The Entitled Self, The Real Self
By Charles Rush
September 26, 2004
Phillipians 2: 5-11
 |
h |
is
week I
was in Starbucks getting a morning cup of coffee. I ran into one of our parishioners who
will remain unnamed. They asked me what I was preaching about this
week and I said "humility" to which they responded, "I admire you for that." I said
"why?" They quipped, "It's hard enough to get up and speak week
after week but to speak on a subject
with which you have so little personal familiarity must be doubly tough."
"Actually,"
I assured him,
"I'd finished the sermon earlier this summer… I was just waiting for the fall to have a large enough audience to
appreciate it."
This summer, I thought I might say something on the delicate subject of
entitlement in our culture. I got the idea
watching the Olympics, particularly during the interviews with the American athletes. There was a not so
subtle shift in a fair number of our athletes this year that moved from savoring gold as a manifestation of the highest prize and
a presumption that anything but gold was
beneath consideration.
Our best
sprinter Maurice Green, a world class athlete no question, had a tattoo on his
arm of a goat. Apparently, GOAT was an
acronym for him that stands for "Greatest of all time". Unfortunately for Mo a quiet young sprinter named Justin Gatlin leaned into the tape
just ahead of him in the 100 meter race and instead of joy upon joy at silver he jogged in
confused disbelief. A couple days later, shock of shocks, Mo was running anchor
for the men's 4x100 relay and was edged out at
the tape by… England. It may have been the first loss in my life time for the American sprinters in that event… and
to England. Again, instead of jumping for joy
over silver, the whole team hung their heads in disgrace.
Mo's tattoo,
of course, could have easily been worn by every member of our overpaid, underpracticed
hot dog basketball team- who waltzed to Europe presuming they were unbeatable only to lose
to Italy and Germany in the warm ups. I rode the train to New York the day after they lost to a very
well disciplined Lithuanian squad. I overheard one commuter saying, "I love Lithuania and I don't even know where it
is."
A colleague of
mine was watching the Olympics in Canada where the athletes are tickled just
to be at the stadium and he confirmed for me that our coverage, by comparison, was unbecoming and he could understand how
others wanted our athletes to stumble. Our athletes, of course, are us writ large. Entitlement is not confined to the playing
field.
This year,
we've also been given the spectacle of two world political leaders that have
publicly displayed the full blown symptom of megalomania. Early this spring, the
fledgling court in Iraq called Saddam Hussein before it to read the
charges for crimes
against humanity
to him. You may recall that he derisively dismissed the court saying they couldn't
try him because he was the president of Iraq. The judge, with glasses falling
down his nose, demanded silence from the prisoner and then corrected him saying "You were the president
of Iraq."
Earlier we
have had the comical
pathology of Slobodan Milsovic at the Hague. In addition to genocidal murderer and rapist, we've been
subjected to new levels of arrogant, self-delusional narcissim- refusing to prepare a defense,
refusing to recognize the judge, attacking witness like he is the prosecutor
not the person on trial. It has really been stunning.[i]
In both cases,
these men were monsters in office, responsible for
untold cruelty and pathological fear around them and they both turn out to be cartoons without
the instruments
of power to shield them from closer inspection.
In the
classical Greek myth, the nymph Narcissus one day leans over a still pool of water to
drink and is taken by the beauty of his own reflection in the pond. At once he
tries to grasp it but as his hand splashes the water, his visage disappears, a
cruel trick of the gods he believes. Thereafter, he approaches the pool at dawn
and dusk, when the surface is calm and he gazes at himself- caught between a longing for
the reflection in the pond and an inability to possess it, he slowly wastes to
death in frustration and desire.
The power of
the myth has stood up over time because the tendency towards
narcissism affects all of us at some critical points of our development. We must work through it and beyond it.
But it also appears that there are cultural seasons for its ebb and flow and
for the past decade the tide of entitlement appears to be rising.
A. Harrison
Barnes wrote an article this month, as the CEO of a legal placement firm, on a phenomenon he calls "Narcissistic Entitlement Syndrome", NES. He has observed this too
regularly among
young attorneys that he places, but the syndrome cannot simply be fodder for a new round of
lawyer jokes. I think you will recognize some of these characteristics in your
work place as well.
