The Rawness

I had actually planned to do this post next week after some more installments of the Renaissance Man series, because it seems like each Obama post I do causes me to shed subscribers by the boatload. I thought maybe it would be better to space out my Obama analyzing posts as a result. But Politico.com today touched on the topic I was planning to discuss so I decided to bump it up on the schedule and do it now instead as it may become a hot topic.

A few months ago I did a post about dominant male body language, using Bill Moyers as an example. You can find the link here. I suggest you take the time to click that link and watch the video in that Moyers post before coming back here, since it relates to today’s Obama’s discussion.

You back now? Okay, I was reading conservative blog Ace of Spades a short while back and came across this post, which had this CNN video of Obama embedded in it:

Now the first few minutes are the typical fellating of Obama that today’s reporters routinely engage in whenever fawning and flattering asking him hard questions and speaking “truth to power.” But look at what happens at 3:20 when he gets irked at a reporter’s questions (something that happens more often than the media tells you; he pretty much hates any challenging questions). Notice how each time he dresses down the reporter, he gives him a slightly condescending shoulder pat.

A powerful domination tactic is showing a willingness to touch the other person at will, among other things. A good rundown of alpha male body language can be found at this site (emphasis added by me):

The body language cues the dominant person uses are these:

• Directs and controls the conversation.
• Freely asks questions and expects a response back but gives little or no self-disclosure.
• Stands with hands on hips, elbows out to sides. Takes up more personal space that way and wants to look bigger.
• Stands or sits taller than others on purpose.
• Freely interrupts others speaking. (Others don’t interrupt.)
• Long pause when answering a door knock, or replying to someone. Makes others wait.
• Freely touches others. (Others don’t touch back.)
• Will stare at others and demand attention. (Others don’t do the same back.)
• Never breaks eye contact first. Others usually break eye contact first by looking down, signifying submission.
• Occupies a bigger personal space and crowds others on purpose.
• Takes the lead purposefully when walking and going through doors.
• While sitting, will put hands behind head, put feet on desk, remove eye glasses and put ear-piece in mouth, or turn chair away from others and stare out window.
• If not well socialized, will eat and talk at same time while others can’t eat.

Even though I only emphasized the habit directly relevant to this video, I have seen him use other techniques on this list at different times, especially on Youtube, pretty much the only place to see any video of Obama portrayed in a negative light along with conservative blogs. The media filters out anything unflattering or calculating about Obama and carefully cultivates a wholesome, “aw shucks” folksy image for him.

As I’ve stated in part 1, part 2, and part 3, Obama nakedly uses more calculating power, domination and public relation techniques than any other public figure I’ve seen in a while, either consciously and deliberately or unconsciously and unwittingly, and I don’t think he gets away with being called out on it due to his subtlety or guile so much as the media working overtime to continuously manage and soften his image. The problem is that with the blogosphere, talk radio and Youtube, the mainstream media doesn’t have the near-monopoly on image management of public figures that it used to, so it should be interesting to see the alternative views of Obama that rise to the surface during the next four years.

Do check the Politico link for more examples of Obama using touch to gain control of discourse, as well as differing expert interpretations.

A new ongoing feature.

This one is the ladies’ edition.

First one comes courtesy of Dontbechi.com:

I Bang the Worst Dudes. (Sorry, Mom)

The site is really disheartening. One thing I never understand is women who love going into detail to anyone who’ll listen about how they repeatedly banged the douchiest and most insecure loser ever long after they realized what a mess he was, yet somehow they don’t realize how that makes them them also look like a loser by association?

“Yeah, this guy stunk and left skid marks on my sheets and lived with his mom and had pubic lice that you could see move if you stared long enough and never wore a condom. What a loser!”

“Yeah, but didn’t you fuck him repeatedly for a few months until he stopped calling you?”

“Yeah. What’s your point?”

It’s amazing how well women are at retroactive rationalization and excuses when it comes to bad sex decisions. My favorite is “don’t count” sex, for example, as in “Well, we had sex but I was drunk and don’t remember all of it, so it doesn’t count toward my ‘number’” or “That was vacation sex, that doesn’t count toward my ‘number.’” This is why I tell guys not to bother with having Madonna/Whore complexes and obsessing with your woman’s number, as you’ll never find out the whole truth, especially when dealing with a person willing to even lie to themselves.

Looking at the guys makes you realize that there are so many shlubs out there overdosing on hipster fashion and Apatow movies that it should be a cinch for a guy with half-decent game and a little bit of muscle tone to really do damage on the dating scene. I mean fellas, this is your competition.

