Malignant self-love

@fmf said
I was responding to what DeepThought had put to you.

No, you weren't. You were attacking me. As usual.

@fmf said
What is the extent of the correlation, in your view, between "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" and what you refer to as "an alpha personality"? What proportion of the latter do you think might be diagnosed with "NPD"?

I have no idea.

All I know is that the two are similar enough that once one is found, the other is often (again, not always) not all that far behind. And before you pounce, no, I have no "evidence" of this, it's just my own personal observation.

Per your own classic style, I realize these questions are just a delaying tactic until you can marshall your forces to attempt another character assassination attempt. Whatever.

@fmf said
Approximately what proportion of adult males do you perceive as being "alpha" type?

Enough to establish a "type". While rare, it is not at all unknown.

@fmf said
Will you be asking sonship this too? He seems to correlate atheism with what he calls "malignant self-love". On page 1 you seemed on the verge of saying something by way of objection to it, but then you realized it was sonship who'd said it.

Once you told me it was sonship, I was surprised that he had said those exact words (even though, again, I have no proof, only your say so), but it doesn't seem out of character for him.

Knowing your character, as evidenced in this forum and elsewhere on this site, I would also not be surprised if you have made the entire quote out of thin air. You excel at "making mountains out of molehills" on this site, particularly in your attacks on people you do not like, or who have rather vociferously disagreed with you in the past. I have personal experience of this.

Overall, the topic seems completely unimportant to me. Okay, he said it. So what? It doesn't seem like a big deal. One might think that those who do not believe in God could put their big-boy pants on and blow off something like this. That you instead HAVE to make a "big deal" out of it showcases your own insecurity, IMHO.

And with that, good luck getting me to offer my opinion on any other crybaby antics you wish to pursue here. I've already spent far too much bandwidth on this, and only because I was asked direct questions. Did I mention the entire topic seems unimportant to me?

@divegeester said
What do you think of the OP especially in light of it being a Christian here he used the term as an insult?

I think it was probably ill-informed and was not something I would have said.

That being said, sonship IS his own person, and so should not be required to answer to me about his opinions. My personal "How much do I care?" answer about this topic hovers in the single-digit percentages. And no, I'm not going to fight your perceived forum battles for you. I'm sure you can handle it without crying too much about it. Whether you want to or not, is of course only important to you. Knock yourselves out.

@suzianne said
Knowing your character, as evidenced in this forum and elsewhere on this site, I would also not be surprised if you have made the entire quote out of thin air. You excel at "making mountains out of molehills" on this site, particularly in your attacks on people you do not like, or who have rather vociferously disagreed with you in the past. I have personal experience of this.

But it wasn't me who said sonship has malignant self-love; it was sonship who said I have malignant self-love ...because I am an atheist. You have got who "attacked" whom the wrong way round.

@suzianne said
No, you weren't. You were attacking me. As usual.

I said "I think Suzianne is conflating 'narcissism' with 'NPD'." How is that "attacking" you? It's just a difference of opinion. "Narcissism" is essentially a personality trait seen in many people [as is the 'alpha' characteristic]; NPD is a mental disorder that afflicts a tiny proportion. It's an error to conflate "narcissism" and NPD.

@suzianne said
Overall, the topic seems completely unimportant to me. Okay, he said it. So what? It doesn't seem like a big deal. One might think that those who do not believe in God could put their big-boy pants on and blow off something like this. That you instead HAVE to make a "big deal" out of it showcases your own insecurity, IMHO.

Characterizing atheism as "malignant self-love" struck me as quite interesting. Judging by your reaction to it, and how much you have now posted on this thread, it seems you found it interesting too.

@suzianne said
I think it was probably ill-informed and was not something I would have said.
That being said, sonship IS his own person, and so should not be required to answer to me about his opinions. My personal "How much do I care?" answer about this topic hovers in the single-digit percentages. And no, I'm not going to fight your perceived forum battles for you. I'm sure you can h ...[text shortened]... ch about it. Whether you want to or not, is of course only important to you. Knock yourselves out.

I’m not expecting you to fight my battles for me, why on earth would I expect that?

You’ve made indications that you disapprove of the term so I was wondering what you thought about a fellow Christian using it.

Instead you have used your energy in writing several posts attacking the person whom the phrase was used against. Which is interesting.

@fmf said
I was responding to what DeepThought had put to you.

In a thread over in debates Suzianne said something to the effect of: "Everyone has some level of narcissism.". Which is correct, within normal ranges it comes under the heading of "healthy self-esteem" or "self-respect". With none at all one wouldn't get out of bed. The psychologists talk about high trait narcissism in people where it is starting to push out of normal ranges. NPD is an extreme manifestation of this.

My question was straightforward. Psychology has all sorts of terms and an "alpha" personality could mean something other than "alpha male". It's not my field and so I was checking that I'd interpreted what she was saying correctly.

The mention of "alpha" makes me wonder whether they're correlated. I think in low status individuals narcissism tends to present itself as vulnerable narcissism, and NPD manifests itself differently in alpha and beta males/females.

@suzianne said
Considering that your original post in this thread was about other topics of "pop" psychology, I assumed you would be familiar with the concept of the "alpha" personality. It is basically taking an idea which is prevalent in the field of Ethology, pack dominance, and attributing it to humans. This is really not a topic seriously considered in psychology, but since you went ...[text shortened]... return is "Huh? What do you mean?"

My response wasn't "all that" anyways. Forget I mentioned it.

Thanks for getting back, see the above post.

@suzianne said
I have no idea.

All I know is that the two are similar enough that once one is found, the other is often (again, not always) not all that far behind. And before you pounce, no, I have no "evidence" of this, it's just my own personal observation.

Per your own classic style, I realize these questions are just a delaying tactic until you can marshall your forces to attempt another character assassination attempt. Whatever.

I don't think this is right. High trait narcissism, including NPD, is caused by childhood experiences, including parenting errors. I imagine it becomes excessive as a defence against emotional abuse of the type described in the video I posted earlier in the thread. The guy is not an alpha male but has an NPD diagnosis. I don't think that there's that strong a correlation between social status and excessive personality traits.

@suzianne said

Has someone in this forum actually said this?

https://www.redhotpawn.com/forum/spirituality/the-value-of-jesus.182594/page-4#post_4102733

Had some time to kill. 😉