It is possible to be "intellectually narcissistic" as well as emotionally narcissistic" in our social relations, and the way that this may happen on account of Left-brained education is to treat others with "prejudice" or "judgementalism." We pre-judge something to be true of others or of life without considering alternatives, and we strive to be intellectually right and accurate at any cost, even that of our own delusion or intellectual rudeness toward others. Instead, when we are mature of character and virtuous, we use our Left Brain for the best purpose, which is "curiosity."

If someone is dominated by the defense mechanisms on this level, their function as a person is severely pathological from a psychological perspective. What do these six defenses have in common? They permit one to rearrange external experiences to eliminate the need to cope with reality, which is a definition of “being psychotic.” This is why these primitive social habits have also been called the “psychotic defenses,” which are those that cause us to be disconnected from reality.

Those who use these mechanisms would understandably appear to be insane to others. If you have ever dated someone whom you soon considered to be absolutely “crazy,” or found yourself suddenly wanting to leave a person because you had an insight that they were so irrational, you felt you could be in some kind of danger, then they may have been frequently using one or more of these defense mechanisms.

In terms of people who use these, their communication ability, and what it would mean to be in a relationship with them, the decision is up to you. However, short of advising you not to get into a relationship with them, let us instead say that you should treat them with kindness and if asked, help them understand themselves.

And so, as a culture, we sometimes take at least vague interest in these dynamics, and as individuals, we have personal experience of them in just as much of a terrifying way, as the Invisible Man. It is all invisible, and so terrifying and mysterious, yet just like the Invisible Man, we know that something is going on around us of importance, by way of not what we do see, but by the actual physical objects that the Invisible Man moves, or wears, or bumps into.

They will cause a person to be utterly incapable of participating in the Four Skills of Commitment or to make adjustments in the Four Commonalities of Commitment seen in intellectual attraction.

Common Primitive Defense Mechanisms

Denial ➳

Someone living in denial refuses to live in reality because it is too threatening; arguing against a social situation as if the threatening context just doesn't exist. As far as ego defenses go, this one is perhaps one of the most cited in the popular lexicon. We frequently use it to describe the social habits of the drug addict or alcoholic, the criminal, and others who are on the fringe of mainstream society.

Conversion ➳

The expression of an intrapsychic conflict as something physical. In the world of medicine, this pathologic effect has been seen in the form of blindness, deafness, or some other catastrophic physical manifestation of someone’s inner conflict or anxiety. You may know it in a more mundane way as “being too sick to go to school,” or in having had someone genuinely fall ill with a cold or flu at just the wrong time. For example, right before your wedding.

Delusional Projection ➳

Delusions about reality, usually of a persecutory nature. Consider this when you hear a person say such things as, “Women seem to hate me,” or “My whole family is out to get me.”Be on guard when you hear a person cite a whole group of others as all having the same opinion about the person: “all my friends,” “my whole family,” or an entire gender - “Women all...” or “Men all...” Overgeneralizing about groups of others might reveal this tendency, and it can be seen in some of the more primitive characters in many Woody Allen films.

Delusional Projection is an extremely primitive defense in that the feared state of high anxiety caused by the drives and negative beliefs about the self which are largely unconscious, have a direct expression out into the outer social environment.

Distortion ➳

A gross reshaping of external reality to meet internal needs. This one is definitely worth noting and mentioning because it is so often used among couples in their communication. In that context, what is most often meant by it is to say that the other person is not interpreting us properly in communication. As you may guess, it is hard to overcome, and as you could imagine, is not compatible with a long-term relationship. A film where this is seen is Woody Allen’s, Match Point, in which an American woman currying favor with a wealthy family is interrupted by the local soccer pro, and Falls on love with disastrous consequences.

Extreme Projection ➳

The outright ignoring of a moral or psychological problem in the self, which is perceived as a deficiency in another individual or group. A prime example of this exists in the history of Nazi Germany, where a whole people, the Jews, were blamed en masse, for the economic failings of the whole German people. In the context of our everyday relationships, you might simply call this, “finger-pointing.” Any “divorce movie” that you see, from War of the Roses to Gone Girl, contains this. If you see this tendency in your social connections, you are likely looking at a relationship failure.

Splitting ➳

It is turning people against each other, with the good and bad in people split off and unintegrated, then projected onto someone else. The person sees “all-good” and “all-bad” in others, with no room for ambiguity and ambivalence.

Return to the FOUR LEVELS OF EGO DEFENSES ➳

See the Primitive Ego Defenses, Immature Ego Defenses, Neurotic Ego Defenses, and Mature Ego Defenses.

Projection lowers our anxiety by letting our instincts and desires get expressed without becoming consciously aware of them.  We take our own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and emotions and place them onto another person, perhaps blaming them, shaming them or otherwise dispensing with that in ourselves which we do not like.

This is a defense mechanism which truly highlights how much personal boundaries are involved in our defenses, by way of the boundary anatomy” which we have described as “holes” in the boundary.

Imagine how terrible in would be to come face to face with one’s own jealousy, prejudice, or other ugliness and to realize that what you are feeling is simultaneously unacceptable to you.

Such a person who uses this defense often may do "injustice collecting", all with the aim of shifting one's unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses onto someone else, so that those same thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that one does not want to take ownership of can be blamed on others leaving one more free of anxiety and conflict.

