Narcissists and Hypocrisy.They go together like a horse and carriage, don’t they? Hypocrisy is just as essential to a narcissist’s functioning as a horse is to a carriage’s. You see, it is the very essence of a narcissist to be self-serving, which makes things like truth, integrity, and reliability a bit of an anathema to them. Narcissists are all about image—SUBSTANCE MEANS NOTHING TO THEM—and so such virtues as truth and honesty and integrity must be sacrificed when they don’t support the image, making narcissists bred-in-the-bone hypocrites. Hypocrisy is really nothing more than a form of DISHONESTY. It is professing to be one thing—polishing the image one projects onto the world—while actually being something else. The narcissist’s whole life is a lie designed to fool “outsiders” so the narcissist can get narcissistic supply from them. Narcissists, for all they operate the same, are still individuals so each will have his own particular form of narcissistic supply to seek. For some it is the adulation of others, for some it is pity and sympathy, for others it is fear and power. Some may seek fame or fortune, others may shun notoriety and seek what they believe to be expressions of respect from others but they are all doing exactly the same thing in the same way with the same goal: doing anything they can that works to feed the hungry beast within. The narcissist carries fire in one hand and water in the other. In other words, he is…duplicitous, engages in double-dealing, is two-faced, speaks with forked tongue…the expression indicates that a person is prepared to act in totally contradictory ways to achieve his purpose. Narcissists are not stupid, however, but they are arrogant. So while there is no act of treachery too great for a narcissist to commit to get what he wants, he can be restrained by fear of consequences, assuming his arrogance doesn’t convince him he won’t get caught. And so it is with hypocrites: invested in their own lies, chained to the necessity to keep up the front, ensnared by their own illusions, hypocrites are nothing but pathetic liars, trapped in a web of their own making, unable to grow emotionally or spiritually. They are forever stuck where they are, having to invent more and more lies, create more and more illusions, fool more and more people, just to keep from sliding backwards into their real selves. Living a life of hypocrisy requires a strong tolerance for cognitive dissonance—or an extraordinary ability to fool oneself. I suspect narcissists, particularly malignant narcissists, fall into the latter category. If they redefine what they are doing so that it is “different” from what they publicly disdain, they never come up against that bugaboo, cognitive dissonance. Hypocrites, particularly narcissistic hypocrites, may tell themselves that it is OK for them to do something, but not for others. In this situation, they have convinced themselves that they are special, that the rules that apply to others do not apply to them. Another trick of the narcissistic hypocrite is to blame the victim for his hypocritical behavior in an effort to rationalize or normalize or simply make what he did OK. One of the hallmarks of narcissistic hypocrisy is the conviction that others must follow the rules, obey the laws…everyone except them. Narcissism cannot exist without hypocrisy. In order to rationalize or justify the behaviors narcissists undertake in order to get their narcissistic supply, it is inevitable that at some point, they are going have to take the hypocritical way out. They will always find ways to justify themselves, even if it simply comes down to narcissism’s “I’m special” component. When you engage with a narcissist, expect hypocrisy. Expect double standards not only in his personal life, but in his observations of the lives and activities of others. Unless you enjoy courting disappointment, don’t expect fairness from a narcissist, at least not fairness as you or I would define it. You can’t win with hypocrites of any stripe, and you can’t win with a narcissist. Both are deeply invested in their hypocrisy, their mind games, their entitlements. To maintain your sanity, all you can really do is walk away—and stay gone. narcissistschild.blogspot.ca/2012/06/narcissists-and-hypocrisy.html
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:59:35 +0000
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