Seriously though, why are all these guys on the page dirtbag hipsters? Is it because hipster cock is the current hot commodity in the dating world and most chicks now prefer hipsters, or are these women dating all types of guys but only the hipsters are lame enough to warrant being submitted to the site? i’d hate to think hipster fetishes run rampant.

Also, everyone’s feeling the emotional trauma of the recession:

Dabagirls.com

I love the mission statement:

Are you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together ? free from the scrutiny of feminists? and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time – we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf?s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter and email your stories to dabagirls@gmail.com. Warning all stories sent will be infused with our own special brand of DABA Girl humor

When the bottle service disappears from your life, you need a fucking bailout for real. They’re probably rationing their coke bumps too. Not cool.

Click here for the introduction explaining the premise of the series

Click here for Part 1 in the series.

Here are two more steps to become a Renaissance Man, and they are related:

Become an Expert on Your City

Most of us don’t experiment in the cities we live in. We settle into routines. We do the same daily commute, eat lunch at the same rotation of restaurants, or maybe just one restaurant. We have our favorite movie theater and our favorite bookstore and our favorite handful of restaurants. This is normal, as routines give a sense of comfort and predictability in a wildly unpredictable world.

When you’re a tourist someplace else though, you probably do the opposite. You probably try to see and experience as much as you can because you have a limited stay and you are excited by the newness of everything. You check out all the museums, try as many different bars and cafes and nightclubs as possible, do walking tours, and try to learn the story behind all the architecture.

Meanwhile, many of the locals you meet on vacation have probably never felt the urge to see the sites you want to see. The same goes for you in your hometown; there are probably many attractions you’re never even been curious to visit and much information and history you don’t bother to learn because you take your hometown for granted, plus you figure there will always be time to try new things eventually since you live there year-round.

What you need to do is become a tourist in your own town. Buy tourist books on where you live. Make an adventure out of it. First off, know where to eat, drink and shop for anything you need. Using NYC where I live as an example, you can get books like Time Out 1000 Things to Do in New York or Time Out New York Eating and Drinking 2009. In addition to the basics of eating, drinking and shopping, you can also add some guidebooks more tailored to your personal hobbies and interests. Do you like exercise like biking, hiking or running? Then try a book like Outdoor Escapes New York City or New York Running Guide (City Running Guides). Are you into political history? Get a politically themed guidebook like Radical Walking Tours of New York City (2nd ed). Are you a cheap bastard? Try a book like Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in New York. Do you like exploring obscure and little-known areas of historical interest? Try a book like Forgotten New York: Views of a Lost Metropolis. These examples are all NY books because that’s where I live, but you get the idea. Also scour your city’s local alt-weekly paper to check for events and find some good local blogs that deal with happenings and exhibits around your city in general and neighborhood in particular. Pick up a free museum guide from a tourism stand. The possibilities are endless.

Make a plan every weekend to explore new places and sights in your city. Combine activities. Do them alone sometimes, do them with a group, combine them into your dates, make it an outing with your buddy, vary it up. The attitude to take is that there are things you plan to do anyway, and it’s up to whoever you’re inviting whether they want to come along for the ride. You’re going regardless.

This is good for several reasons. Men should know how to navigate every corner of their terrain. A man should be resourceful. He should be able to give directions confidently, he should be able to know where to go to get what he needs at any given time in his city to the best of his ability. He should be able to recommend things confidently. Also, it makes a man well-rounded and helps him feel rooted and tapped into the continuity of where he lives as opposed to being just another one of those nomadic, floating ghosts you find who live their lives isolated and detached from their surroundings thanks to their books, internet, ipods and daily routines. Plus, men need to have hobbies to stay sane, and exploring your city is a great hobby. Men are also hardwired to be naturally curious explorers. Doing this step helps satisfy all those needs to a degree.

But more importantly, it leads into my next tip:

Grasp Any Opportunity To Make Decisions

The following phrase needs to be exorcised from your vocabulary: “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

Never…ever…say that again. Don’t say it to your coworkers. Don’t say it to your friends. Don’t say it to your family members. And most importantly, never say “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” to a woman.

For men raised in a postfeminist world where supposedly men and women are not just supposed to be equal but fundamentally the same except for body parts, this can be confusing. When I give guys this advice, they usually say “But Ricky, if she says first that she doesn’t know what she wants to do, why is it so bad when I respond with the same thing and tell her that I don’t know what I want to do either? Why is it okay for her but not me?” Easy. Because life isn’t fair, and no matter what egalitarian ideology women verbalize in politically correct circles, they are biologically programmed to want their men to be leaders and save them from the strain of making decisions if they don’t have to. This is not the same as saying they can’t make decisions. They’re totally capable. They’d just prefer to have the man make them whenever possible and save them the effort and responsibility. Even if a woman has no idea where she wants to go, it will still piss her off and make her lose respect for you if she hears you say the same and pass the decision-making buck right back to her.

