Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

This incisive outing from Canty (Globalism and Localization), a professor of transformative studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, examines narcissism’s role in alienating humans from the natural world. “While narcissism appears as a personal pathology, it is a collective issue that extends to human communities and to our treatment of Earth,” Canty contends, offering guidance on how to counteract “collective narcissism.” Drawing on the psychological understanding of narcissism as a coping mechanism children develop to shield themselves from neglectful caregivers, Canty suggests that consumer culture replicates this strategy at the societal level by telling individuals they are insufficient unless they purchase products. She posits that this insecurity drives people to develop an inflated sense of self divorced from reality and one’s environment, which she likens to the Buddhist conception of duality as a false distinction between the self and the larger world. She offers exercises grounded in Buddhist meditation to unearth narcissistic tendencies, but the focus on changing the self is at odds with the author’s exhortations to see the self as part of a larger whole. However, Canty’s analysis succeeds in blending Buddhism, psychology, and environmentalism in a heady mixture that remains accessible throughout. The result is a unique and bracing take on the climate crisis. (Sept.)