BACK TO IMMATURE EGO DEFENSES

This is one of those weird ones to wrap your mind around. You have views of yourself and the world which you aren’t able to accept about yourself, but when you put them out onto other people, now you find them at a safe distance, more in your control. Now you do not feel as alone with them, and can accept them in yourself.

For example, a generally dependent, helpless person may “play cute” or be charming to a person of interest, asking for help even when they don’t need it at the moment. When they find this person to be compliant with helping them, they have achieved a kind of control over them, even though they are a helpless, dependent person.

In some ways, it is a bit like having a hook and rope with which to spear another person and establish a connection to them which otherwise would not have existed, kind of like saying, “Hey, you’re just like me. We are just like each other,” when in fact, the other person isn’t anything like you and is aware of this. It is a social habit in which you feel “sticky” to others, and in which they may be made uncomfortable if they come from a very strong sense of boundaries, and may start to feel themselves uncomfortably transforming into a replica of you if they have poor boundaries.

In other ways it is similar to our childhood’s experience of “having an imaginary friend.” Or of fabricating friends when you don’t have enough of them. People who try too hard to be accepted by others, or are hungry for friendship will feel this way to you.

This may be similar to the experience of the famous or powerful at the hands of their “fans.” People who “want to be just like you” or are your “admiring audience.” They aren’t your intimates at all, nor are your family, although they have this benevolent, kinship-sounding name, “fans.” In fact, they want to use you, want a piece of you, literally, because they want to become you, not have a relationship to you as a teammate.

It is related in some ways to passive-aggression by way of the control that it exerts over another person. When you feel a kind of cloying, controlling nature in another person who otherwise appears to be pleasant and admiring of you, it may be that they are using the social habit of projective identification on you.

This one is appropriate in childhood, and between children and their parents, and you may feel an uncomfortable feeling of being an unwilling parent to another person when you are around such a person. In this sense, it is contrary to a successful committed relationship because on the team that a romantic couple forms, we all need peers, not dependents.

And so, we again see how important the personal boundary is to managing all this.

BACK TO IMMATURE EGO DEFENSES

Prometheus was a Titan, predating the Olympians, and is credited with the creation of man from clay. He defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, which symbolizes human progress and civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind.

The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is as an immortal, to be bound to a rock, where each day the eagle of Zeus was sent to feed on his liver, only to grow back to be eaten again the next day. To the Greeks, the liver was the seat of emotion.

Prometheus then became a figure who represented human striving for scientific knowledge, at the risk of overreaching or unforeseen and tragic consequences, and which is a basis of the tale of Frankenstein's Monster.

Here we clearly see how the instincts can be used for destructive or constructive purposes, which can play out often as BOTH. The dividing line between the two is the use of a mature personal boundary, not the presence or absence of the instinct, itself.

Prometheus can then be likened to the masculine way of "inventing one's self" or "reinventing one's self." It is the passion and pride of a man, such as in Rudyard Kipling's poem, If, who can be brought down and out, but picks himself up again to reinvent, anew. This is the passionate exhilaration of the "underdog man" who takes his hard lessons and grows both character and masculinity out of them, a brand new man at the end of each challenge, yet who must, as a man, bear the hard memories and emotions of his struggles and mistakes along the way to his "life's mission."

RETURN TO THE MASCULINE INSTINCTS

Propaganda is a character "vice of excess" stemming from what would otherwise be a character virtue of Inspiration. It is too much Inspiration about achieving a goal, to the degree that the partner issuing it is likely trying to control or change the other partner in some way, to fit their own life's goals - their "mission in life" or "purpose in life" - to actually become that of their partner's.  It is intellectually narcissistic, whether directed toward the self or toward others, which is to say that it contains either the intellectual narcissism of ignorance or prejudice. It is also part and parcel of codependence, which is a state of too much shared intimacy and outright bullying by one partner toward the other.

As in most failing partnerships, one partner may be prejudicial against the life's goals and dreams of the other, as if those were a threat to their own. It is part of the definition of pathological narcissism to have a world-view that is "win/lose" instead of "win/win." This is to say that someone else living their dreams is seen as a threat to your own, which is destructive to the whole relationship, and cuts off the partner as a unique source of creative solutions and efforts that actually benefit YOU if they achieve THEIRS.  At least with the other vice, Resignation, you may go about your business of pursuing your dreams, even if they are sabotaging their own for a time. But with Propaganda, the partner is actively trying to change your dreams into something other than your dreams.

Someone who issues "propaganda," is by definition, controlling in nature, of poor boundaries, narcissistic, and disregarding of the sacrosanct nature of your "purpose" or "mission" in life. Your life's goals and dreams are the most precious things you have, more even than the romance itself, or the welfare of your children. Without your dreams, you have nothing to give children, actually. Propaganda directed counter to the goals and dreams of a mate shows poor boundaries and a lack of respect for the very life of the other person, beyond even their ideas or emotions. It is their spirit itself - their masculinity or femininity - that is at risk of being hijacked or depleted, and needs Inspiration as its cure.

As a vice which makes partnership within relationships fail to get to goals, and intellectually unattractive, consider this vice to be negative in many ways, including in sexual attraction, since it actually depletes the reserves of one's own, or the other partner's masculinity or femininity, making them less attractive and feeling less attracted back to you.

RETURN TO CHARACTER COMPATIBILITY