A newly identified social affliction: Acquired Situational Narcissism.
As Miss Manners recalls, this is what we used to call being full of yourself. As in, "Who do you think you are?" and "Just because you happened to be lucky, what makes you think you're better than anyone else?" and "You still put on your pants one leg at a time."
The phenomenon, as described by its discoverer, is a sense of power and entitlement based on an inflated idea of one's self that is fed by the adulatory way one is treated by others. The subject thinks he is something extra special, and everybody else seems to confirm this.
So far, it resembles what educators were hoping to achieve with programs to develop self-esteem in children regardless of their actual achievements.
But the new version comes only after success, and to select clientele -- the famous. Apparently, when strangers scream with pleasure at the mere sight of you and vie to buy your nail clippings on the Internet, you get a funny view of reality.
This is thought to be a phenomenon of our celebrity-crazed society. Even so, Miss Manners' favorite delineation of it appears in "Royal Highness," Thomas Mann's novel about the personable and eligible heir-presumptive to a small principality whose job it is to perform its ceremonial functions. He has never in his life entered a train station that wasn't festooned with bunting, or looked into a face that did not have a foolish expression on it:
"There was nothing really every day, nor was there anything really actual, about his life; it consisted of a succession of moments of enthusiasm. Wherever he went, there was holiday, there the people were transfigured and glorified, there the grey work-a-day world cleaned up and became poetry. The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel and homely cottage, dirty gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and boys in Sunday clothes, their hair plastered with water, a poem on their lips, and the perspiring citizen in frock-coat and top-hat was moved to emotion by the consciousness of his own worth.
"But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this light, but it saw itself, too, as long as his presence lasted. A strange unreality and speciousness prevailed in places where he exercised his calling; a symmetrical transitory window-dressing, an artificial and inspiring disguising of the reality by pasteboard and gilded wood, by garlands, lamps, draperies and bunting, was conjured up for one fair hour, and he himself stood in the center of the show on a carpet, which covered the bare ground, between masts painted in two colors, round which garlands twined -- stood with heels together in the odour of varnish and fir-branches, and smiled with his left hand planted on his hip."
This is not a novel about Acquired Situational Narcissism. The prince finds his job strenuous but undertakes it when his brother, the reigning Grand Duke, pleads that he has too much shame to undertake it: "You must allow that I do not despise the 'Hi's' of the crowd from arrogance, but from a propensity to humanity and goodness. Human Highness is a pitiable thing, and I'm convinced that mankind ought to see that everyone behaves like a man, and a good man, to his neighbour and does not humiliate him or cause him shame. A man must have a thick skin to be able to carry off all the flummery of Highness without any feeling of shame."
As our celebrities are not born into the calling but achieve it through some combination of work and chance, Miss Manners would think it worth their while to learn the royal cure for this affliction, which is the cause of painful disillusionment for them as well as rudeness by them. It is the knowledge that however enthusiastically others play the crowd scenes, they recognize it as flummery, so however enthusiastically the celebrity plays the part, it is unwise to be the only person who believes it is real.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: For whatever the reason, I have been invited to the afternoon wedding of a former rival from college. I suspect that she wants to get a look at what sort of shape I am in, which I am happy to report is on the presentable side.
Will I still be presentable in a rather becoming suit of dark gray wool, trimmed with black velvet? It really shows my figure to good advantage and perfectly matches some jet jewelry that the groom once gave me. Since I'm sure that many of the male guests will be wearing dark gray wool suits, this is really a question of sexual equality.
GENTLE READER: Oh, not it's not. This is a question of old-fashioned cattiness. If you didn't believe in the power of symbolism, you wouldn't be eager to wear the jewelry given you by the bridegroom.
But don't worry about the suit. Technically, gray is not considered strict mourning -- and anyone who mistakes it for black will only assume that you feel bereaved by having lost the bridegroom to your rival.
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