I was just reading this:
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2008/02/psychological-neoteny-and-npd.htmlCharlton and others who espouse this theory of psychological neoteny attribute it to higher education. And higher, higher education. And higher, higher, higher education viewed as a virtue for never ending. That is why, he says, psychological neoteny is characteristic of the highly educated. He claims that many never achieve mental adulthood. The results include a retention of child-like behaviors like slavishness to fashion/peer pressure as well as sensation seeking and novelty seeking behavior that prefers sensational and novel ideas to the obvious.
The perpetually educated make wide-open-mindedness a virtue. A wide-open mind is boundless wild spaces - not a garden - where anything blowing in the wind can take root and grow. Apparently even the wildest, common sense defying ideas.
Obviously, malignant narcissists have a terminal case of cognitive flexibility, but my point here is a question: Does psychological neoteny partly explain the behavior of academia and the mental healthcare establishment?
Like children, they get mad at people who don't buy what they are selling about NPD and psychopathy. They overreact, getting all upset and worried, worried, worried about what they view as the wrong thinking of others. (They seem to view disagreeing with them as far more evil than anything the narcissist does.) They try to control/suppress this heresy. You can see this on message boards and blogs. As I've said before, many will try to tell you that, though you've lived with a narcissist for 20 years, or though you ARE a narcissist, you know nothing about NPD. Absurd. They are so far gone they will tell you that you aren't "qualified" to say anything about it based on your experiences with narcissists.
Passing over the suppression of information and violence to free speech in that, how childish can people get? That's like covering your little ears and stamping your little foot and screaming bloody murder to silence anyone saying anything you don't want them to. Only spoiled brats must make it sound evil to disagree with them. Psychological neoteny.
What "qualifies" them to know about NPD? Book learning, period.
The clinical literature on NPD is highly theoretical, abstract, and general, with sparse case material, suggesting that clinical writers have little experience with narcissism in the flesh.
Exactly. That ain't science. That's conjecture, speculation - and by people with little experience of narcissism in the flesh. In other words, this so-called "clinical literature" is basically just glorified essays based almost entirely on the reading of other glorified essays.
That kind of information isn't superior to firsthand observation and direct knowledge in everyday experience with narcissists - it's INFERIOR. Its sole value is in the ideas it may come up with - which are nothing until scientifically tested.
Worse, what does pass for "research" and "statistics" is so illegitimate that much of it smells like a deliberate attempt to confuse and deceive. By that I mean that experts just don't make the gross mistakes these so-called authorities make.(See The Credibility of Authority for a little enlightenment on how little credibility this establishment has on NPD.) For example, they seize upon a logical-error ridden essay with its never-tested hypothesis speculating about the mental health of European royals back to the 12th century as worthy of their general acceptance of this untested hypothesis that NPD is genetically inherited. Experts can't honestly be that stupid, and honest experts would have surveyed the children of narcissists to test this hypothesis long ago by now. So, this is just cognitive flexibility like that oil pipeline in Afghanistan - swallow whole ANYTHING to support your cherished myth in the face of real evidence against it. Similarly they seize upon brain differences in psychopaths as if they don't know that that there are two possible explanations for it: the more likely one they betray no awareness of, and the LEAST likely one they all "know." Again, cognitive flexibility to produce bogus "facts" that shore up a cherished myth.
And these:
http://patrissimo.livejournal.com/1242821.htmlhttp://www.mypostingcareer.com/forums/index.php?/topic/56-the-stupidity-of-intelligence/