In the Mirror of the Other: Group, Narcissism, Group-Narcissism

In a relational perspective intersubjectivity is the source of subjectivity. Even the primary narcissism of the infant depends on the care of a "good enough" mother reflecting a first sketch of his own self in her face as a "mirroring (m)other". As human beings we unconsciously need this kind of resonance to experience ourselves: a social mirror providing us with a feeling to be alive, present, and recognized. That is why our apparently narcissistic self-relatedness is always related to the social world that surrounds us. Suggested is an analogy between an inter-subjectively "contaminated" narcissism and the external contamination of group-narcissism: A given group has to be mirrored by another group in order to construct its own identity. Starting from a basic model of reflective identity-building the plausibility of this suggestion is illustrated by three cases of group-narcissism: the narcissisticly loaden identities of ethno-religious groups in the Yugoslavian wars of separation, the dimension of collective narcissism in the so-called "clash of civilisations", and the history of psychoanalysis having lost its common ground by the splitting effects of lasting group-narcissism.