Deborah Lipp

I know someone who is a narcissist. I don’t mean someone vain or self-centered, I mean a textbook, DSM-IV, narcissist.

One thing I’ve noticed about this person is that he’s pretty clueless about all sorts of things. Doesn’t know about common illnesses or their well-known home remedies. Doesn’t know what sort of government agencies exist to help with common problems. All sorts of small, helpful awarenesses are just utterly absent.

I was surprised at this at first, because this is a very intelligent person. But ultimately I realized that it is in fact, part of the narcissism (Gods, I hate typing that word).

One feature of narcissim (argh) is lack of empathy. Which at first seems like an interpersonal problem. Damages friendships and family relations, that sort of thing. But it turns out, you learn a lot in life from being empathetic. Face it, there’s a finite amount you’re going to learn by studying, or by experiencing it yourself. Most of us have a huge body of knowledge gained by paying attention to our friends. My friend had back surgery. My sister and another friend had gastric bypass. I have several friends in AA. I know two people who’ve successfully sued to get SSI disability. None of these are things I’ve experienced myself, but all of them are things I know about, and can talk about knowledgeably, because I’ve paid attention to what my friends had to say about their own experience.

If you lack empathy, you lack an enormous resource for becoming smart about the world. So no matter how high your IQ, you end up…kind of dumb.