The Narcissist You Know by Joseph Burgo

Author:Joseph Burgo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

STANDING UP FOR THE LITTLE MAN

While movie stars or pop singers don’t usually achieve their fame because they embody higher social values (they are often “famous for being famous,” in the well-known description of social historian Daniel Boorstin),8 several celebrities in recent years have become cultural heroes because they appeared to be the very antithesis of the shallow celebrity narcissist. Apparently virtuous or selfless men, in the end they turned out to be Extreme Narcissists manipulating their public image for glory and financial gain.

Lance Armstrong persuaded his fans that he was a man of almost superhuman virtue—a tireless competitor who would never ever cheat, a courageous cancer survivor and all-around good guy. In Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson portrays himself as a preternaturally selfless man, a monklike crusader for the educational rights of young girls in Afghanistan. Both men turned out to be masters of cultivating public perception. Although their charitable foundations, LiveStrong and the Central Asia Institute, did much good, a closer look at the psychology of these men reveals the features of Extreme Narcissism and points toward core shame.9

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks and tireless crusader against the secrecy of entrenched power, for a time appeared to be another hero in our feckless world. Standing up for truth, transparency, and the rights of the individual to access secret government information, Assange at first seemed to be a selfless advocate for the little man. He turned out to be a Grandiose Narcissist more interested in public acclaim and enjoying his “rock star” status than in pursuing the truth.

Ghostwriter Andrew O’Hagan spent many months collaborating with Julian Assange on an autobiography and in the process came to know him well. “His pursuit of governments and corporations was a ghostly reverse of his own fears for himself,” O’Hagan writes. “That was the big secret with him: he wanted to cover up everything about himself except his fame. . . . The man who put himself in charge of disclosing the world’s secrets simply couldn’t bear his own.”

In the end, O’Hagan concluded, it may turn out that Assange “was motivated all the while not by high principles but by a deep sentimental wound.” He doesn’t specify the exact nature of that “sentimental wound,” but he clearly links it to Assange’s childhood.10

In a profile appearing in the New Yorker, Assange describes his early childhood as “pretty Tom Sawyer. . . . I had my own horse. I built my own raft. I went fishing. I was going down mine shafts and tunnels.”11 Assange portrays himself as an intensely independent and curious youth, an intrepid hero in the making. He may actually have owned his own horse and explored secret underground passageways, but this account conceals a childhood marked by chaos. Assange’s mother, Christine, met and fell in love with John Shipton when she was only seventeen; not long after Julian was born, Shipton disappeared from their lives and didn’t see his son for another twenty-five years.

When Julian was one, Christine married theater

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