Ayn Rand, Salinger and Narcissism

Terri (Wheatamongtares via Retriever) doesn't understand why all the fuss about Catcher in the Rye.  What is so profound about a teenage boy and his inner life as he careens around for a few days trying to get drunk and score with women and cement his image of himself?

I posted a comment at Retriever’s blog, but afterward decided to expand on it a bit more here, because this is such an interesting question.  I must admit up front that it has been decades since I read Catcher in the Rye and, in my case, it did not leave a lasting impression.  So my comments here are built on recollections that, I hope, reflect something of what I actually read many years ago.

The human mind is a Rube Goldberg contraption, well-adapted for survival, but highly vulnerable to error.  You might say that the mind is a struggle between many competing internal forces in a state of ongoing compromise.  Unconscious conflicts, biases and rules of thumb continuously yield compromised expression in our thoughts, feelings and actions.

As adolescent intellect develops, more sensitive and perceptive kids are challenged by the growing awareness of the compromises intrinsic to the human fabric, not the least of which are the inevitable moral compromises.  The possible paths through this challenge can be represented by a three-way psychological crossroads, each road offering a different solution to the problem of infantile narcissism confronted by the discovery of compromised real life.

Down one road lies a cynicism that masks a deeper sense of chronic disappointment, triggered by the discovery that grownups are hopelessly far from the omnipotent, all-good beings the child believes in. Cynicism and the chronic underlying disappointment behind cynicism, covertly preserves the sense that perfection is possible.  If one has not preserved a sense of perfection at some deeper level, there would be no cynicism.  Disillusioned idealism is still idealism.  This is Holden Caulfield.

Down another road lies a brittle, defensive idealism that deals with the problem of human failing by denying the inescapability of the human condition.  Identification with a powerfully superior group or adherence to some allegedly perfected ideology sets the believer free, restoring Eden, though it never really does restore Eden.  This is the solution found in rabid religious, political and philosophical ideologies.  This is John Galt’s (Ayn Rand’s) solution in Atlas Shrugged.  Galt’s Gulch is the restoration of Eden lost.

On the surface, Holden Caulfield and John Galt may appear to be very different characters.  They would probably despise one another.  But they are alike in that neither of them can bear the inescapable limitations that come with membership in the deeply flawed human family.  Both cling to the narcissistic perfection of childhood psychic life.

Growing up, for Caulfield, would mean giving up the hope of restoration to perfection.  Ayn Rand’s ideal man is also a boy who can’t bear to grow up.  He creates his own fantasy society, where he is omnipotent and compromise is prohibited--not all that different from the Catcher in Caulfield’s secret fantasy.

It’s easy to see why Holden Caulfield and John Galt can capture the imagination of a sensitive, intelligent adolescent struggling in the passage to adulthood.  Some of these kids are doing their best to resist the awareness that they are deeply brokenhearted by the loss of an idealized world.

Novels like Catcher in the Rye and Atlas Shrugged affirm their experience of reality.  They explore narcissistic solutions to human shortcoming.  The catcher is a godlike figure who saves the children from evil humanity.  Galt holds the secret to cheap, unlimited power, withholding it from the evil world he abandoned.  Both the Catcher and Galt can feel deeply needed by a world they cannot bear to live in.  While the escape into omnipotent fantasy provides relief from the position of powerless imperfection, it is just as important that these characters tell the brokenhearted that they are not alone—that they are understood.

There is, however, at least one other road on the way to adulthood.  Heinz Kohut would say that idealism tempered by a tolerant, forgiving realism, and the ability to appreciate what is good while learning to bear disappointment with oneself and others, is the road beyond infantile narcissism.  He would also say that the road taken is largely determined by everything that came before.

Comments

[retriever]

Great post. Thanks for your insights! Especially this:
(about)
"a brittle, defensive idealism that deals with the problem of human failing by denying the inescapability of the human condition. Identification with a powerfully superior group or adherence to some allegedly perfected ideology sets the believer free, restoring Eden, though it never really does restore Eden. This is the solution found in rabid religious, political and philosophical ideologies."

Most dramatically visible in our Congress and Oval Office these days (shield wall is up...)

Have never liked "Catcher in the Rye" or the devil take the hindmost perspective of Ayn Rand either. You expressed better than I could, what is so troubling about both heroes.

[Eric]

If one child believes that intellectual or moral perfection is attainable, while the other accepts contradictions, immorality, and neurotics as "normal", which one is really being cynical?

It's precisely because of views like yours which make young people want to give up on life.

If you see people today giving up on their ambitions, thinking of evil as an acceptable form of action, and seeking any form of escape from reality as they're only means of finding pleasure - look no further than the views expressed in this article, as to the reason why.

[Linda Dann]

As a former teacher of literature to psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents- (in the era when a month's stay was not considered excessive) I can tell you that Holden Caulfield 'works' for kids- It is the first 'serious' novel that speaks to their own coming apart and the idea that what is an assigned reading actually dares to articulate a bit of their own nihilism/need for external validation and confused and mixed longings- 'anything but being stuck here.' At least that's how I have interpreted the general embrace of this guy who is now dated to the point of being almost unrecognizable. I do not think that they all get the same thing from it- but it is 'of them' and they recognize that.

[The Optimist]

@eric

If one child believes that intellectual or moral perfection is attainable, while the other accepts contradictions, immorality, and neurotics as "normal", which one is really being cynical?

The one who believes that moral perfection is attainable. That one believes that the human condition is hopelessly unbearable, so that one lives in a fantasy.

[Calvin]

@The Optimist

Your comment is actually quite ironic, as Rand's philosophy was geared specifically to identifying and attacking intellectual evasion. So why do you feel that she encouraged young people to adopt a fantasy like perspective?

Most people lie about their failures, rather than accept them or try to correct them.

You're stance is essentially, "Let's be honest here, human beings are incapable of honesty."

Who was John Galt? He was a character who felt no guilt for what he was... is this a dangerous message for young people? Hmm...