This is because, as Horney pointed out, the
smothered and spoiled child is dehumanised and instrumentalised. His parents
love him not for what he really is – but for what they wish and imagine him to
be: the fulfilment of their dreams and frustrated wishes. The child becomes the
vessel of his parents' discontented lives, a tool, the magic airbrush with
which they seek to transform their failures into successes, their humiliation
into victory, their frustrations into happiness.
The child is taught to give up on reality and
adopt the parental fantasies. Such an unfortunate child feels omnipotent and
omniscient, perfect and brilliant, worthy of adoration and entitled to special
treatment. The faculties that are honed by constantly brushing against bruising
reality – empathy, compassion, a realistic assessment of one's abilities and
limitations, realistic expectations of oneself and of others, personal
boundaries, team work, social skills, perseverance and goal-orientation, not to
mention the ability to postpone gratification and to work hard to achieve it –
are all lacking or missing altogether.
This kind of child turned adult sees no
reason to invest resources in his skills and education, convinced that his
inherent genius should suffice. He feels entitled for merely being, rather than
for actually doing (rather as the nobility in days gone by felt entitled not by
virtue of its merits but as the inevitable, foreordained outcome of its birth
right). The narcissist is not meritocratic – but aristocratic.
Just like serial killers; like of empathy for others