As a self-help guru I heard once said, it’s better to make a boldly make a bad decision than to meekly make no decision at all. Because even when think you’ve make no decision, in the mind of the woman you actually have made a decision. You’ve decided not to lead.

And this is where the last step of becoming an expert on your own city becomes crucial. If you’re an expert on your own city, you’ll always have home court advantage and will be able to make more informed decisions than whoever you’re with. People with a hustle mentality rather than a mastery mentality only want to learn things at the moment when they desperately need the information, and are therefore always playing catch up, getting by by the skin of their teeth and constantly making mistakes. By learning things throughout your life just for your own benefit and enjoyment without any immediate critical need for the information helps you always stay a step ahead of the game. Because you’re well-prepared, having the decision-making responsibility passed to you is not something to avoid; for a Renaissance Man it’s something he eagerly looks forward to. You’ll welcome the chance to lead. Always grasp any chance to lead whenever you spot moments of hesitation and indecision in others.

Some tips to make decision-making moments a welcome opportunity rather than a burden:

• Like mentioned above, be well-rounded and knowledgeable about many areas, especially concerning the area where you live so your decisions can be confident and informed.
• Practice making quick decisions about small things throughout your day, each and every day. Limit the time you spend weighing pros and cons. For example when shopping for something, give yourself a time limit for deliberating and weighing comparative specs. This teaches you to trust your gut and not get frozen by “analysis paralysis” or act wishy-washy.
• Be willing to risk a bad decision, and the consequences that come from it. And if you do make a bad decision, own up to it and don’t make excuses, whine or blame others. You would have taken the glory if it went well, so don’t avoid the blame if it goes badly.
• If you make a bad decision, instead of dwelling on it, focus on what you learned from the mistake, what you can do to avoid it next time, and rather than beat yourself up for the mistake, be happy for the valuable lesson you learned instead.
• Don’t look back or keep second-guessing once you’ve made the decision. Treat it as final and binding and move on unless some new critical information comes to light.

Whether dealing with your guy friends, business contacts, clients or a female you’re dating, look for and embrace opportunities to take leadership roles. A Renaissance Man is a leader of both men and women. But with women, it’s not just recommended, it’s mandatory. Make every decision first that you can. If you notice, she may be indecisive about making the first decision, but once you come up with a suggestion she’ll suddenly have a bunch of opinions and criticisms and alternative suggestions like “No, I don’t like that place” or “What about this place instead?” That’s just how it goes. Don’t be a tyrant, negotiate, take what she has to say into account and even if you do ultimately decide to go with her suggestion, make sure frame it’s clear that it’s because you felt it was the best choice and made the final call accordingly. You must make the first decision and the final call.

It sounds chauvinistic, I know, but put it in action and get back to me. I bet you’ll be plenty surprised.

The Best, “Sugar Man” by Sixto Rodriguez:

Sugar man, won’t you hurry
’cause I’m tired of these scenes.
For a blue coin won’t you bring back
All those colors to my dreams.

Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man, met a false friend
On a lonely dusty road
Lost my heart, when i found it
It had turned to dead black coal

Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man, you’re the answer
That makes my questions disappear
Sugar man ’cause i’m weary
Of those double games l hear

Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…

Sugar man, won’t you hurry
cause I’m tired of these scenes
For a blue coin won’t you bring back
All those colors to my dreams.

Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man met a false friend
On a lonely dusty road
Lost my heart when i found it
It had turned to dead black coal

Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man you’re the answer
That makes my questions disappear

2nd Best, “Waiting for My Man” by Velvet Underground

Bonus:

Paolo Nutini’s acoustic cover of Sugar Man:

Read the introduction if you haven’t done so already to understand the basic concept of the series.

Now let’s get into ways to become more of a Renaissance Man. Rather than give ultra-specific steps, my approach is to give general ways to live that will help you become more of a Renaissance Man in every aspect of your life.

Be Willing to Throw or Take a Punch If Needed

I touched on this in the introduction post. This does not mean to go out looking for fights, or to use fighting as your first resort to solving problems. Part of being a man is knowing when to let things slide and when your pride and self-respect demands physical action. Some drunk guy bumps into you in a bar and is unapologetic? Probably not worth it. Somebody threatens your girlfriend and/or kid in public and is unapologetic? Confrontation is needed. Some chick you haven’t been dating long is trying to get you and another guy to battle over her in a classic case of the mindgame “Let’s You and Him Fight?” Charge her to the game and move on. You’re wife’s ex is calling you out and pushing your buttons to a ridiculous degree as shown in this comment by Private Pigg in the comments section to the previous post? You have no choice but to throw a punch at that point.

