QUOTE(Cla68 @ Sun 13th July 2008, 6:23pm)
QUOTE(Moulton @ Mon 14th July 2008, 2:16am)
You're talking about
repentance.
Repentance has to be preceded by an
epiphany.
Someone has to
midwife the epiphany.
I think I read or heard somewhere that an epiphany leading to repentance usually needs to be initiated by a
significant emotional event (SEE) that causes sufficient self-reflection to occur. I believe the dispute resolution process in Wikipedia is supposed to provide that SEE for editors, whether by RfC, RfAR, or some other formal mechanism. But, what if it doesn't with certain editors?
Cla, we have tried to explain to you that narcissists do not have moments of epiphany, and they do not repent. THEY HAVE NO SHAME. Nor do psychopaths and sociopaths, who are the same sort of animal, but worse. And these people are extremely common, making up about 1% of the population. You may have wondered why you haven't met any. The answer is you have-- you just missed making the connection. These people don't act like Hannibal Lecter in real life. They act like SlimVirgin, JzG, Jimbo, etc. JoshuaZ and Essjay. Probably almost every really, really bad administrator you've ever dealt with on WP has this problem.
These people do not admit to being wrong. These people do not believe they ARE often wrong. They go through multiple jobs, multiple marriages, etc, as other people realize they cannot be dealt with (sometimes without making the diagnosis either!), and each time they take some "hide " (as in pound of flesh) off the other party, or organization. They file lawsuits. They file workers comp suits. They have the worst and nastiest divorces and always get >75% of what there is in a joint relationship. Sometimes they are found as scam artists. But they can run giant corporations, also. They can be president. Whatever they have, however, they feel entitled to more. To the narcissist, the world and life are one long string of unfairnesses, to which they respond with retaliation, no matter how long the time frame. In relationships, they are either at your feet, or at your throat. (of course, usually the first before the second). They worship or hate. They tend to be paranoid, because they never do understand why the world doesn't treat them as the princes and queens they feel they deserve to be treated as.
Narcissistic personality disorder:
QUOTE
...a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. The narcissist is described as turning inward for gratification rather than depending on others and as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power and prestige.
In whatever venue they happen to work in. If that's Wikipedia, then there you are.
I can only say this so many times. Certain things are like the idea of "three" which my cat will never figure out. And as for a human, the idea of "three" may well be an apriori. I can't show you what "three" is, except to show you examples of tuples, ad nauseam, until you make an abstraction beyond the things themselves. My cat never will do that. Likewise, I can show you narcissists on WP until the cows come home, and if you aren't capable of believing that such creatures exist, you'll never get it. You'll never understand them or how they can do what they do, without ever learning anything.
Let me tell you a story about one. A guy who works for me off and on, just lost all his money. His credit cards are maxed and he has no equity left in his house. He may eventually be out of that house and back to renting. His family can't help him because they're all in the same boat, despite making a lot of money in the real estate market in the last decade, before the recent bubble burst.
So where did all the money go? Turns out they all had some family member who was the golden boy investment broker. He promised each and every one of them that they would get 10% return PER MONTH on money they invested with him. He had a foolproof scheme. They bought into it, because he was family. I suppose you know how this ends. (No, nobody consulted me about this 300% per year investment operation-- it wasn't MY family). It was, of course, a Ponzi/pyramid scheme. Later investors were paid off from the investments of earlier investors, until one day there was no money left. The banks came and took all the toys of the scam artist, but he was millions in the red and those millions came from everybody in a very large extended family. No doubt he could be prosecuted, but that won't get the money back.
So the guy is telling me about this. He's in his late 50's and has no retirement savings: they're gone. He's saying "How could this guy do this to us? What was he thinking?" And the answer is: "He wasn't thinking about YOU." Not in the least. That's actually POSSIBLE. That's what kind of a person he IS. The particular guy who lost all his money and told me the story, is as honest as the day is long, which is why I employ him. So he's the perfect mark for this second type. And I don't know if he ever will understand.
So. Are YOU getting it?
MR