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Tragedy and Narcissism, or It’s Not About You
On any given day, around 6,700 Americans die. Celebrities, being mortals like the rest of us, die too, and when they do we are treated to eulogies, obituaries, memorials, and of course blog posts, Facebook status updates, and tweets. As one reads these, one is struck by the prevalence of the first-person singular pronouns. Frank Bruni noted this phenomenon in his recent New York Times piece, “Death in the Age of Narcissism“:
Just before and after John McCain’s death on Saturday, I read many tweets, Facebook posts and essays that beautifully captured his importance.
I read many that were equally concerned with the importance of their authors:
Here’s how much time I spent around McCain. I’m also close to his daughter Meghan. This is the compliment he once gave me. This is what I said back. I voted for him this many times. I agreed with him on these issues but not those. It’s difficult to describe how pained I am. Here’s a photo of me looking mournful.
Were these hymns to McCain or arias of self-congratulation? The line blurred as the focus swerved from the celebrated to the celebrator.
And, of course, while John McCain is the most recent deceased to bring out this trend, it has certainly been around for a few years. It even prompted one of my favorite rants from Cracked.com, “A Celebrity You Don’t Like Has Died, Try Not to be a [Jerk]” written in response to the passing of Roger Moore and Zach Snyder’s daughter. The author complains about how so many supposedly sympathetic commenters felt obligated to include their opinions of their target’s work.
Someone shares a news story about the person’s passing and above it, they write a few sentences about how terrible they feel. BUT FIRST they state, in no uncertain terms, that they are NOT a huge fan of that person. Or even if they are a fan, they’re not that big of a fan. Because obviously you can’t be sincere about a tragic pop culture-related subject without injecting a bit of your inner Ebert. You can’t attend a funeral without making it clear that the deceased was just a … moron at their job. Because that would be lying, right? …
Look, I get it. You probably assumed that the family of Roger Moore was desperate to know, while in the throes of the deepest misery of their lives, how Moore ranked on your list of Top 5 Best Actors To Play James Bond. That’s what’s truly important. Not the fact that Moore touched people’s lives with his charismatic, cucumber-cool performances or amiable offscreen personality, but that, while he was a James Bond, there were definitely superior James Bonds. It’s what you’d want for your death, right? A celebration of your career, but also a little tidbit in the beginning about how a few of your peers were undoubtedly better. It’s never too late for constructive criticism…
Sneering at someone’s work doesn’t make you seem like a good person, just because you’ve deigned to express sympathy for them after taking a big dump on their career… You don’t need caveats. This is a situation where you should have shown kindness and nothing else, but for some reason, you imagined that you needed to make it clear that you in no way approved of Man Of Steel. Yes, it is a terrible burden having to keep your opinions to yourself for a couple minutes, but be a hero and try…
But this is a rant I wanted to write, because I can’t ignore the [jerkishness] of “Sorry for your loss, but … ” Look, I’m sure I’ve been this kind of [jerk] before, and I’m sure you’re grasping at sincerity. I’m sure you probably actually feel that pang of understanding when someone you don’t know is hurting. But I’m also sure that you’re being a [jerk] when you feel the need to preface a message to a grieving person with a negative overview of their life’s work. So maybe don’t try it.
Maybe just feel bad for people. That sounds doable.
I find myself agreeing with both these authors — these kinds of comments are about expressing our narcissism. Far too often the deceased is dead, but the story is about me: my opinions, my hurt, my experiences, my opinions, my status in getting to rub shoulders with someone you other people have heard of. We want to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Or, as Bruni put it:
We find the one point where we intersected with them. We wedge in our own biographies. We flaunt our own résumés…
It’s classic virtue signaling, gauchely timed and in need of a more specific phrase. Virtue grieving? Obituary opportunism? …
It undermines what should be our goal, which is to put someone else in the spotlight. We can’t do that if we’re crowding the stage.
Celebrity deaths aren’t the only thing that bring out this narcissistic impulse. In two weeks, the 9/11 anniversary will be upon us, and with it many variations on “where I was when I found out,” as if that were the most noteworthy aspect of that day’s events. Please consider instead focusing on the 5,000 people who were killed, the thousands more who were injured, the first responders who risked and lost their lives, or the soldiers who avenged us in the mountains of Afghanistan. Like the passing of Roger Moore and John McCain, the story isn’t about you.
Published in Journalism
I agree with this, too. The obligation to not speak ill of the dead is more of a social norm than a personal virtue. It stems from a sense of respect for the family, mostly, and for loved ones. With a public figure, all of that goes out the window. It simply isn’t disrespectful to speak honestly about the person on some internet forum that nobody really sees.
If a public figure dies, however, and people show up to protest or to celebrate or to behave in a disrespectful manner at the funeral or directed at friends or loved-ones, that is an entirely different story. And as far as internet commentary goes, I think there is a line to be drawn. When Andrew Breitbart died, I don’t think his close friends deserved to be subjected to ridicule and mockery directly, on air, or on social media or wherever else. Same goes for any prominent liberal who dies. If Nanci Pelosi dies, I will feel perfectly justified in voicing my (wholly unchanged) opinions about the woman. But I would be equally unjustified in seeking out her friends and subjecting them to abuse.
Same with McCain. If I loved him, I can say so freely on this forum. If I thought he was a terrible conservative politician, I can also say so on this forum. His death effects me all of 0%, except in the practical question of who will replace him on the Senate floor; the public nature of his death is little more than a prompting to discuss the man himself – and on Ricochet, I’m not at all concerned with offending his friends or family.
I disagree. We relate to God in a personal way, too. Our brains operate in this manner, and it is neither good nor bad, it is simply the way we operate. People are able to empathize by envisioning themselves “in another’s shoes,” so to speak. Sociopaths are individuals who lack this capability. Obviously, some individuals suck at empathy… they stop at “how would I react to this?” as some sort of intellectual exercise – truly being able to empathize requires some recognition of another person’s situation and how it differs from your own. There is also the acceptance of a standard (for Christians, God and the Bible are that standard); empathy does not necessarily mean acceptance or endorsement.
Adam Smith has an interesting chapter in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” where he discusses this very thing. He points out that, while we might empathize with a person wailing and screaming in the streets upon hearing about the death of a loved one, we have more respect for a person who does not engage in this sort of display. We have our own senses of proportionality. If we hear someone wailing and know that a loved one has died, we will empathize. If we hear someone wailing over a lost coin or (to be cliche) spilled milk, we will resent that person.
Of course, I am not saying that antiquity is evidence of goodness. I am merely saying that this is how our brains operate, and that personal association is not evidence of badness, necessarily. That is not to say that narcissism does not exist. Obviously, a narcissist may be someone whose tendency to personalize actually interferes with his ability to empathize. We do see a lot of that.