Communal Narcissism The driving force of the progressive left

Lots of this on display today with yet another round of “No Kings” protests scheduled for July 4. “Communal narcissists wear compassion like a crown, seeking applause through affirmations of selflessness”—without actually doing anything beyond displaying how wonderful they are.” It’s a top-down process —a project of our hostile elite: “Totalitarian movements thrive by “manufacturing consent”. Ordinary people are forced to operate within “permission structures” designed by elites with power and authority. As a consequence, they come to believe things that they would not have otherwise entertained: allowing men to compete against women in sports; approving sex changes for minors; opening borders to unvetted illegal immigrants; defunding the police and decriminalizing crime. Radical changes in policy are facilitated by media and institutional narratives that provide scaffolding for fast-shifting beliefs.”

Apsoria: Communal Narcissism

The driving force of the progressive left

Written by Bert Parlee and Keith Thompson.

In June 2020, activists in the music industry organized “Blackout Tuesday”, an online protest against “racial injustice”. Numerous celebrities and influencers posted the image of a solid black square, earning praise from their supporters and racking up thousands of likes. Yet most of them took no substantive action. This is the essence of communal narcissism: claiming to do good while seeking moral superiority.

Western society has become obsessed with stunts of this kind by self-proclaimed do-gooders who cloak themselves in virtue while craving fame and attention. Unlike the brash “I’m the best!” narcissism of figures like Trump, communal narcissists wear compassion like a crown, seeking applause through affirmations of selflessness. Thankfully, academic research has shed some light on this subtler variant.

Examining the literature on clinical narcissism in the time of Trump, we discovered something surprising. Researchers had been certain they would be able to distinguish healthy individuals from those suffering from the new condition. What gradually dawned on them was that many of the individuals they’d been scoring as normal were in fact exhibiting vanity, grandiosity and entitlement—the hallmark traits that self-centered narcissists display more overtly!

Of course, the pathological aspects of the new condition announce themselves in markedly different words and gestures. It had previously been assumed that these characteristics were healthy—unlike the well-known characteristics of overt narcissism so readily apparent in people like Trump. Remarkably, the experts nearly missed telltale signs of what they would go on to characterize as communal narcissism (“communal” indicating that individuals seek validation and admiration through their perceived contributions to social groups or communities, rather than through personal achievements).

To our surprise, and that of the researchers themselves, communal narcissism turns out to be the equal and opposite variant of the self-centered overt type in which individuals boast about being “the best”.

Jochen Gebauer’s 2012 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology introduced the “agency-communion model”, distinguishing agentic narcissists, who boast of their intelligence or achievements, from communal narcissists, who claim to be the most helpful or virtuous. Yet both groups share the same essential needs for affirmation and validation. Ekin Ok’s work enhanced our understanding further. The communal narcissist’s warm glow conceals a sense of entitlement and “special” status. For such individuals, feedback or criticism is commonly experienced as attack. While communal narcissism can be detected in many social movements, both today and in the past, it most closely mirrors the ethos of the progressive left. In fact, it plays a key role in the psycho-social dynamics driving that ideology.

Communal narcissism exists on a spectrum. At its mild end, individuals earnestly advocate for social justice, finding quiet satisfaction and camaraderie in their omni-cause of supporting the intersecting grievances of “marginalized” groups. When less benign, individuals become dogmatic and antagonistic, as when The View hosts engage in anti-Trump vitriol, prioritizing moral posturing over dialogue. At its most severe, individuals try to justify violence, such as BLM riots, assaults on Trump supporters, or the firebombing of Tesla vehicles. Perhaps most chilling is selective compassion, as seen in the silence of many progressives after the recent murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. Despite the victims’ dedication to peace, many self-styled champions of universal values withheld outrage, revealing a disconnect between their benevolent self-image and a deeper ideological purity.

The progressive left’s pivot away from violent revolution in the ‘60’s, and its subsequent “long march through the institutions”, echoes this pattern. From campus protests to corporate boardrooms, activists demand “systemic” change—but their need for validation often overshadows the very goals they want to achieve. Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed unpacks this delusion, where “good intentions” habitually resist disconfirming facts, leading to blind spots, unintended consequences and lack of course corrections.

Totalitarian movements thrive by “manufacturing consent”. Ordinary people are forced to operate within “permission structures” designed by elites with power and authority. As a consequence, they come to believe things that they would not have otherwise entertained: allowing men to compete against women in sports; approving sex changes for minors; opening borders to unvetted illegal immigrants; defunding the police and decriminalizing crime. Radical changes in policy are facilitated by media and institutional narratives that provide scaffolding for fast-shifting beliefs.