Also important is to get a sense of who you’re dealing with. If you’re a middle class professional guy and you are dealing with a lower-class thug who may have been in and out of jail numerous times, you have much more to lose than him and he’s probably willing to take it to a level you don’t want to bring it to, like stabbing or shooting. Also, does he have a group of guys who look willing to jump into the fray?

Like I said, one has to use their judgment, and it should be a last resort, not a first. But you can’t go through life telling yourself it should never, ever be an option at all. Most guys fear fighting for the same reason most guys have anxiety about approaching strange women. Their ego can’t handle the prospect of failing publicly. It brings to mind that scene in Fight Club where one of the assignments Tyler Durden’s disciples must complete is to start a fight with someone else and deliberately lose, and they find that it’s harder than they expect because most people in civilized society will do anything to avoid fighting.

Control Your Apologies and Gratitude

We apologize and show gratitude much too often in our society. From what I hear from foreigners, Americans and the British are actually the worst at this. (If anyone who is well-traveled out there can support or refute this for me, it would be appreciated)

It gets so bad sometimes that you can bump into someone and they’ll reflexively apologize to you before you have a chance to even say anything. We overapologize and overthank to the point that apologies and gratitude become cheap, insincere and meaningless. As an assignment, start keeping track of how many times you and others around you apologize and thank people over the course of a day and you may be surprised by what you notice.

I used to overapologize and overthank all the time. At a restaurant, for every single thing a waiter would do for me, I’d respond with a “Thank you.” Most civilized people on average do this, so I thought nothing of it. One day my friend says to me, “What the fuck are you thanking him for? For doing the bare minimum of his job description?” At first it seemed like an assholish thing to say until I thought about it further and realized he was right. Why was I thanking him for doing the minimum of what I expect, for doing what he was being paid to do? And multiple times for every single task he did?

After that, I only would thank once with any encounter with a service person, and only at the very end of the transaction. Any extra thank yous before the end would only come if the service person was doing something above and beyond what he needed to do. The most important form of thank you, the one that mattered most, was the gratuity I paid at the end of the encounter, and I now realized if I compensated well at that point, that was what really counted.

The same goes for apologies: apologize selectively, and only when sincerely sorry. Don’t apologize for your thoughts, although you may apologize for expressing them tactlessly or at an inappropriate time. Apologize for your actions such as stepping on someone’s toe, but not for your beliefs.

The reason for this rule is because of the messages overapologizing and overthanking send both to yourself and to others. It conveys what you think you deserve. You are telling other people and yourself that they are doing you a favor just for being nice to you and treating you decently. If you work hard for your money and are spending it in someone’s establishment, you deserve good treatment. If you believe something and express it without malice and with tact, you don’t have to apologize. If you slightly bump people in the shoulder in an extremely crowded train where everyone can’t avoid bumping into each other, you don’t have to say “sorry” or “excuse me” every 10 seconds each time it happens. It’s unavoidable, it’s par for the course, it should be expected, and as long as it’s not excessive or painful contact it should be understood. Anyone who can’t get that is an unreasonable dick, which is not your problem.

This is a harder rule to implement than it seems at first glance, because we are unaware of the many covert ways we thank and apologize. It’s bigger than just verbalizing the words “sorry,” “excuse me” and “thank you” less. We often unwittingly thank and apologize with our emotional reactions and our body language.

For example, picture as a single guy you walk into a club and you see a group of women. The average guy will try to innocuously or meekly make his way over to them and maybe open by stammering “I don’t mean to bother you, but…” If he doesn’t get blown out right away, he visibly gets excited and looks elated and continues on. STOP RIGHT THERE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED. His body language and words were apologetic. Before he even opened his mouth, his walk was apologetic, like he was sorry for taking up space and didn’t want to call attention to himself. He had no swagger and no confidence in his physical approach, and swagger and confidence are inherently unapologetic. Then he started with “I don’t mean to bother you..” Openers like this are also apologetic. So are openers like “Excuse me, but..” or “Sorry, but…” He is apologizing for talking to the person, as if a conversation with him is such a bad thing that he must apologize whenever he inflicts the experience on another human being. It sounds harmless, but people pick up on that language on an unconscious level and often respond accordingly. That’s why I used to like opening up with things like “Hey, you know what?” or “You’re not going to believe this” or “What are you guys gossiping about over there? or even just “Hey!” Anything except an pseudo-apologetic setup. Look around at guys around and you and you’ll see that not only do many guys lack swagger, they actually have an apologetic walk to them. Some people are so bad they give off the vibe like they’re apologizing just for existing.

