Manufacturing Group Narcissism
Social Psychology and Group Self-Esteem
Last time we saw how Robert Bellah attributed many of the moral failings of America’s civil religion to Anglo-Saxon chosenness. Bellah analogized the belief in chosenness - the grandiose or omnipotent group self-image of being chosen by God for a special destiny such that universal values and norms do not apply to one’s group - to the primitive narcissism of a child. Chosenness confers a high level of group self-esteem and convinces individual group members that their group is entitled to exceptional rewards (and punishments).
We also saw in Talcott Parsons and Bellah how this sense of group chosenness was to be massaged and inflamed in the group-victims of the “primal crimes” of American history: Black and Native Americans. In Parsons’s case, chosenness was translated into secular terms such that American blacks were to be “chosen” by history to fulfill the destiny of America and liberate the world from symbolic inferiority. This was to be accomplished by bolstering Black group identity and self-esteem. In Bellah’s case, chosenness could be religious or secular, with the salient factor being that America should defer to the subjective “dream” of the oppressed group.
Today I’m going to look at more recent social psychology research to illustrate how the approaches of Parsons, Bellah, and other vicarious group narcissists persist even among more value-neutral social scientists. I think it’s important to understand recent developments in social psychology because they inform the marketing and propaganda campaigns to which we’re subjected on a daily basis.
For these purposes, I’ve selected a popular paper on group self-esteem to analyze. Along the way, I’ll address tertiary issues raised by the paper that are of interest to me and possibly my readers, such as “white” identity and self-esteem.