In Private Truths, Public LiesTimur Kuran introduced the concept of “preference falsification”, where individuals publicly affirm politically correct “truths”, while privately remaining skeptical. Unlike overt narcissists, who shrug off social norms, communal narcissists require moral approval from the anointed, rendering them more susceptible to social pressures and more likely to falsify their preferences. They readily adopt questionable ideas that “the narrative” insists are fair-minded and true.

In 1957, Carl Jung warned of “collective possession” driven by an “overwrought emotionality” that is immune to reason. He spoke of a “psychic epidemic fueled by utopian delusions.” Today’s progressive left, with chants like “no human is illegal”, risks falling into this trap. Arguably, it already has. Continues…

Bert Parlee is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, executive coach and leadership trainer. Keith Thompson is the author of Leaving the Left and The UFO Paradox, and has written for the New York Times.

8 replies
  1. ps
    ps says:

    Climate alarmists warn: Millen-
    nium heat is melting the earth.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak5vw0yLMsE

    “Don’t you think the heat is a bit extreme today?”
    “It’s a bit warm, but with sandals it’s actually fine.”
    https://media.gettr.com/group5/getter/2025/06/15/16/f036039d-3ff5-2e30-ad2e-5ce04b7bf912/out.mp4

    God said, “No brains left.
    From now on, it’s all tits.”
    https://media.gettr.com/group5/getter/2025/06/14/03/b75398d1-67e6-83f0-ed81-55b39c998f6e/out.mp4

    The proof: the term “gay” was conside-
    red unpronounceable in the Stone Age.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp_3w8YXaYg

    Insane American “feminist” hyperventilates hysterically
    at the sight of a drake “raping” a duck. The victim must be
    rescued and protected from his grasp in a duck shelter.
    https://x.com/Patriotmom717/status/1938237493515579502

    The perpetrator should be punished by being made into
    a fry so that Mother Nature will never again allow such
    cowardly injustice that is not based on mutual consent!

    Only Saxon leader Wikukind himself, can help here.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIMHPjZNhLM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOMVu0EiNlw

    Americans with a lack of language skills do not
    know that pagan magic remains fundamentally
    ineffective if you refer to him as “Woodykund”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vli4FSn7EUI

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_of_Kent
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Steed

    The video presents the discovery and examination
    of three graves unearthed during archaeological
    excavations in the collegiate church of Enger, Ger-
    many, in the early 1970s. These graves are believed
    to date back to the early Middle Ages, around the 9th
    century, and are located at the legendary burial site
    of Duke Widukind, a key figure in Saxon history.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeRxR2WRZbY

    The excavated remains are thought to belong to male
    individuals from the founding family of the church, but
    it remains uncertain whether any of them are actually
    those of Widukind himself. The video explores the his-
    torical, archaeological, and cultural significance of these
    findings, highlighting the ongoing debate about the iden-
    tity of the individuals buried there and the broader con-
    text of early medieval burial practices in the region.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5YHxK-_wQU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY7ePhfq1D0

  2. ps
    ps says:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion
    Albania is rather “far-fetched” in terms of the
    origin of the name: Alba or Albia (today: Elbe)
    is much closer, in Albingen (Elbingen), the origi-
    nal home of the Saxons, after whom the Anglo-
    Saxons are also named. That sounds much less
    like a coincidence (no one have asked that yet,
    presumably because it’s right under their noses).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordalbingia
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Duchy_of_Saxony_%28134037775%29.jpg

    This Norwegian “Wotan”-worshipper
    of has a literal hatred of Christianity.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZmu0FTGtVg

    Now I also know who the grim looking
    guy for Jackie Cuckford’s sponsor “Grim-
    frost” is, namely a guy called Johan Hegg.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzsWa20YIo
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Hegg

    https://i.ibb.co/b5MZGz46/grim.jpg
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFotQXcc4Wk

    The “lyrics” of this prototypically monstrous
    “Death Metal” grunting (it’s hard to speak of
    “music” in the proper sense of the term), that
    always makes me laugh every time without fail:

    Marching south, we’re Wessex bound
    We shall take King Alfred’s crown
    It doesn’t matter if he stands or flees
    We will bring him to his knees

    We’ve laid waste to Mercia
    We have conquered York
    We ravaged all these lands
    Without an ounce of remorse

    Another day, another fight
    We are here to win it all
    There is no truce in sight
    ‘Tween Saxons and Vikings
    We carry on, we will not cease
    Relentless ’til your fall
    And there is no hope for peace
    ‘Tween Saxons and Vikings