Same goes for that physical reaction that implies gratitude. When someone responds positively to your approach or request, you don’t act pleased, you act like you’re entitled to it, like you expected no less. The message you send when you visibly show gratitude is that you are not used to such good treatment, that you don’t feel like you deserve it, that it’s an anomaly, something special that you only get as an occasional fluke. Since that is the opposite of how an alpha male or renaissance man is used to getting treated, the person reasons you therefore must not be an alpha or renaissance man. Even leaning in too much whenever she speaks to make sure you don’t miss a word is borderline apologetic. Lean back, look relaxed, force her to speak up or lean in to close the physical gap if you can’t hear her. Make her work to please you. If you ask someone out on a date and they say yes, don’t act excited or noticeably happier like she did you a favor, act like she did herself one by accepting. Go as far as saying something cocky like “See, I could tell you were a smart girl.”

The same goes for asking for a raise for your boss or asking your landlord to fix something or sending your food back to the kitchen when it’s subpar. This is bigger than a trick for picking up women, it’s about lifestyle and expectations. Don’t say “Sorry to bother you, but this food is cold.” Why are you sorry for expecting good food. Don’t preface your raise request with complimentary fluff like “I just want you to know I really enjoy working here, but…” That’s an apologetic intro, you are conveying you feel guilty for what you are about to ask, as if you don’t deserve it.”

Don’t take it too far and become an abrasive, unapologetic ingrate. Courtesy and manners are an important part of being a gentleman in a civilized society. The point is that you want to convey what you feel you deserve and how you expect to be treated, and you also don’t want to cheapen your words. Overapologizing and overthanking cheapen your apologies and gratitude. When used sparingly, your apologies and gratitude end up carrying more weight when they do get expressed, and you also train people to work harder to please you.

A quick note: it appears that I lost 150 subscribers, almost half my total, after my last Obama post. Well, at least you can’t say it didn’t move the readers.

Second quick note: it seems the immortality drive series was depressing the shit out of people, so I put it on hold for a while. I’m coming back to it sometime next week.

Anyway, I get a lot of ideas for posts suggested by readers, and I store them away for future reference. I figured now would be a good time to dig up one of those suggestions.

Someone, can’t remember who, asked that I give a 12 step plan on being an alpha male. I thought this request over for a while and realized I couldn’t give him the kind of post he was asking for. I imagine he wanted some tips on how to stand, talk or dress that would make him more of an alpha male. There are two reasons I felt unable to write such a post. First, there are many other sites that already write about such things, and do it much better than I ever could. And the second, and probably more controversial, reason is that I don’t really think it’s possible for most of us guys to even become alpha males in today’s society. Yes, you read that right.

Too many of the behaviors and attitudes associated with being a true alpha male are either extremely frowned upon socially, or are outright illegal. The very, very highest level of alpha male throughout history has been the guy who has been willing to either injure or take life (even if by ordering someone under him to do it) or risk injury and even his own death. For example it used to be perfectly acceptable, if a guy insulted you, to punch him in the face if you wanted. Now in today’s society, a guy can pretty much insult you all he wants until the cows come home, but the moment you get sick of it and punch him in the face, you have committed a crime. Back in the day though, you not only had the option of punching a dude, you could even duel him to the death. I’m sure the number of passive-aggressive pricks was much lower back then as a result, given repercussions like that. But not only is it illegal, we have a generation of men socially conditioned to avoid and frown on fighting from the moment they enter the school system. It’s drilled into their heads to the point where the average middle-class guy would do anything to avoid punching another guy in the face, not only because it would be illegal or because he fears the scorn of his community, but also because deep in his heart of hearts he feels like he failed as a civilized human being. Fighting has become a moral failing in the mind of modern men. The prevalent social attitude is to either stand there all day and bicker like a woman or take the “high road” and just walk away. Even guys who have asked me about how to be more alpha in the past, when I suggest punching a guy in the face once in a while when they get fed up as one of the steps, balk at this suggestion. And given the ways the community and the legal system will punish you for engaging physical violence, I can’t totally blame them. I once believed the same thing, but I made a pledge to myself two years ago though that to the best of my ability I would no longer shy away from physical violence to solve problems, or view it as a sign of weakness to do so. The people who created such rules were women and powerful but physically weak intellectual men who wanted to find a way to level the playing field for themselves against alpha males by using the legal system.

