How extreme self-love creates hate waves around the world: common sense must prevail over extremist rhetoric

Two years ago, extremist rhetoric was successfully used in Indonesia to jail a liberal-minded Jakarta governor. More recently, it was an undercurrent in the peaceful demonstrations in Jakarta that erupted into street riots after President Joko Widodo won his second term. Over in Malaysia, the debate on the three Rs – race, religion and royalty – rages on. In the last two months alone, extremist rhetoric inspired terrible attacks on a mosque in New Zealand and a church in Sri Lanka.

What has caused this simple idea, of preserving one’s culture or beliefs, to lead to such painfully negative feelings? Such extreme behaviour has its roots in what is known as collective narcissism, which combines the narcissistic traits of selfishness, a sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy, with a craving for recognition.

Collective narcissism is not a new concept. It was first used by German sociologists in the 1930s to describe Nazi rule in Germany. Studies indicate that collective narcissists are inward looking, have low self-esteem and negative feelings, are extremely sensitive, avoid interpersonal closeness, and are quite vulnerable to shame. So what do they do to compensate for this vulnerability? They basically flaunt and overstate their self-importance to hide their anxiety.

For the ordinary citizen, the concerns are real and scary. Collective narcissists could, for instance, mentally and physically attack groups that somehow threaten their grandiose image and existence. Suspicious of opposing views, they become spin doctors, and create conspiracy theories against those who oppose their biased views – all so prevalent these days! Worse, these people also easily believe in conspiracy theories. So even issues such as equality in education, or social justice, can be construed as an evil plot. And social media does not help – as the shenanigans on Facebook and elsewhere seem to suggest.

If we do not check ourselves, the phenomenon of collective narcissism is going to fully envelope our society – going by minority populist agendas in recent months.

This extremist narrative creates the potential for political antagonism in any society to boil over into violent behaviour, such as “revenge”-seeking. What is going to be the result? Some people will be profoundly disturbed, and many more will become disillusioned. That would be a pity and a sheer waste of human talent and resources.

There is little to do except to make sure that common sense and rational thinking triumph. The real issue, however, is that while they are a minority, collective narcissists are not going away any time soon.

Dr Thanaseelen Rajasakran, assistant professor, Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Sungai Long, Malaysia