Beyond the Pleasure Principle Read Free Page B

long for him, they hate him, they cannot do without him.”’
    It is magical, the sense of perfection the narcissist brings, and we believe that by gaining the narcissist's love or at least his recognition, we might share in his numinous life. As Freud observes, ‘[I]t seems clearly apparent that narcissism in an individual becomes magnetically attractive to those who have altogether relinquished their own narcissism, and who are casting around for object-love. The fascination of the child rests to a great extent on its narcissism, on the fact that it is sufficient to itself and impervious to others; so too does the fascination of certain animals that appear to show no interest in us, such as cats and the great beasts of prey.’ (‘On the Introduction of Narcissism’, p. 18). From the Homeric gods to our current celebrities, the centrality of narcissistic personalities to culture is beyond debate. Without them we might all die from hopelessness, perish of boredom. With them, we alternate from intoxication, sometimesmild, sometimes not, to rank disillusion. Is there any crowd as disconsolate as the one seeping from a starlit Hollywood movie into the sad light of the everyday?
    The narcissist exploits our longing to be bewitched. They enchant us with the possibility that we are the one who will really share in their glow, or break it down and turn them, as though through a reverse enchantment, once again into a common mortal like ourselves. But alas, narcissism in another, which initially is so exhilarating, is over time demoralizing. It provokes despondency, as we recognize that the glowing one doesn't need us at all. Beautiful women, great criminals, superb jesters, Helen of Troy, Balzac's Vautrin, Groucho, never seem to be defeated – or inevitably turn gap into gain, trump defeat with their wit or beauty. But they do so alone and independently. They do not require our assistance in the least.
    When the narcissist does break down and show need, then he is one of us, and his fascination is gone. At the moment when the narcissist becomes human and returns the love of one of his worshippers, he turns from prince to frog, no longer fit for worship. A narcissist, void of self-love, tends to
be
void, in that he has never had to cultivate anything but the capacity to fascinate. Inwardness is not part of his game. When the narcissist enters erotic life, he creates the quest, the romance, poems, humiliations, great deeds, and rank unhappiness. When what the narcissist captures is political power, the result is tyranny.
    The narcissist is one of Freud's great archetypes, memorable and illuminating. Yet are absolute narcissists to be found in experience? Is it possible that the narcissist is simply an illusion sustained by the lover, the one who wants the old perfect archetypes to reappear in life, and will work to create them out of whatever promising material comes to hand? To Freud, we weave our dreams whenever we have the chance, awake or asleep. Can't narcissists themselves fall under the spell of others, and be turned into dependent or anaclitic lovers by the presence of this or that more apparently self-contained and self-delighting being? Emerson tells us that we create perfection in others by being afraid to own up to our own powers. Not recognizingour particular genius, we project it outside. The presence of the narcissist as an absolute type in Freud, rather than a projection, a creation by wishful illusion, suggests that Freud, the most severe interpreter, may have been himself taken in by the kind of glowing promise and perfect love that he also seeks to debunk.
    The narcissist, even if doomed to be merely a walking illusion created by others, a sex symbol as it were, which is actually a mere signifier until it is invested with meaning from outside, is a crucial element in our imaginative lives. The narcissist testifies to the human hope that life will not be all drab continuities and predictable expenditures. And