants to make babies and evolve the species, right?
It is a matter of degree. As far as practicality goes, the manic shoots too high, (or past the mark); while the depressive shoots too low, (or too shy of the mark). Entropic reality is actually slightly blow the mark, while our natural bias as a species is slightly above the mark.
[Note: We can take this into physics. But just remember this point for later. The same thing happens with observation itself. Which, as it proceeds, actually creates time, or reality. But, some observation, (or measurement), can be too myopic, and some can be too far-sighted. Light can be blue or it can be red. This is how time is made].
Now, back to narcissists, and their more demonic form, psychopaths. Narcopaths are similar to manics in the way they interpret, or even make, information. They are also addicted to shooting above, or past, the mark, yet believing themselves to be on-the-mark, each and every time. They are similarly pushed by a dysfunctional emotivator. So, they are irrational and superstitious, yet on a mission to convince other people that they are always right. Perhaps the only difference between narcopaths and manics is that the former employs manipulative and deceitful tactics, using others to help them get what they want. At the moment, I cannot think of any other distinction. Except that narcopaths are seldom if ever bipolar.
However, narcopaths can be said to be plagued by internal dissonance or distress, or the feeling of being depressed and/or anxious inside. Even, perhaps, bipolar, at the beginning. But, their whole purpose is to deny and burn off this internal noise, which is ultimately a costly and spiritually losing game. Internal self-doubt is always externalised, projected as blame onto the other person, legitimising the lying and cheating and so forth. The assumption that one is always right – always amazing and of good intent – becomes more and more insistent, even if the appearance of this righteousness requires lots of wrongfulness here and there, to keep it up. So long as it looks right, then it is right, and the Machiavellian delusion prevails. There can be no sin in the win, win, win.
So, you can see how shooting off the mark, and maintaining complete denial be externalising and manipulating and blaming, becomes a self-fueling cycle. It usually is, after all, the logical continuation of paradoxical learning, begun during childhood. It’s a psychological tautology. Burning witches proves that they were witches…
I have looked into how ideas pop into our heads, and out our mouths. Some are created deliberately, studiously, attentively, openly, graciously. Or, some can from the most vague of places. Imagine you are writing a post, or maybe you are talking on the phone, and, in the background, the TV is on. But you aren’t really watching or listening to the TV. It’s so far off in the periphery that it isn’t even registering in your mind. But, as you produce your words, you suddenly say something cute, just out of nowhere – but wait. It actually came from a TV commercial that had been playing. You didn’t even hear it. But it went into your head and came out as something that you alone had created. Plagiarist!
This happens to everyone, all the time. We somehow select information from the periphery of attention, which we are not even conscious is there, and use it as part of our own thought, however it fits. Marketers know how to use this phenomenon, and will put out subliminal cues in their ads, which indeed compel inattentive consumers to go out and buy things, seemingly of their own emotivation. It’s the same thing as happens in hypnosis and in dreams. Nothing wrong with dreams! Probably the best and safest way to travel! So rejuvenating!
But, for some people – the projectors and deniers – their attention is so narrow, and their periphery is so wide, that they just gobble up information from everywhere, and claim it as their own. It is an extreme perversion of a natural phenomenon. This tunnel-vision – a kind of distortion of the experience of time and space – proceeds from manic, superstitious and/or paradoxical thinking, and narrows with the “addiction” described above. (The dynamics are not unrelated to the physics of observation and time itself). The more the projector focuses on, eg., blame, then the more he or she denies, and the more he or he takes in information for which he or she takes credit.
(The emotion-driven tunnel-vision is directly related to how the brain processes information under the stress of limbic, autonomic and adrenal excitation).
Projecting, discrediting and a kind of spiritual usurpation. We have seen this sort of abuse come from so many tyrannical elites in history, (so leading to the Declaration of Independence, etc.), and we continue to see it in the economics of geopolitics today, in a state-to-state process I call, “expendency.”
In normal people, attention will grab information that seems to be free, and incorporate it into the thought, logic and timeline of regular attention. With narcissistic people, compelled by deep insecurity and denial, they grab at information, and even property and rights, which clearly belong to other people. But, narcopaths feel so entitled that they just assume that that information is free for the taking, as those people are just morons anyway. And, the narcissist is right, no matter what. Well, woe. Once a person thinks like this? There’s no end to it. It’s a free-for-all. You could even dominate the world!
So, as it is with information, seemingly floating around freely, out there, so it is with free and happy people. Narcissists flock to these people, whom they do not comprehend, and whom they envy with great relish and distress. Innocent people, to them, are like whores they must take and then dispose of immediately afterwards, and, isn’t that just how psychopaths get, eventually? The narcopath is attracted to free, innocent, creative people because they thrive on using them. They incorporate them so that they can feel more powerful – if not more free or happy. Really, it is like needing to destroy the thing you love, so that you can ultimate deny love, deny innocence, deny happiness to others – since it doesn’t exist in you. Parasites, they are. The people of the lie.
More later...
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