When did Activism become Narcissim

I have been absent for a while. Partially from laziness, partially because nothing in the news has caught my eye. It is sort of the lazy time of the summer. My baseball team (the Indians) are not playing well, but are in first place. My fantasy team is about to be knocked out of any chance for the playoffs. Oh well you can't win every year.

So without compelling day to day subjects here is a general one that has been gnawing at me. It seems that conspiracy theories, both political and not, are prevalent. Extremism is so common in all beliefs. What used to activism in politics has been replaced by something else. I call it narcissism.

Throughout the history of our nation political disagreements have been normal. Some of these have been aggressive. The tales are endless. This is healthy. At the end of the day though, the founders and in every period save the Civil War period, we as a nation have been able to come together as one nation.

What is different today? We have important issues. Every period had important issues. The early years had our leaders trying to do something that had never been done before. Those are important issues. The post civil war years saw us trying to put our nation back together. That was difficult. The Progressive years of Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft saw a subtle shift in the role of government. These again were important issues. Most of the last century saw of battling and arguing over whether or not to go to war. Very important issues.

When I try to analyze what makes today different, I see a period like none before. That difference is narcissism. Never before have so many people not had a belief in something bigger than themselves. Call it secularism, call it atheism, call it what you want I call it narcissism. Now mind you I do not mean to imply that those of faith are not narcissistic. I put myself in that same category many times.

I believe in past days, we would fight over issues, we would vote and sometimes our side lost. In previous times, we would argue, fight and cajole. When it was said and done the losers would lick their wounds, and prepare to battle the next time. I see it a little different in modern society. When a side loses, be it political or non, we see bitter accusations of anti-American motives, accusations of conspiracy, or people calling each other evil, and other such hateful expressions.

Why is it different now. I of course do not know for sure, but my theory is that our narcissism will not allow us to believe that the mainstream of our country could possibly disagree with us. Since more than ever before we tend to see ourselves almost God like, we believe that every one else that disagrees with us cannot be right, they just can't. That belief in hand they see any actions to prove that as justified. It becomes an obsession. Look at Hollywood. Whatever it takes to make them happy is OK. Today seven years later, even with their blessed New York Times telling them otherwise, some Democrats believe George Bush stole the election of 2000. Today even though there is no evidence of it anywhere, a small active portion of the right is convinced George Bush is trying to create a North American Union similar to Europe. The examples of this go on and on. Let me stress again disagreement is American and healthy, obsessive belief in fairy tales is not. I have my own obsessions. I too fight my own narcissism. I try not to pass it on to my children.

My answers? Take it a little easy. If you are secular or atheist, consider that those of us who do believe are not three headed monsters, we just believe in a faith, whether it be Christian, Judiasm, Islam etc. If you are of faith, talk to an atheist, consider the same, they are not from outer space, we can believe ardently that the other side is wrong, but we must believe they are just as American as we are. Argue, argue passionately, just don't shut out reality. If an issue doesn't go right, try another plan, don't make up fairy tales and straw men to explain what went wrong. We will all benefit.