Narcissism Entitlement Aggression

This title was taken from an article on the interesting Rabble.com website.  It has information that has stuck with me that keeps popping up in my brain again and again.  Perhaps because I am teaching young adults from this generation in University; partly because the subject of the class encourages the questioning of one's long held assumptions about society and how it is created, which some students are understanding and some not; lastly because I do have a sense of entitlement about some things in life (ie. clean water, warm bed, nice care, good pathway system, cheap bananas, somewhat stylish clothes, etc.)

I don't have a sense of entitlement Colin Horgan suggests many young people have in his article below, and I was shocked that the idea that 'she was asking for it' or the 'I don't believe it was rape' mentality still exists.  Weren't these ideas supposed to die in the late 1970's and early 1980's when laws were changed?  Then again in my class last week, several male students suggested that a particular female reporter entering a male athletic change room should not have been surprised at the athletes sexually harassing behaviour because 'look what she was wearing!'  On the basis of people 'deserving' to be harassed based on what s/he is wearing, who should be getting harassed, a female reporter trying to do her job in a short skirt and top, or the male athlete dressed in a towel?  Fortunately for many women who find themselves victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, etc Canadian law and 35 years of psychology, sociology, gender and feminist studies has enlightened us on the power, dominance and oppression issues inherent in this kind of behaviour and that no one ever 'deserves' it.  Disappointing and scary that this knowledge is not getting through to all young people who have this sense of entitlement and the narcissistic aggression that accompanies it.

The most interesting portion of this article for me is that I feel I have been granted brief access into the male psyche.  I don't have one of those.  Well, the psyche of a few young men of a certain sexuality, position in life, with a particular view on the world.   Interesting and scary to try and see through the lens of another who is living a very different life than my own.

Read the article and the comments below it.  It may stick with you too.

Narcissism, Entitlement, Aggression and Rape

by Colin Horgan