News Is Kim Jong-Il's Behavior a Sign of Mental Instability?

[russ_watters]

HERE is an interesting article. The word "psychotic" doesn't immediately come to mind, but the word "narcissistic" does [edit: I actually wrote that before finishing the article].

-Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.
-A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
[dictionary.com]

The Great Leader had an insatiable craving for adulation. By the late '80s he had erected more than 34,000 monuments to himself. His photograph was displayed in every building and pinned to the clothing of every citizen, right over the heart. Benches where he'd once sat were sealed in glass and turned into relics.

I would argue that when narcissism leads you to kidnap an actress and hold her captive for seven years to star in your movie, that's getting close to "psychotic."

Noteworthy:

And Jerrold Post, the GWU professor and former CIA psychiatrist, believes that the Dear Leader has a serious mental illness.

"He has the core characteristics of the most dangerous personality disorder, malignant narcissism," Post theorized in a recent psychological profile.

The disorder is characterized by self-absorption, an inability to empathize, a lack of conscience, paranoia and "unconstrained aggression."

The Dear Leader, Post concluded, "will use whatever aggression is necessary, without qualm of conscience, be it to eliminate an individual or to strike out at a particular group."

I'm not a psychologist, so it should go without saying that my layman's opinions carry little weight on their own. I'll confess I don't see much difference between some of these disorders. Nevertheless, I don't see the distinction between "psychotic" and "malignant narcissism" to be significant enough to split hairs over: Either way, he's criminally insane.

 

[russ_watters]

I doubt he is a sociopath. Being one would imply he suffers from antisocial behavior and he seems very charismatic, he must be to build up so many followers considering how goofy he looks.

Dictators don't become (remain) dictators through charisma, they become (remain) dictators by killing all those who stand in their way. Il's private persona is apparently somewhat personable - even charming [late edit: sentence didn't make sense], but he speaks in public very rarely. Yes, that's different from Hitler, who was charismatic, but Hitler was trying to rally his country to war, while Il is mostly just clinging to control.

 

[SOS2008]

HERE is an interesting article. The word "psychotic" doesn't immediately come to mind, but the word "narcissistic" does [edit: I actually wrote that before finishing the article].

-Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.
-A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
[dictionary.com]

Narcissism is a word often associated with Nixon.

Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography. By Vamik D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, and Andrew W. Dod. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

The authors found Nixon to be narcissistic, exhibiting both exaggerated self-love and hungry dependency. The grandiose Nixon centralized decision making in the White House and undertook bold initiatives.

http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/86.2/br_115.html

 

[loseyourname]

I doubt he is a sociopath. Being one would imply he suffers from antisocial behavior and he seems very charismatic, he must be to build up so many followers considering how goofy he looks.

From The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PhD:

How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than other people around them. They're more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced.
Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on how to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.

I think she's a fear-mongerer myself, but charisma is generally acknowledged as a key characteristic of people with antisocial personality disorder.

 

[russ_watters]

Narcissism is a word often associated with Nixon.

I think I would tend to associate self-aggrandizement with most people who crave power. Its part of their reason for doing it. That makes most politicians borderline narcissists. But the scope is the key issue here.

 

[loseyourname]

If I had to speculate about Nixon's problems, I would say his biggest ones were insecurity and paranoia. That was a large part of what caused his drive to consolidate power; he just couldn't trust anyone. It wasn't a craving for power that drove him mad; it was a fear of failure (of course, part of it was failing to attain or maintain power, so the two are closely related). I grew up in the same hometown as him and these characteristics of his are fairly well documented. One of my high school teachers even knew him growing up and said he was always like that, intensely driven and a legend among local businessmen. He really has one of the more fascinating presidential libraries I've seen, too.

 

[Smurf]

Who is hijacking the thread now? Do you really want answers to those...?

No... well, yes, but in the unemployment thread

 

[Smurf]

-Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.
-A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
[dictionary.com] I would argue that when narcissism leads you to kidnap an actress and hold her captive for seven years to star in your movie, that's getting close to "psychotic."

Could one not view the statues and pictures as a tactic to achieve the current effect of turning him into an almost divine symbol?