SneerClub

I am going to state my well-worn opinion that TLP doesn’t do that, he doesn’t have a particularly good grip on how narcissists think, certainly doesn’t say anything that could productively grapple with narcissism, is a boring asshole, and is shit at his job. But his style is incredibly flattering to the reader’s pessimism. He knows how to tell you you’re getting the good shit nobody else will give you - it’s just that it isn’t particularly good shit.

Check out Section III of your classic.

What have you learned so far? Do you think you've understood?

You heard the story, you heard the words, but your mind unheard it and replaced it with something else. Even after I tell you this, you'll have trouble remembering it.

You think Narcissus was so in love with himself that he couldn't love anyone else. But that's not what happened, the story clearly tells it in the reverse: he never loved anyone and then he fell in love with himself. Do you see? Because he never loved anyone, he fell in love with himself. That was Narcissus's punishment.

You thought Narcissus rejected all those people because he was in love with himself, but he rejected them all before he loved himself. Loved himself? Do you think Narcissus rejected them because he thought he was better than them? Or better looking? How would he have known he was so beautiful? He didn't even recognize his own reflection! He rejected all those people because they loved him.

What does he do with that passage? It’s a numbered section so it must be important! He bullies you. Or rather, he bullies somebody. But of course, you DID read sections I and II. So you know that in the last sentence of Section II he’s cleverly turned the tables on the traditional interpretation of the story, a point he goes on to reiterate at the end of this Section III. But he’s planted in your mind one of two ideas, depending on what kind of reader you are (a) if you’re a pliable reader, you might question whether you REALLY got it without being told a second time, (b) if you’re a little more self-confident, now it occurs to you that there IS another kind of reader - not nearly as careful as you are - to whom Section III DOES apply.

What effect does this have? Primarily, it’s giving you the idea that TLP is the smart one in the room. The straight talker who keeps people on their toes and makes them pay attention.

But what’s true in his reversal isn’t actually that clever, it’s actually just this:

if no one ever seems right for you, and then the one person who does seem right doesn't want you, then the problem isn't the person, the problem is you

Now if I had told you this banal truism in that one sentence, and then added to it the heavy implication that you - and everybody else you know - is a pitiable narcissist who needs to read a lot more blog posts to get well, you might be tempted to say I was (a) an arsehole, (b) going a bit overboard with the narcissism thing.

You might not be tempted to read the other 7 or 8 sections of my post.

This stuff has real consequences. TLP’s particular view puts such banal truisms on a foundation of reactionary masculinism and pessimism. You are fallen, and you - you pitiable narcissist - need to be SHAKED BY THE THROAT to cure you of your narcissism. Well I am here to tell you that that’s wrong. Perhaps it works for this person or other, or they THINK it works for them because it flatters their own aspiraingly muscular pessimism, but by and large it doesn’t. By and large, what works for people is communication, community, and connection.

And he makes it sound, if you really twist it apart, like that’s what he’s telling you works. But he isn’t! He’s telling you to eat what you’re given and forget entirely about what you thought you wanted.

He is RIGHT that nothing is never not about us. But that doesn’t make us narcissists. That sets up an implied standard that he doesn’t state outright because it’s ludicrous: in order to not be a narcissist, on this view, you would have to never consider yourself in your own choices. Those choices, by the way, which are the only choices in the universe over which you have any control! It’s funny that we’re doing this in a thread about slave morality, because I would hazard that at the root of TLP’s pessimism (re: narcissism) is the impossibly high standard for self-sacrifice set by Christianity - a standard I have personally seen bring many people to their knees (and that is, of course, another criticism of TLP: to take him at his word is to learn how to punish yourself into oblivion).

If it helps you on your way to those things to be bullied now and again, fine, and I’ve certainly seen that work on a temporary basis, but TLP’s panacea stops at the surface and takes no interest in the deeper person. Of course it does, he’s doing a Hunter Thompson bit!

I'll be honest, Scott never gave me hives like a peremptory psychoanalytic reading of myths can.

I missed that(or have forgotten it already, a think which happens a lot with me re Yglesias. I have him mentally tagged as vague shithead, but never can recall why (and am aware this could be wrong)), tried a google search and couldn't find anything, what is the story?

good writer

I reject the implication that Slatescott is a good writer.

ideological overlap

Oh they absolutely are both infuriatingly coy reactionaries.

Here's for instance a million words by TLP, and they all say "i hate women".

I might actually hate TLP so much more, because he's more seductive, better at that typical nietzschean flattery of the reader, and for some reason even people here tend to view him more positively.

If someone is talking in parables it’s a red flag for me dawg.

But that’s just the thing! Nietzche’s fundamental innovation is to view all of these things: morality, politics, economics, indeed any kind of social or philosophical question through an incredibly narrowly psychological lens. It’s his obsessive persistence in this, and his excessive sensitivity to the deep irrationality in human nature (I hesitate to go with many people in saying “brilliance”, because what’s “brilliance”?), which makes him such a powerful critic of Western culture. For Nietzsche, the entire history of the world is nothing more than the history of individual sick people working out their issues, and generally doing badly.

But Siskind doesn’t have any of that, because he can only think in terms of a shallow combination of overcoming bias and his own unexamined prejudices. Siskind’s problem is that he doesn’t even view the psychological psychologically.