ABSTRACT
Narcissism is actually quite a complicated concept, since healthy narcissism is a developmental goal. That's taking self-love to the extremes of grandiosity, arrogance, and selfishness. Narcissism per se is not a negative; at the extremes to which authoritarians take it, it most certainly is. Authoritarians, in part to explain to themselves their bottomless reservoir of hate, act as if they're being continually threatened and endangered. They see enemies everywhere, including in former friends. Some significant percentage of an authoritarian's rigidity and need to control others is caused by his or her unacknowledged anxiety. Authoritarians feel a powerful need to dominate others. This is true whether they are more an authoritarian follower and passive in certain areas of their life or more an authoritarian leader and hungry for complete domination. If an authoritarian's agenda is hatred-and-punishment, it will not serve him to access his compassion, empathy, or humanity.
