"Believe in yourself!" Err, how about I believe in the external world instead?
E.g there's lots of TV with the moral that you shouldn't be insecure. It's all about how you feel. Except, if you just go have a check, it doesn't matter how you feel about yourself, because you know what's actually going on.
Of course, narcissists can't do this. The outside world is too scary. Have to assume they already know everything, and it's merely a matter of weighing priorities correctly, because they damn sure can't learn anything new.
We need to be reminded, because we're all surrounded by narcissists. Apt to forget going and looking is even possible, since it happens so rarely. Reminder: you can just go look. Just try it and see what happens.
Maybe have confidence that you can win all competitions with narcissists, because you go and see what's there while they're lost in their own little world. Have confidence because you did what Gnon told you to and got the result Gnon promised, instead of doing what the bigger, nastier ego told you to do.
Nah, you need confidence because you don't have a perfect model of Gnon's will, so you always have variation around your expectation. Believe in yourself is charitably to be interpreted as err on the side of action. Of course, a stupid audience will get a stupid message.
ReplyDeleteCharitably, anything can be Straussianism.
ReplyDeleteSaying "believe in yourself" is a backhand way of saying exactly the opposite - don't trust your own judgment. They're saying they know more about you than you do, and should obey them instead of yourself.
Checksum: it's always used on folk who shouldn't believe in themselves and shouldn't act. Turns out they were right all along, and following this bad advice fucks them up. They get divorces and stuff.
At best, you have fictional situations where they learn to boat not by hiring a boating tutor or reading a good boating book, but by the power of friendship or some such nonsense. "Nuclear engineering was in your heart all along!" Not unless he's studied nuclear engineering, it isn't.
And, like, I dunno if you've met a kid. Making them act is not normally an issue. Keeping them from acting prematurely is a huge issue. "Believe in yourself" only makes sense after years of sub-rosa "you suck!" pounding.
"Trust your friends!" Okay but if this wasn't a movie for little girls, you would all have been destroyed by the evil empire many scenes ago. Trusting them to do things they can't do isn't trust, it's foolishness.