Photo by Nicole Heffron
This fall, while I was working on a few artist statements for a few different applications, I was concurrently reading up on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I was particularly interested in how Narcissus almost did not make it into the DSM-V. He eventually held on to his spot in the Personality Disorder section, despite all the debate. So proud of you, phenomenal Narcissism! You survived your potential death knell and continue to plague society. Or is it society that plagues the Narcissist? Arguably, this particular “disorder” has socially constructed, rather than biological, roots. In a nutshell, rates are higher in the US than most other countries, and are higher among men than women. These facts are not surprising. Our capitalist, individualist culture fuels narcissistic tendencies, surely. But do our literary and artistic communities need to feed narcissistic tendencies? Or is there room for all sorts of brilliance to shine, equitably?
