Interview Babel Magazine - Excerpts Part 38 - Narcissism Definition

Written by Sam Vaknin

Q: Being that you reside in Europe, what are your overall impressions of America?

Sam: I wrote this a few days ago (it was published by The Idler and Yahoo!):

America is either hated or, at best, derided by well over three fifths of the world's population (suffice it to mention China, Russia, Iran, and Iraq). It is intensely disliked by many others (need I mention the French?). What is the source of this blanket repulsion?

There is no doubt that United States of America reifies and embodies the noblest, loftiest, and worthiest values, ideals, and causes. It is a dream in the throes of coming true: a dream of liberty, peace, justice, prosperity, and progress. Its system, despite its social flaws, is far superior - both morally and functionally - to any other ever conceived by Man.

Yet, the USA maintains one standard at home and flouts it abroad. A double standard was the hallmark of apartheid South Africa and is the nature of post-1967 colonial Israel. But while these two countries discriminated only against their own citizens and residents - the USA discriminates also against the entire world. Even as it never ceases to hector, preach, chastise, and instruct - it does not recoil from violating its own edicts and ignoring its own teachings. It is, therefore, not the USA's internal character or self perception that is controversial to liberals like I (though I beg to differ with its social model). Its actions are - and especially its foreign policy.

This manifest hypocrisy, America's moral talk and often immoral walk, its persistent application of double standards, irks and grates. This champion of human rights has aided and abetted countless murderous dictatorships. This sponsor of free trade - is the most protectionist of rich nations. This beacon of charity - contributes less than 0.1% of its GDP to foreign aid (compared to Scandinavia's 0.6%). This proponent of international law (under whose aegis it bombed and invaded half a dozen countries in a dozen years) - refuses to sign on to international treaties, which deal with mines, chemical and biological weapons, air pollution, and the International Criminal Court. It also ignores the rulings of the WTO.

America's enemies are envious of its might and wealth. But its haughtiness, lack of humility, and obtuse refusal to engage in soul searching and house cleaning - only aggravate this natural reaction.

America's sustained support for regimes with scant regard for human rights does not help either. To the peoples of the poor world, it is both a colonial power and a mercantilist exploiter. In cahoots with corrupt (and barbarous) domestic politicians, it furthers its military and geopolitical goals. And it drains the developing world of its brains, its labour, and its raw materials without giving much in return.

It is thus seen by its detractors not merely as a self-interested power (all powers are) - but as a narcissistic civilization, bent on exploiting and, having exploited, on discarding. America pays dearly now for its "use and dump" policies in places like Afghanistan and Macedonia. It is a Dr. Frankenstein, haunted and threatened by its own creations. Its kaleidoscopically shifting alliances and allegiances - the dazzling outcomes of expedience - tend to support this diagnosis of the Ugly American as a Narcissist. Pakistan and Libya were transformed from foes to allies in a fortnight. Milosevic - from friend to foe, in less.

This capricious inconsistency casts in grave doubt America's sincerity - and in sharp relief its unreliability and disloyalty, its short term thinking, truncated attention span, sound-byte mentality, and dangerous, "black and white", simplism. To outside observers it seems as though America uses - and thus, perforce, abuses - the international system for its own, ever changing, ends. International law is invoked when convenient - ignored when importune.

In its heartland, America is isolationist. Americans erroneously believe that America is an economically self-sufficient and self-contained continent. Yet, it is not what Americans believe or wish that matters to others. It is what they do. And what they do is intervene, often unilaterally, always ignorantly, sometimes forcefully.

Unilateralism is mitigated by cosmopolitanism. It is exacerbated by provincialism. American decision-makers are mostly provincials, popularly elected by provincials. As opposed to Rome, America is ill-suited and ill-equipped to manage the world. It is too young, too abrasive, too arrogant - and it has a lot to learn. Its refusal to acknowledge its shortcomings, its confusion of brain with brawn (i.e., money or bombs), its legalistic-litigious character, its culture of instant gratification and over-simplification - are detrimental to world peace.

America is often called by others to intervene. Many initiate conflicts or prolong them with the express purpose of dragging America into the quagmire. It then is either castigated for not having responded to such calls - or reprimanded for having responded. It seems that it cannot win. Abstention and involvement alike win it only ill-will.

But people call upon America to get involved because they know it does involve itself at times. America should make it unequivocally and unambiguously clear that - with the exception of the Americas - it is interested in commerce only (the Japanese model). It should make it equally known that it will protect its citizens and defend its assets - if needed by force. America's - and the world's - best bet are a reversion to the Monroe and (technologically updated) Mahan doctrines.

Wilson's Fourteen Points brought the USA nothing but two World Wars and a Cold War thereafter.

Q: What was your most terrifying experience while in prison?

Sam: The first day. I will never forget those indelible moments. It is the closest I ever felt to being an animal, trapped in the headlights of an oncoming semi-trailer. Israeli jails are notorious for being overcrowded and violent. I was under the illusion that army life prepared me for the forthcoming ordeal. It didn't. I was thrust, shackled wrists and ankles, into a tiny room, overflowing with more than 20 unkempt, raging, fearsome prisoners in transit - junkies, murderers, swindlers, hustlers, petty thieves, burglars. Their language was foreign, their customs alien, their codes mysterious, their intentions (so I thought) sinister - and I was surely doomed. They were verbally abusive, they threatened, they stank, they listened to loud Arabic music, they did drugs, they cooked, they defecated in a shattered toilet in the corner. It was Hyeronimus Bosch come alive. I froze, speechless, leaning heavily on a metal bed frame. And then someone tapped on my shoulder and said: "Just do what I say and you will be alright". I did and I was. I learned the most important lesson: there is more humanity in jail than outside it. You are treated the way you treat people. Reciprocity is king.