OPINION
5
MARCH 5, 2007
narcissism stuDy Was
WorthWhiLe
I followed the recent cover-
age on the narcissism study with
great interest, and after reading
Laura Reeve’s article on the same
coverage, I can’t help but wonder
if Reeve actually examined the
substance of the arguments at all
(“You probably think this article is
about you,” March 1).
Instead of an analytical conver-
sation with Twenge’s work, in read-
ing Reeve’s article I got sinister old
ladies, haphazardly satirical criti-
cisms of Twenge’s childrearing prac-
tices and 10-cent accusations like
“harbingers of cultural apocalypse.”
But what about what Twenge
actually said? When we look past
Reeve’s simplifications and avoid-
ance of the topic, we see that
Twenge is addressing a legitimate
and complex issue. I’ll briefly frame
this problem in precise terms: How
is it statistically possible for a ma-
jority of us to gleefully think we are
above-average when, by definition,
most of us are actually just aver-
age?
While I doubt Twenge is de-
scribing a “cultural apocalypse,”
as Reeve strangely suggests, I do
think she quite logically points out
the danger of having an entire gen-
eration believe self-esteem precedes
hard work, skill and achievement,
rather than the other way around.
In our instant-gratification culture,
instead of striving for accomplish-
ments, we are telling ourselves we
already have them. This is a house-
of-cards construction that can col-
lapse and cause problems in the
future.
Reeve could have examined
Twenge’s arguments and discussed
them, but instead we get spuri-
ous comparisons to previous gen-
erations (Maybe Reeve’s parents
were happy hippies. Do they still
do drugs and practice free love?
Would Reeve want them to?) and
straw-man speculations about the
researcher’s childhood. Incidentally
this confirms Twenge’s allegations:
that we are a generation prone to
making claims — and newspaper
articles — based on nothing except
our own inflated sense of awe-
someness.
Vincent malic
senior, ant