Thank you for this. Great insights as always. Viewing narcissists as jumping from infantile to geriatric seems quite useful for looking at the hollow illusion of control they exert over others (and themselves). It’s truly laughable at times, their complete disconnection from reality and the lack of substance in their claims of superiority. Thinking of them as not inherently evil further breaks down the power western society gives them, so thank you for sharing that idea. There is so much illusion all around, I guess it’s no surprise people are drawn to illusion personified. It seems cultural westerners (the non-narcissist ones) also dabble in learned narcissistic behavior to use as a substitute for/armor against the painful process of self-knowledge, growth, and empowerment...Sigh...here’s to another day tumbling around the human condition, bumps, bruises and all. Thank you for continuing to share your thoughts. I’ve been watching your videos for some time now and love hearing you work out your ideas. A philosopher at work! :) Greetings from Boston

This is fascinating, Frances: but I question if this state is entirely one that people enter into passively. I'm introducing one of my bugbears here, but I'm not proffering it as counter to your observations: Rather, I'm interested in hearing your opinion of it.

My argument starts with commercialism and the need for commodity producers to target their wares at demographics harbouring the greatest share of expendable cash. In many, many cases this will mean marketing toward (what I think used to be called) the mid-age bracket: the demographic comprised of people who are old enough to earn but haven't yet settled down to raise families. My assertion would be that this over-saturation of advertising and marketing campaigns targeting this demographic has created an artificially inflated sense of this demographic's worth. The result (it seems to me) is that people now aspire to remain in this demographic, and to enjoy the pandering effects of the exaggerated sense of their importance there, to the point of having developed aversions to those activities (maturation) that would traditionally have lead to them leaving it. The impact of this can be seen in the devaluing of family values, wayward fathers, the phenomena of the man-child, body dysmorphia, age anxieties, and on and on...

I know you say that people conform, but to what extent do you think marketing (as I describe it above) encourages this? And if my argument has validity, does it go any way to making the act of conformity less passive than you describe it? Can people be forgiven for wanting to remain in the demographic that prevalent media suggests is most valued?

(I used the word 'demographic' a lot there, I hope you know what I'm trying to explain).