[NetBehaviour] [imitationpoetics] Literary Narcissism and the Manufacture of Scandal (fwd)

[Alan Sondheim]

Thought this would be of great interest here - Alan (sent w/permission)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 14:11:55 -0500
From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
Reply-To: ImitaPo Memebers <imitationpoetics at listserv.unc.edu>
To: ImitaPo Memebers <imitationpoetics at listserv.unc.edu>
Subject: [imitationpoetics] Literary Narcissism and the Manufacture of Scandal

Imitation Poetics
ImitationPoetics at listserv.unc.edu
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[regarding the manufacture of literary scandals for the purposes of
self-aggrandizement]
     * A Literary Narcissist's behavior will not only tolerate but encourage
attacks on himself so long as it can translate his own self-fascination
into more news of himself.
     * Just as the Narcissist will use argument, catastrophe, disputation to
attract attention, certain people will be willing to dispute the Narcissist
in order to participate in the economy of attention. Others will dispute
the Narcissist because they are so profoundly appalled by his/her behavior.
Either way, the economy of attention is fueled.
     * The Narcissist needs Catastrophe. The more internal crises of shame
the Narcissist endures and fails to heed, the more s/he will need to create
external Catastrophes. A chief and signal way a Narcissist might attract
attention is to start fights: Narcissists will gravitate toward satire and
caricature as a means of creating argument. The Narcissist will attempt to
construe strife with health: "These arguments need to happen," etc.
     * The Narcissist IS fascinating -- but not for the reasons the
Narcissist thinks. S/he is fascinating because the energy s/he will expend
in micromanaging the self image is so profoundly exceptional. People just
sort of stand there slack-jawed wondering if this person has a life. The
Narcissist however will mistranslate the fascination of others as admiration.
     * Poetry communities will tolerate narcissism so long as it is
translated into a Social Energy which others can use to strengthen and
promote their projects.
     * Narcissism and alcoholism. Alcoholism is a systematic way to push
down socially regulating emotions like shame, guilt, and embarrassment at
one's own self-aggrandizing behavior. The suppression of these emotions is
never successful, even in the most energetic of self-aggrandizers, and they
will periodically burst upward into brief displays of remorse and
convictions to change. These brief spouts of regulatory behavior are
sometimes shared publicly and sometimes privately among confidants. These
displays however can often easily be "re-used" by the Narcissist as a way
of showing his/her authenticity and emotional fealty to the community.
     * The Narcissist is aware of the economy of disgust surrounding his/her
behavior. S/he becomes more and more sensitive to this and consequently
begins to demand private declarations of loyalty from those people whom
s/he knows consider themselves friends -- even if they have said nothing
publicly against the Narcissist.
     * The Narcissist, aware of this disgust, will create a personal mythos
in which s/he will be justified and exonerated by the rewards of literary
"history." The stronger the disgust of others, the greater the energy used
to maintain the mythos of exoneration by history.
     * Narcissists are only interested in community so long as it pays
dividends to their energy: they will support it if it feeds them.
     * The narcissist may outright demand in private that you "pay" him
publicly with praise. Then he or she will publicly "repay" you with a
communal mention.
     * In their attempt to cause others to adopt their self-fascination,
Narcissists will become increasingly paranoiac, constantly searching the
environment and community for news of themselves, for fealty or disloyalty.
     * The Literary Narcissist begins purposefully to conflate criticism of
his social behavior into an indication of his/her literary worth. That is
to say, the Narcissist will try to show that the reason others despise or
are disgusted by him is in fact because he or she is a "Rebel," a true
Literary Revolutionist -- and that the statements of disgust others
publicly make at his behavior is merely an indication of (a) their
necessary denial of the work because they are threatened by it, or (b)
their jealousy of the work.
     * There comes a point -- and the point may come early -- where the
community thinks to itself "teapot" and the Narcissist still hears
"tempest." The truly insular narcissist (aka "the boor") will be met more
and more with shunning, ignoring and silence. This will wrest the
narcissist from his insularity -- such that he will begin another project
designed to create Genuine Interest instead of mere scandalous attention.
This project, like a new comet's head, will be followed by a long tail of
manufactured scandal so as to call attention to its presence in the
literary sky.

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