Humanity's Narcissistic Injuries: Copernicus, Darwin, Freud

Humanity's Three Great Narcissistic Injuries

Sigmund Freud argues that society has navigated a process that has inflicted injuries upon its collective narcissism. The concept of narcissism, taking from the myth of Narcissus (a Greek character who fell in love with himself and ultimately died because of his own vanity), refers to self-love. This self-love is considered a necessary part of being human; it's like saying, "First, I must love myself, and then I can turn my love to others."

The individual needs a degree of narcissism, but this can lead to an extremely inflated ego, making any statement that questions its omnipotence intolerable. In this process, throughout human history, there have been three major injuries that painfully struck down humanity's supposed omnipotence, hurting its ego.

Since the origin of humanity, people have shown a tremendous thirst for domination. Domination awarded power, the ability to dispose of and make use of one's surroundings and others, and even to control one's impulses. Going back in history, the man who believed himself master of the universe suffered, at this point, the first setback to his precious ego.

The Copernican Revolution: The First Injury

The Earth is just a tiny star among an infinite number of stars, and this home we inhabit is merely a planet orbiting a star in one of the countless galaxies that make up the cosmos. The belief that the Earth was the center of the universe was shattered. The first major narcissistic injury occurred with the Copernican theory, later taken up by Galileo, which was strongly opposed at the time.

Darwinian Evolution: The Second Injury

The second blow has to do with the tenets of Darwinian theory (Charles Darwin, 1809-1882), which holds that man is a species that has evolved from apes. The human race cannot be thought of as a product of special creation, unique and unparalleled, but rather as a link in the evolutionary chain of other living beings. To "digest" this cruel theory, the most diverse ideological, religious, and scientific objections had to be overcome.

The Freudian Unconscious: The Third Injury

The third injury to the narcissism of the species occurs with Freud's discovery of the unconscious. It adds a new disappointment: that man is not pulling the strings of his actions, and that "unknown" unconscious is what governs us. We are inhabited by "undesirables" that are carried beyond our reason. Freud says, "I have to experience; then this is denied by me, not just 'is' but also 'acts' occasionally from inside."

In the end, after the "shock," humanity has the opportunity to put its ability to transcend from the knowledge gained about itself and the world around it.