    We Saxons stand in Alfred’s name
    We’ll make you bleed, our land regained
    Our battle cry is England free and one
    You have taken Saxon blood
    You’ll pay the price in pain
    We raise our flags with pride and steel
    This is the end of Danelaw

    Send you back from whence you came
    You’ll never conquer Wessex land
    Make your threats we’re not afraid
    You’ll taste our English steel

    Another day another fight
    We’re here to win it all
    But there is no truce in sight
    ‘Tween Saxons and Vikings
    We carry on, we will not yield
    God is on our side
    There is no hope for peace
    ‘Tween Saxons and Vikings

    We’ll have your heads
    You pagan scum
    You’ll soon be dead
    We’ll smash thy sculls
    The wolves will tear your flesh
    Your skin will soon be threshed
    You sons of whores
    Satan’s spawn
    Come get some more
    You spineless dogs
    The rooks will take your eyes
    We’re all about to die

    Miscreants
    Veslingur
    You Godless ones
    Nithingur
    We’ll drench this field in blood
    We’ll send you to your God
    Bitches’ brood
    Arka
    We’ll run you through
    Bakrauf
    We’ll break your legs like twigs
    And gut you all like pigs

    We can’t live side by side
    There’s no truce in sight
    Bloodlust fills our savaged hearts
    Who will live or die!

    Blood will soak this battlefield
    Who will live and who will die
    There is no hope

    Another day, another fight
    The battle rages on
    There is no truce in sight
    ‘Tween Saxons and Vikings
    At Eddington the battle stands
    That will determine all
    Who will rule this English land
    Saxons or Vikings
    Saxons or Vikings

  3. ps
    ps says:

    You have to subtract at least half of what they pretend to be, there is so much pretended bravado involved. The martial pose and emphasized macho attitude (exaggerated to the point of ridiculous grotesqueness) naturally raises the question of why it was Scandinavia of all places that invented the so-called genre “death metal”. It seems like a paradox, when the Scandinavian “men” are so self-inflictedly de-balled that they can’t even control their own women!

    And of course it can only mean that these “musically” organized deafening noise orgies must be some kind of (highly auto-destructive) compensatory behaviour that can only be acted out in a fictitious realm. After all, we know that the suicide rate is extremely high in Scandinavian countries in particular (allegedly due to a lack of sunlight). Suicide is always pent-up auto-aggression that has found no other target than itself.

    In real life, these “Vikings” play the super-Christians, so to speak, because friendliness and helpfulness are virtually unwritten commandments in Scandinavia. Just as Germans learn at school that thoroughness, efficiency, duty and punctuality are among the cardinal German virtues, the descendants of the Vikings learn from Astrid Lindren’s feminist children’s books that women are always right and that it is a socially advantageous tactic to always give in, give way and let them go first.

    However, there are certain similarities. Hygge, Gemütlichkeit and Gezelligheid are very similar concepts that have nothing whatsoever to do with bloody murder and aggression release.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygge
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezelligheid

  4. ps
    ps says:

    The traditionally social-democratic Scandinavians are manic conflict avoiders in an equally manic consensus society, and anything but supporters of the “Furor Teutonicus” as their prepubescent wannabe image. Even in the last world war, the applied resistance factor was virtually zero.

  5. Tim
    Tim says:

    https://dailystormer.in/i-hadnt-seen-this-ronald-reagan-diversity-is-our-greatest-strength-speech/

    As I said, America meets neither the narrow nor the broad definition of a “nation”, but is a curious state structure based exclusively on an “idea”, namely that of a multi-ethnic state. It is a mash of indefinable ingredients that are incompatible and mutually exclusive according to the rules of composition. It turns all the rules upside down and declares them obsolete. A prostitute hated by the world.

    It begins with the unauthorized appropriation of the title “America”, although it only refers to a comparatively small section of it. As a non-nation, however, it reserves for itself “nation-building” in the entire world. It is what the “Weimar” Jewish Republic was in an even less drastic form. It’s just ridiculous, no one in the world takes it seriously anymore (thanks to digital “enlightenment”). America has unmasked itself and decapitated itself.