He is
describing the reality that perhaps as many as 10% of the brightest young
attorneys that he deals with appear to be "inwardly focused and oblivious
to the people and organizations they are supposed to serve."[ii]
He lists 5 characteristics:
"First,
they are generally preoccupied with fantasies of limitless brilliance, power and
success". True, we all have fantasies, but only some of us are consumed by them. And they translate into an
inordinate fixation on advancement, achievement in a manner that puts them at the center of everyone else's
attention.
"Second,
attorneys with NES generally have an exaggerated sense of self-importance that is not commensurate with their actual level
achievement." Because they are 'special'
they think others should see this before it has actually been documented with an established record of
work. They talk too much about their achievements, exaggerate their achievements, only seem to respond to people that are in the
inner circle of power, and strike colleagues and clerical staff as arrogant.
Third,
"NES attorney's generally lack empathy and are unwilling or unable to
identify with the needs or feelings of others. They are exploitative and manipulate others around them as goals to attain their personal
power and status.
Fourth,
"attorneys with NES are most often very envious of those around them with advantages they do not have and
believe that others are also envious of them."
"Fifth,
attorneys with NES require excessive admiration. They need constant approval
from those around them. The NES attorney believes that he
should be admired."
Do you
recognize anyone like this? Mr. Barnes makes a couple interesting
observations. First, NES attorneys tend to have graduated from the very best law schools and have
been excellent in school. Second, that "they generally come from an upper middle class background or their
parents were academics". Third, "they generally believe that they are
smarter than the people they work
with." Finally, "generally speaking, the law firm is the first real job that they have
had."
To say that
they are not very good team players is being generous, they have difficulty getting
along. He says that they are relatively easy to spot in a crowd because they
have an inordinate sense that they "should be given the type of work that
they want." Being young, they overestimate their ability to fit in because
they have had such academic success. He points out that they generally underestimate the degree to which they have
been able to control their academic setting. They underestimate how little they have actually had
to get outside their comfort zone. In short, Mr. Barnes suggests that the phenomenon he too regularly deals with is
an unconscious product, to be sure, of an overly sheltered environment of privilege from school, parents, and social class
that have combined
to produce the unintended consequence of 'high maintenance' associate workers.
It is not
surprising that placement services would more often encounter full blown NES
people because they are more likely to be fired or to quit because their working
environment is not good enough for them. Indeed, spouses, Human resources workers, and therapists
have long noted the difficulty in getting NES people to address their issues
head on and constructively. In order for them to do that they have to confront
their sense of self and rather than do that they would rather change jobs,
change colleagues, even change friends.
The phenomenon is more complicated than it appears at first
blush on an emotional
and spiritual level. The arrogance, aggression, objectification, and manipulation that are associated with
this are actually driven by deep seated fears of inadequacy and loneliness that
are deeply repressed. Spouses, therefore, regularly face the complex, somewhat baffling contradiction that
their mates are viewed as Napoleon's at work
and are capable of childish neediness at home. Which is it? The answer is both.
To date, the track record for relearning the coping mechanisms that characterize the disorder is
not good. Most of the time, these lives end with the littered detritus of a couple or more careers and one or possibly more failed families before there is an opening for
reflection close to mid-life.
And part of the
reason for this is actually not simply a matter for psychology alone, although
understanding the dynamics of your psyche is critically important. It also takes something of a spiritual conversion to
really regain an authentic, healthy sense of self.
Jesus used to
say that healthy people, spirit centered people see others as children of God.
There is a radical democracy about our humanity that has a negative and a
positive dimension
to it.
Negatively, is
the awareness that we are all going to die. You have to be of a certain age
before that cognitive idea becomes something you sense, a resonance in your soul that gets hold of
you in a way it never did before. In ancient Greece, if you went to see the Oracle at Delphi, you would regularly hear the
phrase, "Know Thyself". Often that phrase was written under a skull
and cross bones in ancient Greece, not in a morbid way but as a reflection on the
fact that we are all mortal and whatever differences may attend us in this life, ultimately we all come into this world the same way, naked and vulnerable, and we
all leave it the same way too. There is a proverbial Italian saying that after
the chess match
is over, the King and the pawn are returned to the same box. A healthy self-esteem never lets this reality get to far
removed from our consciousness.
