Asymmetry Is A Feature, Not A Bug

(1/X) Sorry to keep doing these, but I wanted to do one more thing about how poorly media handles the asymmetry between Trump and Democrats. This is torn directly from my real life experiences watching deans empower an abusive narcissistic sociopath...

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) April 17, 2024

It occurs to me I saw something similar in seminary.

In my second year, a new student arrived among much fanfare. She was reportedly brilliant and a very highly regarded student with impeccable credentials. She was also quite obviously very self-centered and enjoyed all the attention she could get (the term “narcissist” wasn’t widely bandied about in those halcyon days).

I didn’t have many classes with her, but in one I quickly realized she was not only bit “brilliant,” she didn’t know what she was talking about. I mentioned this to someone, and learned most of the faculty had figured that out. I did have one run in with her, while I was still living on campus.

I took a job at the seminary library, basically closing the place at night. She started there shortly after I did, and came into work shortly before closing, announcing to me that she was “here,” as if that was supposed to mean something. When it came time to close, the building was empty. But she came downstairs telling me there were noises in the upstairs bathroom and someone was hiding up there. I had been upstairs earlier and knew it was empty, and I needed to get home (it was nearly midnight). She wanted me to call the police (not campus police, we didn’t have any). I laughed and refused. The other worker (another student) didn’t know whether to go with me or stay with her (I’d have forced her to leave and locked up. So they stayed, and I left them to it.

The head librarian fired me the next day, saying I should have stayed because someone might’ve been upstairs. She had been called in, and found no one. But I was at fault, because the narcissist convinced people she couldn’t be wrong. She wanted to be important; she wanted to be powerful. She wanted to cry “wolf!” and have everyone come running.

That was my only dealing with her, but the system finally worked; sort of. I took a small church as pastor, cutting my time in class and extending my studies an extra year, so we graduated together. She was ordained almost immediately (required a call to a church, in our denomination. My ordination came months later.). It’s supposed to be a solemn and humble affair, where calling church gives gifts in celebration. The story was she reveled in the gifts like it was her birthday,?which left a lot of people wondering who, exactly, they had called to ministry for their church. Shortly after that, word came that she didn’t have the requisite undergraduate degree to get into seminary. How that slipped by was an administrative mystery. But it leant impetus to withdrawing her call. I don’t know how it ended up, but I’m sure it didn’t end well.

She was, I’d say now, a narcissist convinced of her own importance and glory (unless you plan to lead a megachurch, not goo qualities for ministry). The system let her through longer than she deserved, but then, we give people the benefit of the doubt, don’t we? Or the benefit of being persuasive. I remember the whole campus was buzzing with the reputation of her genius that preceded her. We all soon realized that was because she said so, and for no other reason.

I knew a lawyer like that, but for him it was not brag, just fact. He was still an asshole, though. Even his partners said so. But he was a good lawyer, so who cared?

Asymmetry in politics? Eh, seen that all my life. What brought down Sen. McCarthy? Not the courage (hah!) of the press; nor of the Senate. Not even Eisenhower. Nixon did in Nixon, just as Falwell outlasted his welcome. Jim and Tammy Faye got too greedy; Gingrich got too self-important (he always was, he just got worse). People seldom bring down such people; the “system” does because they linger too long, and become old and tiresome. What made them new and bold becomes old and dull. We honor people like that in the beginning; in the end we bury them with the refuse. We honor people like Dr. King in death, having dishonored them in life.

So it goes.