    I can still remember my early youth, it was the time of the NATO Double-Track Decision, Pershing II deployment, etc. My stepfather used to say things like this when he saw Reagan on TV: “America is the only country in the world where a mediocre cowboy actor is elected president.” It almost happened that Schwarzenegger could have become president. Perhaps it will be the South African “Elon” XX-L527?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBIa8z_Mts

    A “cultural freak”. But perhaps also a European afterbirth, the mother cake. Of course, Americans born today are innocent of this; their half-educated ancestors are responsible for it. America is an insatiable sense-destroying machine in permanent blind flight mode. One could also speak of rampant, disorganized, directionless and aimless cell growth similar to an advanced cancer.

    https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/07/barbarism-decadence/
    https://medium.com/@propagandopolis/liberators-86afb43a1928
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Damsleth

  6. ps
    ps says:

    The proof: the term “gay” was conside-
    red unpronounceable in the Stone Age.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp_3w8YXaYg

    Insane American “feminist” hyperventilates hysterically
    at the sight of a drake “raping” a duck. The victim must be
    rescued and protected from his grasp in a duck shelter.
    https://x.com/Patriotmom717/status/1938237493515579502

    The perpetrator should be punished by being made into
    a fry so that Mother Nature will never again allow such
    cowardly injustice that is not based on mutual consent!

    Only Saxon leader Wikukind himself, can help here.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIMHPjZNhLM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOMVu0EiNlw

    Americans with a lack of language skills do not
    know that pagan magic remains fundamentally
    ineffective if you refer to him as “Woodykund”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vli4FSn7EUI

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_of_Kent
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Steed

    The video presents the discovery and examination
    of three graves unearthed during archaeological
    excavations in the collegiate church of Enger, Ger-
    many, in the early 1970s. These graves are believed
    to date back to the early Middle Ages, around the 9th
    century, and are located at the legendary burial site
    of Duke Widukind, a key figure in Saxon history.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeRxR2WRZbY

    The excavated remains are thought to belong to male
    individuals from the founding family of the church, but
    it remains uncertain whether any of them are actually
    those of Widukind himself. The video explores the his-
    torical, archaeological, and cultural significance of these
    findings, highlighting the ongoing debate about the iden-
    tity of the individuals buried there and the broader con-
    text of early medieval burial practices in the region.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5YHxK-_wQU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY7ePhfq1D0

  7. ps
    ps says:

    The proof: the term “gay” was conside-
    red unpronounceable in the Stone Age.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp_3w8YXaYg

    Insane American “feminist” hyperventilates hysterically
    at the sight of a drake “raping” a duck. The victim must be
    rescued and protected from his grasp in a duck shelter.
    https://x.com/Patriotmom717/status/1938237493515579502

    The perpetrator should be punished by being made into
    a fry so that Mother Nature will never again allow such
    cowardly injustice that is not based on mutual consent!

    Only Saxon leader Wikukind himself, can help here.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIMHPjZNhLM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOMVu0EiNlw

    Americans with a lack of language skills do not
    know that pagan magic remains fundamentally
    ineffective if you refer to him as “Woodykund”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vli4FSn7EUI

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_of_Kent
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Steed

    The video presents the discovery and examination
    of three graves unearthed during archaeological
    excavations in the collegiate church of Enger, Ger-
    many, in the early 1970s. These graves are believed
    to date back to the early Middle Ages, around the 9th
    century, and are located at the legendary burial site
    of Duke Widukind, a key figure in Saxon history.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeRxR2WRZbY

    The excavated remains are thought to belong to male
    individuals from the founding family of the church, but
    it remains uncertain whether any of them are actually
    those of Widukind himself. The video explores the his-
    torical, archaeological, and cultural significance of these
    findings, highlighting the ongoing debate about the iden-
    tity of the individuals buried there and the broader con-
    text of early medieval burial practices in the region.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5YHxK-_wQU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY7ePhfq1D0

    You have to subtract at least half of what they pretend to be, there is so much pretended bravado involved. The martial pose and emphasized macho attitude (exaggerated to the point of ridiculous grotesqueness) naturally raises the question of why it was Scandinavia of all places that invented the so-called genre “death metal”. It seems like a paradox, when the Scandinavian “men” are so self-inflictedly de-balled that they can’t even control their own women!

    And of course it can only mean that these “musically” organized deafening noise orgies must be some kind of (highly auto-destructive) compensatory behaviour that can only be acted out in a fictitious realm. After all, we know that the suicide rate is extremely high in Scandinavian countries in particular (allegedly due to a lack of sunlight). Suicide is always pent-up auto-aggression that has found no other target than itself.

    In real life, these “Vikings” play the super-Christians, so to speak, because friendliness and helpfulness are virtually unwritten commandments in Scandinavia. Just as Germans learn at school that thoroughness, efficiency, duty and punctuality are among the cardinal German virtues, the descendants of the Vikings learn from Astrid Lindren’s feminist children’s books that women are always right and that it is a socially advantageous tactic to always give in, give way and let them go first.

    However, there are certain similarities. Hygge, Gemütlichkeit and Gezelligheid are very similar concepts that have nothing whatsoever to do with bloody murder and aggression release.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygge
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezelligheid

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