{"id":3560,"date":"2011-03-05T10:32:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T10:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/03\/an-author-embraces-the-ultimate-in-narcissism.html"},"modified":"2011-03-05T10:32:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T10:32:00","slug":"an-author-embraces-the-ultimate-in-narcissism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/03\/an-author-embraces-the-ultimate-in-narcissism.html","title":{"rendered":"An author embraces the ultimate in narcissism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

And a media outlet goes gaga<\/a>.\u00a0 Not surprising.\u00a0 The dangling carrot of our dying civilization, the thing that keeps people pressing on toward the ethics of our inevitable doom, is the promise that by focusing exclusively on ourselves we will find ultimate meaning in life.\u00a0 That our meaning is defined by us focusing on us to the exclusions of all those not-us people in the world.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s an intoxicating proposition that has been around for ages.\u00a0 To think I am the single most important person in the world second to none is appealing to say the least.\u00a0 Now don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 What Rahna Reiko Rizzuto did is up to her.\u00a0 I personally find it indicative of the worst, most sickeningly cancerous thinking in our modern world.\u00a0 But what gets me is the piece itself.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that the writer of the Shine article is gushing over her decision to divorce her husband and abandon her kids so she can spend a life completely focused on herself.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a woman who decided she doesn\u2019t want to be a mother, and so avoids having children at all costs.\u00a0 This is a woman who is a mother who, half way around the track, decides she doesn\u2019t want to be one and takes the necessary steps.\u00a0 Naturally, she says everything is better for it.\u00a0 Her relationship to her kids, her life, everything.\u00a0 Personally, I\u2019ve always been of the feeling that if you improve a relationship by abandoning it, that says more than you want to about your role in the problems..\u00a0 But that is neither here nor there. <\/p>\n

What caught me, in Shine\u2019s slobbering adoration of her story, was the typical ability the media has of justifying its shallow promises by setting up untrue realities.\u00a0 Take this little snippet:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also goes against our culture\u2019s definition of motherhood. But it shines a light on a glaring double standard: When a man chooses not to be a full-time parent, it\u2019s acceptable\u2014or, at least, accepted. But when a woman decides to do so, it\u2019s abandonment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m sorry, I missed where, in our culture of despising the delinquent dad, the absent father, the runaway male, that men are somehow off the hook for being a part time dad.\u00a0 Part time meaning, in this case, essentially abandoning the wife and kids to lead a life focused exclusively on self.\u00a0 Can someone tell me when this has happened that everyone has said, \u201cHurray! well done fellow!\u201d?\u00a0 I can\u2019t either.<\/p>\n

This is a favorite tactic in the media, to push an agenda in part by subtly stating something that is flat out wrong, and making it an assumed fact.\u00a0 They might as well have said 2+2=5, the world is flat, or John Smith was our first President.\u00a0 All wrong.\u00a0 But slid into the story as if it is obviously a fact.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 A man who would abandon his family to focus on himself would be ostracized by our modern, feminist dominated media and culture.\u00a0 It makes my head spin to think of how quickly he would be condemned.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s the feminist angle, with the usual \u2018women rule so there are no rules for women\u2019 mantra of radical feminism that the Shine author is promoting.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s the usual desire to promise a Utopian paradise of self focus, a selfish, narcissistic euphoria that caused the piece to gush over this tale.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Certainly there is a segment out there, promoted by the likes of Dan Abrams<\/a> \u2013 American male sans vertebrae \u2013 that suggests women are in every way superior therefore some\u00a0could argue\u00a0they can do what they wish for themselves beyond any other considerations.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

I just know that in decades past, common people with common sense would see something like this and be able to call it for what it was.\u00a0 But in our age of self-congratulatory high fives over how intellectually and morally superior than any other generation in history, we lack the ability to see the obvious truth.\u00a0 Or perhaps, we just don\u2019t want to, hoping that when it comes time for us to jettison anything and anyone else in our lives to pursue our own self focused lust for pleasure and meaning, those we patted on the back will in turn pat us on the back.\u00a0 You scratch my deplorably selfish desires, and I\u2019ll scratch yours.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And a media outlet goes gaga.\u00a0 Not surprising.\u00a0 The dangling carrot of our dying civilization, the thing that keeps people pressing on toward the ethics of our inevitable doom, is the promise that by focusing exclusively on ourselves we will find ultimate meaning in life.\u00a0 That our meaning is defined by us focusing on us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAn author embraces the ultimate in narcissism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"And a media outlet goes gaga.  Not surprising.  The dangling carrot of our dying civilization, the thing that keeps people pressing on toward\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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