Most men are afraid to fight for the same reason they’re afraid of approaching women. They’re afraid of that ego-shattering sensation of failing, and publicly to boot. It’s safer to not try. With fighting, they even take it one step further by reframing their fear into a virtue, which is why most civilized men will try to portray their unwillingness to fight as a virtue.

But that’s just one of the many ways society has neutered the ability of men to be alpha males. One of the effects of a society with men totally free to be as alpha as they want is (1) incredible inequality as much of the power and sexual opportunity gets concentrated in the hands of the few and powerful, and (2) lack of security for the average person. Societies with unbridled alpha aggression free a man to go for the things he wants, but also leave him open to someone bigger and stronger doing the same thing to him at some point. And for women, these societies can be especially dangerous and volatile.

As societies become more civilized and become more democratic, they tend to start valuing things like equality and security above all else. Consequently these civilized societies start relegating all alpha status to the state, and to its enforcement arm, the legal system, in exchange for more equality and security. The State is the biggest alpha in America now. The only individuals who can achieve true alpha status in the West nowadays are the people who are rich and powerful enough to influence and control the state, the criminals because they refuse to play by the State’s rules and thumb their nose at its legal system enforcement arm , and the members that make up the frontline of that aforementioned enforcement arm such as police, prosecutors and military men in times of war.

The only option available for the rest of us is to be as much of a man as we can while still toeing the line. We can only be alpha within limits. So in trying to come up with a term beside Alpha Male, I decided to use Renaissance Man instead. This is a term that is also used by Tariq Nasheed. The Renaissance Man is a modern man who is as alpha as he can be despite not being rich and powerful and while still living within the limitations set upon him by society and his power level. You can often see examples of such men in old movies that were made before the 70s.

This is an open-ended series with no set ending, I’ll just keep adding installments whenever I feel like it. Part 1 comes tomorrow.

I found a great piece by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D and narcissism expert, diagnosing Obama with extreme narcissism. It’s really worth the time it takes to read it in detail, as I think he makes a very plausible case that I think is at least worth consideration, given the impact the man will have over our lives over the next four years.

Admittedly, if one’s sole source of Obama information is the media and their hagiographic portrayal of the man, it may seem to be a very off-base portrayal, but as someone who just finished Obama’s autobiography last week, I do think that you can find support for many of Vaknin’s claims in Obama’s own words. (My review of Obama’s autobiography will be the next installment in the series by the way) If you read between the lines of the recent Inauguration Day coverage however, you can still find evidence of the man’s narcissism amidst the glowing coverage.

Barack Obama, even though he’s actually accomplished very little so far in his political career when compared to most president-elects, has never been one to shy away from grandiose comparisons. He frequently invokes JFK and Lincoln every chance he gets. But lately his Lincoln invocations have hit a fever pitch.

In his first post-election press conference, four days after the election, when asked what he was doing to prepare for his upcoming presidency Obama responded “I have re-read some of Lincoln’s writings, who’s always an extraordinary inspiration.” Since then, Obama has been directly and indirectly invoking Lincoln’s name in numerous news interviews on the road to his inauguration, like on “60 Minutes:”

In Barack Obama’s appearance last month on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” the conversation turned to the president-elect’s long-time love of Lincoln.

“There is a wisdom there,” Obama told interviewer Steve Kroft, “and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful.”

Even his method of choosing his cabinet is supposedly based on Abraham Lincolns “Team of Rivals” strategy, as the media loves to remind us.

As we inch closer to Inauguration Day, however, it’s getting really out of hand. Obama announced he was planning to get sworn in on the same bible Lincoln got sworn in on:

From the [Obama] transition team:

“Washington, D.C. – On January 20th, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible upon which President Lincoln was sworn in at his first inauguration. The Bible is currently part of the collections of the Library of Congress. Though there is no constitutional requirement for the use of a Bible during the swearing-in, Presidents have traditionally used Bibles for the ceremony, choosing a volume with personal or historical significance. President-elect Obama will be the first President sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861.

That’s bad, but not unprecedented. Other Presidents have used bibles previously used by their predecessors for inauguration ceremonies.

But then it kept getting more obnoxious, as Obama announced that he would recreate Abraham Lincoln’s train ride into DC:

Barack Obama has evoked Abraham Lincoln ever since launching his campaign at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Now he plans to arrive in Washington the same way that Lincoln did in 1861, with a train trip that will include stops, speeches and crowds along the way.

