The Dysfunctional Diva – Part 1
January 4, 2009 by Toni
Filed under Pop Culture
One of the most serious cultural issues we face in America is that of narcissistic entitlement. It’s not only reached epidemic proportions in secular culture, but it has also seriously affected the Church with respect to our focus and purpose for living. I’m sure I am not alone when I say I’ve been to both motivational talks and mega-churches, and most of the time it’s difficult to tell the difference between a secular gathering and a spiritual one. The goals are often one and the same. We desire to be filled, to find the perfect career, to excel in the career we have, to meet the right person, to enjoy our lives and our looks and to find greater satisfaction in our marriages. I know firsthand how fervently and how often we pray for God to change circumstances in our lives so that we will feel happy and satisfied. We believe that if we are unhappy, then our situation must not be God’s will for us, and that we should seek to change it. We view being unhappy as a “trial” and becoming happy again as the victory that God somehow wants us to have.
The issue with this is that our focus is too often on ourselves and our own preferences, and we often pray as if God were a cosmic vending machine who exists to bring about states of affairs that please us. I must tell you, this type of thinking is diabolical to our growth and maturity in developing the mind and character of Christ.
Psychologist and Research Professor Jean Twenge began documenting what she calls the cultural “disease of excessive self-admiration” in her books Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. Twenge says narcissism is deeply ingrained in modern American culture and a statistical majority of those born after 1970 simply take it for granted that “we should all feel good about ourselves, we are all special, and we all deserve to be happy.”
When narcissistic character traits such as pride, conceit, vanity, grandiosity, and self-centeredness are at their worst in us gals, they culminate into what I call the “dysfunctional diva” syndrome. Learning to love God with your mind is a virtuous process, and pursuing virtue is part of what it means to cultivate character. It’s important to understand this syndrome because it is in direct conflict with cultivating virtue and character. Now I think you would agree the display of narcissistic character traits are priorities which are far from healthy. But more than this, as Christians, we are called to comb our souls and root out anything we find that keeps us from forming the character of Jesus.
Narcissistic personality disorder was first identified in 1971, and the research and compilation of the data shows that “almost every character trait related to narcissism rose sharply between the 1950s and the 1990s including assertiveness, dominant, extroversion, self-esteem and individualistic focus.” Further, Jean Twenge asserts that the epidemic of narcissism seems to have hit females particularly hard. This may be because narcissistic traits present more prominently in women due to our culturally perpetuated obsessions with beauty and appearance along with our historical struggle for sexual equality. Psychologist Philip Cushman says that the cosmetics industry, the diet business, pop psychology and pop religion have all experienced tremendous growth in serving this overt need that women have to look beautiful and feel good about ourselves.The 70s might as well have pulled out a bullhorn and announced to the next 30 years that they would be hailing in the age of the dysfunctional diva!
Typically, the dysfunctional diva is self-indulgent and has a pervasive attitude of self-importance. In many cases, she perceives adulation and privileged treatment from others as an entitlement. She has an constant need for attention. When faced with any criticism, her reaction is typically petulant. Being inconvenienced generally invokes irritability. She finds patience to be a difficult practice due to a predisposition toward instant gratification. The dysfunctional diva typically places a high value on personal enjoyment. In the absence of entertainment or external stimulation, boredom is often the result. Dispassionate about introspection to discover identity and develop character, she is rather more interested in gossip over the personal details about the lives of friends, family members, celebrities, and popular people.
In addition, the dysfunctional diva often neglects to appraise how her actions will affect those around her. She tends to favor her own preferences over the preferences of others, and is inclined to pout when her desires go unfulfilled. The learned behavior patterns of self-focus and self-absorption are generally deeply ingrained. True empathy is difficult for the dysfunctional diva, because she has a hard time removing the focus from herself to genuinely sympathize with others. Always the victim, she rarely believes that another’s problems could ever supersede her own.