Positively,
Jesus used to teach us that we are all children of God and that we should view
all other people as children of God as well. It doesn't mean that we are all equal but we are
all connected. He illustrated that teaching in his life with a paradoxical
saying that 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first' in the Kingdom of God. And he lived it. The culture of the
Middle East that Jesus was born into was
stratified by race, class, gender, and religion. In most ways, it still is today. Jesus
gave veiled and subordinated women a place of equality. Jesus exemplified a common human bond with lepers and the anonymous poor. And when he was in the home of the rich and powerful, he was
respectful but not intimidated. When he was in the Temple with the Orthodox representatives of
the official religion he kept a faithful critical conscience. He understood the
stratification of the world but he was not overly enticed by the perquisites
that defined it, nor did he cower in the face of the punishments for those that deviated from it. His motivation was not from the outside/in, it was from the inside/out.
Our passage
this morning says that Jesus exemplified the virtue of humility and he did. It has been said
that "the virtue of humility is found in a vast ocean of still waters which run very
deep. At the bottom lies self-esteem."[iii]
Aristotle
would like that depiction because he taught us that humility has few of the connotations of
groveling or self-effacement that we popularly associate with the word today. He said
that true humility was fundamentally an accurate picture of yourself. It is knowing your
strengths and claiming them, not in a self-aggrandizing way, but owning your abilities
in a positive way. Self-aggrandizement is so hard to be around. Abraham Lincoln once said that "what kills a skunk is the publicity it
gives itself." Bragging does have an odor foul enough to make you want to shoot. Claiming your gifts is actually quite
different. It gives people a positive pride that is better defined as a secure
confidence.
Humility is also understanding your
faults, your growth issues as my wife calls them, your bucket of rocks. It is being
confident enough to hear criticism, to see yourself as a work in progress, to overcome defensiveness, and be open to
personal growth. It is being willing to listen not only to your superiors, but
also your peers, your relatives, your subordinates.
It is having a realistic
understanding of the cooperative role of your giftedness in your family, your vocation, your community. It is understanding what you
are supposed to accomplish and understanding the limits of what you should arrogate to
yourself for your needs. It is being competitive with others, certainly, but
with a sense of balance that understands that the ultimate competition is the internal expression
of your potential- nothing more, nothing less. It is not being driven inordinately by
your competitors, the social construct that
you happen to have been born into through the accidents of history. It is
living out of yourself, graced as a child of God, developing a sense of your
place in the here an now, and what your mission is in the limited time we have here together. There is a
wonderful Hasidic saying "The man who thinks he can live without
others is mistaken;
the one who thinks others can live without him is even more deluded."
G.K. Chesterton was right. He once remarked that "it is always the
secure that are humble." Certainly, I can think of several examples from history that make that case. Abraham Lincoln unquestionably one of the most humble Presidents our country has known
once said "I will study and get ready and someday my chance will come." What a positive, non-anxious
approach to life.
Michaelangelo, the sculptor, and not
too shabby a painter either, after he had completed the Sistene Chapel, chisled
the statute of David, Moses, and the sublime Pieta that sits in St. Peter's
Cathedral in Rome-
despite all of his accomplishments, never really stopped seeing himself internally as a student. Towards
the end of his life he could still say, "I am still learning."
Sir Isaac Newton, regarded today at Cambridge University as the smartest single faculty member ever, and they have had quite a
few bright people. To this day, his Principia
is regarded by his peers as a sufficient breakthrough of reasoned
creativity as to be in its own category. Newton said, "To myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing
on the seashore, diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell
than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Apart from the accolades of his peers, he had
perspective on himself and his own work that comes from living inside out.
St. Paul said in Corinthians that we will be
blessed when one day, we see ourselves and we see each other as we are seen.
Now he said, we see in a mirror dimly. The gracious life, the spirit filled life is able to see
ourselves as God sees us, to see each other as God sees others. That is our
real self, the one that lurks beneath our over-anxious entitled persona. May
you be free to shed yourself of illusion and graced to see yourself and those
around you as you really are. Amen.
[i] I was reminded
of this reading Jeffery Kluger's article in Time
"On the Idiocy of Evil" which
you can find at http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,216591,00.html.
[ii] see the
September
20, 2004 Newsletter for BCG Attorney Search at www.bcgsearch.com/crc/nes.html.
[iii] Ref:
www.livingvalues.net/values/humility.htm
© 2004
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