On Jan. 17, Obama and his family will start the day with an appearance in Philadelphia, where they will board a chartered Amtrak train. The train will stop in Wilmington, Del., where the Obamas will be joined by Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. Then comes a stop in Baltimore before the group’s arrival that evening in Washington.

“He’s replicating the last leg of Lincoln’s inaugural journey to Washington,” said historian Harold Holzer, author of “Lincoln President Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861.” “This guy’s reverence for Lincoln has no bounds.”

Never mind the fact that many consider Lincoln’s train ride into DC to have been a debacle, as several historians and Lincoln scholars have pointed out:

Obama might want to rethink exactly which parts of Lincoln’s legacy are worth emulating, and which are not…Lincoln’s train journey can be viewed as rather a mixed bag of success and failure. Some Americans of his day thought Lincoln’s off-the-cuff speeches from the back of train weren’t terribly inspiring. Parts of the journey were disorganized, and his final arrival in Washington DC was actually rather a debacle, with some of his detractors accusing the president-elect of cowardice.

But wait, it gets worse. Now Obama is even planning to eat like Lincoln at the inauguration dinner:

The luncheon that will be served in Congress’s Statuary Hall to the president-elect and vice president-elect and their families — as well as congressional leaders, justices of the Supreme Court and pending members of the Obama Cabinet — will be modeled after foods that Lincoln ate and enjoyed.

The first course will even be served on replicas of the china picked out by then-first lady Mary Todd Lincoln at the beginning of her husband’s term in office…

The luncheon’s appetizer will be seafood stew in puff pastry — scallops, shrimp, lobster — served as a nod to the 16th president’s love of stewed and scalloped oysters.

The main course — duck breast with sour-cherry chutney and herb-roasted pheasant served with molasses sweet potatoes and winter vegetables — is a nod to the root vegetables and wild game that Mr. Lincoln favored growing up on the frontier in Kentucky and Indiana.

The apple cinnamon sponge cake dessert is a nod to Mr. Lincoln’s love of apples and apple cake.

A backlash has already begun among historians, as documented in this Politico piece (worth reading in full):

Obama’s frequent invocations of Abraham Lincoln ? a man enshrined in myth and marble with his own temple on the National Mall ? would not at first blush say much about his own instincts for modesty or self-effacement.

And now there are early rumblings of a backlash to Obama’s ostentatious embrace of all things Lincoln, with his not-so-subtle invitations to compare the 44th president to the 16th, the “Savior of the Union.”

Simply put, some scholars think the comparisons have gone a bit over the top hat.

Sean Wilentz, a scholar in American history at Princeton, said many presidents have sought to frame themselves in the historical legacies of illustrious predecessors, but he couldn’t find any examples quite so brazen.

“Sure, they’ve looked back to Washington and even, at times, Jackson. Reagan echoed and at times swiped FDR’s rhetoric,” said Wilentz. “But there’s never been anything like this, and on this scale. Ever.”

Eric Foner, a Columbia historian who has written extensively on the Civil War era, agreed that comparing one’s self to Lincoln sets a rather high bar for success, and could come off like “a certain kind of hubris.”

“It’d be a bit like a basketball player turning up before his first game and saying, ‘I’m kind of modeling myself on Michael Jordan,’” he said. “If you can do it, fine. If you’re LeBron James, that’ll work. But people may make that comparison to your disadvantage.”

As it happens, Obama may find this an entirely apt comparison.

“I’m LeBron, baby,” he told a Chicago Tribune reporter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. “I can play on this level. I got some game.”

I predict that this is just the beginning, and that the longer Obama is in office, the more the afterglow will wear off and his narcissism will become more apparent. Narcissism is not necessarily a bad thing, though, unless it’s so extreme that it leads to hubris and arrogance, causes one to overreach and impedes progress and teamwork (something many of Bush’s critics claim happened to Bush). To run for high office or shoot for such lofty goals in general requires a high level of self-regard to begin with; I don’t believe anyone runs for President without a little bit of narcissism. (Hell, even to create a blog requires a certain amount of narcissism) I do think, however, that Obama’s narcissism is incredibly transparent and way out of proportion to his actual accomplishments, and the fact that the media and public gives him such a pass on it is truly disturbing.

Recommended Reading:

Part 1 of this series

Part 2

In this part, I’m going to talk about a related concept, immortality by proxy. Immortality by proxy is what people usually refer whether they know it or not when they tell you about the importance of being part of something “bigger than yourself.”

Immortality by proxy has to do when people try to gain immortality by being a part of something bigger and closer to immortality than themselves, like a person, event, or movement.

