Um, that’s part of narcissistic personality disorder, a key part actually.
Yet, isn't that a main part of narcissism?
No, no, and no. Having been married to a way out there narcissist for 10 years, and studying the disorder extensively to understand what I was dealing with, I agree with the items listed in the article as symptoms and characteristics of narcissism. Thinking one is special is one factor. But the primary and destructive thing is the lack of empathy; not really giving a damn about anybody near you, or anybody at all when you get down to it. How does a life of believing ridiculous leftist bromides, and not having the wisdom to see how stupid that is, make one a narcissist? Do you get the impression he really doesn't care for his family? I haven't seen it. Being a fool and being a narcissist are two things, not necessarily related.
A narcissist believes he can NEVER be wrong. Grandiose. Never admits he's wrong. A self that is SO fragile, that admitting being wrong is to destroy the entire illusion of self.
How does a life of believing ridiculous leftist bromides, and not having the wisdom to see how stupid that is, make one a narcissist?
This is what he was taught from childhood from the people he had to please to exist. Crazy mother. Crazy father/mentor, Frank(?) whats-his-name. Nutso leftist grandparents. The people on whom the child depended for his survival.
These are also the tenants that give him the narcissistic supply he desires. The screaming masses that praise him when he repeats the socialist tripe. He may truly believe in the rhetoric he spews, then again he may not even care. The desired effect is the admiration, the power, the narcissistic supply of those around him who look up to him, fawn over him, and seek his presence.
Do you get the impression he really doesn't care for his family?
Yes. As the child of a narcissist, I do. I see it in him and his wife. I fear for his children. Fear, as in I know the road they'll walk. To him, they are things. Props to make him look better. I don't say this lightly. I don't say this with pleasure. This isn't projection. I don't see this in every person who disagrees with me, or every political candidate whose views are different from mine. I *do* see it in Barack Obama. Strongly. It's creepy.
Being a fool and being a narcissist are two things, not necessarily related.
I agree completely. Barack Obama is a pathological narcissist, not a fool.
“Thinking one is special is one factor. But the primary and destructive thing is the lack of empathy;”
You are saying nothing that disagrees with what I said. -n fact, the distorted worldview is part and parcel of the whole, spring for the lack of empathy and the distorted worldview that inevitably results. (If you think you are the only “real” person, your worldview is by definition distorted.)
In other words you nailed it except for not seeing that we are on the same page...
Do you get the impression he really doesn't care for his family? I haven't seen it.
You have to admit that his trip to Hawaii to his dying grandmother was marked by the omission of taking his children to visit her. And that in the aftermath of his nomination acceptance speech he didn't have his family with him onstage as every other major party nominee in the modern history of political conventions has done. People were asking what was up with that . . .