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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3668 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Is there a term, or a study, or an article you can recommend, for this variety of narcissistic behavior I've noticed recently: the narcissism of pretending that you would be completely incapable of doing something. An illustrative example:

We're all familiar with the tough-guy fantasist narcissism of men who believe that they would have been great on D-Day or at Gettysburg, guys who are cocksure they would have been heroes given the opportunity. We've all rolled our eyes at men who are certain they would have been extraordinarily brave, with no proof.

Lately, I've been rolling my eyes at men who claim they would have been extraordinarily cowardly. Men who say "Man I would have been useless in the civil war, pissed myself and run away LOLOLOL" or "I probably wouldn't have made it off the boat on D-Day."

Because they probably would have been average. If they were drafted by the government, they probably wouldn't have had the immense courage necessary to run away. If they went to boot camp, they would have been pushed through it like everyone else, gotten stronger and learned to do what they were told. In battle, they probably would have followed orders and done what they were trained to do, at a bang average level. Maybe not great, but they would have been within a standard deviation of average.

There's something about this kind of extravagant self-deprecation that annoys me, gets under my skin. It dehumanizes the actual men who did (and continue to do) these kinds of things. It's a cheap effort to claim to be extraordinary, with no effort or evidence.

I don't know of any studies but I certainly recognize this pattern. I don't think it's any flavor of narcissism. More along the lines of 4-d chess signaling.

I've noticed this type of signaling among more lefty types who want to come off as more "refined" than those brutish right-wing riff-raffs and their reverence for unsophisticated virtues such as courage,masculinity or just strength in general.

Or it could be some sort of costly signaling with the intent of "I'm so secure in my masculinity that I can proudly announce myself to be a pussy and not take a status hit, if anything I might gain status from it!".

I don't know of any studies but I certainly recognize this pattern. I don't think it's any flavor of narcissism. More along the lines of 4-d chess signaling.

Nothing 4D about it: I just don't want to sound like Mark Wahlberg.

Obviously I could assume some version of myself that matches the median person then (of course, I'm not really talking about myself then am I?) but I can't be sure everyone will read it that way can I?

Lossy communication but I assume the instances FiveHour is talking about aren't men making level-headed assessments of themselves and concluding what they (given time machine, not average man of that time) would have done. To me, it seems to come off as more performative.

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