Proxy Immortality Through People

Proxy immortality through a person involves either helping someone else satisfy their immortality drive or becoming someone’s follower because they promise to be your gateway to personal immortality. Cult leaders and religious figures derive much of their power over followers via this phenomenon. They promise to be the middleman in your relationship with God, the person who will relay God’s messages to you and let you know what you must do to gain access to spiritual afterlife. You are basically entrusting this person with your very soul. Think of the power that gives a person. The most reputable churches as well as the most dangerous and loyal cult followings have always been the ones surrounding a charismatic leader who convinced his flock he could give them access to eternal life.

There also is a certain joy that people feel when they help someone else achieve a level of immortality that they themselves will never be able to reach. It’s pretty cool to meet a famous person, but it’s even cooler when you’re able to help someone rise and get that much closer to immortality, especially if you yourself usually feel powerless and voiceless. This usually accounts for the nameless, faceless masses that get incredibly obsessed and personally involved with helping another person rise to power.

Think of those young, broke and eager college students who go crazy to get a grassroots politician elected or the masses of peasants through history that rallied behind charismatic revolutionaries. This is especially true when the person can be considered “one of your own,” like someone from your own hometown, socioeconomic level or race. Helping someone very similar to you achieve immortality affirms to a person, even if subconsciously, that immortality may be also possible for him or his children one day as well.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Then of course there is celebrity worship, probably the most obvious form of this phenomenon.

It doesn’t have to just involve following one individual, though. The same concept can involve a group of individuals, an organization. Sports fans who define themselves by their obsessive support of their favorite team fall into this category for example. I’m not talking about fans who are really into the strategy involved and the teamwork and the quality of the play. I mean the fans who primarily want to root for a uniform and team, regardless of who the team members are in a particular season or if they are any good.

Suspend your disbelief and imagine, for example, right before the Boston Red Sox went on the field to play the Yankees some miracle last-minute trade happened where both teams exchanged every last one of their members so that all the players who were just Yankees were now Red Sox and vice versa. The Red Sox fans who were filled with hatred toward the Yankees players all season will suddenly start rooting for them and loving them the moment they switch uniforms. It’s the uniforms and what they represent that they’re cheering. It’s the immortal organization they love more than anything.

Same goes for people who identify themselves throughout their lives by their participation in the military; they enjoy having been a part of an immortal organization that existed before they were born and will exist long after their physical bodies expire. No matter what happens to their bodies, no one will ever be able to take away the role they played in such an organization, however small it may be.

At the largest scale, this type of proxy immortality manifests itself as nationalism or cultural or racial pride.

Proxy Immortality Through Event Participation

People love being part of an event that will live on forever in the minds of future generations. By taking part in such an immortal event, they feel a little more immortal themselves. Every time someone celebrates that event, in a small way the participant feels like they’re being celebrated too, even if not explicitly. Take for example the WWII generation, and the pride they have in being called that. They are basically defined by their participation in an immortal event.

I think this is another big reason why the Obama phenomenon was so powerful and cultlike. It was not only proxy immortality through a person but it was also proxy immortality through event participation, and in this case it was the historical event of the election of the first black US President, which made the power of his candidacy even more potent. For the rest of their lives, people alive during 2008 can tell the story of where they were when the first black US President was elected. And if they voted for him or volunteered to help his campaign, they have even more of a tie to the immortal event.

Proxy Immortality Through Participation in Scenes/Movements

Ever notice how people who were in on the ground floor of an important immortalized movement always try to remind people of their involvement in that movement throughout their lives. There are many Baby Boomers who still take pride in having been hippies and try to make sure the movement is remembered and lionized by future generations. The same goes for people who marched in the civil rights movement, people who went to CBGB’s to see the first NY punk bands play before they became famous, ex-Black Panthers, and people who partied at Studio 54 in its disco heyday (a hedonistic movement).

People who were part of a major movement always try their hardest to keep the memory of said movement alive, since the more famous, and in turn immortal, they can make the movement become, the more immortal they will feel for having partaken in it. This of course often leads to a lot of self-aggrandizement and exaggeration about the impact and profundity of said movement, but I digress.

The Wrap-Up

The thing to note about proxy immortality: people who rack up their own personal accomplishments and achieve social mobility are less likely to engage in it, because they’re actively chasing their own individual immortality and don’t feel the need to get it through association. For example an average joe may take a lot of pride in having been a part of a fraternity in college and may brag about it until the end of his life, but to a world-famous self-made billionaire, his membership in that exact same fraternity is probably a much smaller deal.

Also see Basking in Reflected Glory.

Next: Immortality, Self-Awareness and Woody Allen