Greta Thunberg vs. #smalldickenergy: What Twitter Feuds Can Teach Us About Narcissism

From Shakespeare to Twitter, the tragically flawed can’t seem to help themselves.

Given the latest happenings on the Twitter, which are positively Shakespearean in character, I’m going to begin this article with a a key definition:

• Narcissism is a personality trait. It’s defined thusly:

“Personality qualities include thinking very highly of oneself, needing admiration, believing others are inferior, and lacking empathy for others.”

This is distinguishable from plain old grandiosity, where someone believes themself to be great or important, in that a key feature of narcissism is the belief that one is better than others and the entitled to admiration because of that special status.

The thing about empathy is that having too little of it makes it really hard to imagine the minds of others in a way that’s productive for you. Too much narcissism, with too little empathy, can take something that’s a personality trait, and have it tip over into the realm of a disorder.

People with narcissistic personality disorder are impaired. That’s what makes it a disorder. It causes impai…