# The Collounsbury Mea Culpa **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 25, 2003, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041 "2003-03-25T16:16:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/81 "2003-03-27T23:31:17Z")
The DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder are: A. A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, as indicated by at least five of: 1. a grandiose sense of self-importance 2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love 3. believes that he or she is “special” and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions) 4. requires excessive admiration 5. has a sense of entitlement, ie unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations 6. is interpersonally exploitative, ie takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends 7. lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others 8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her 9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/82 "2003-03-28T01:42:24Z")
Hmm. If not for my wife, I’d probably have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Ah well… ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/83 "2003-03-28T02:43:20Z")
Tomndeb, those links are much appreciated. I haven’t explored them yet, but I will. There is a little irony that you posted them. As I was composing my comments to Collounsbury, I was thinking, "He could take lessons in communication from Tomndeb. Collounsbury, thanks for the reply to my comments. I look forward to reading your viewpoints on the Middle East. Pax ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/84 "2003-03-28T05:03:41Z")
I like the arrogance, actually. Gives him character. Plus, there’s the whole cheesemaker thing. You can’t go wrong. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/85 "2003-03-28T05:40:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \* > \*\*Just so you know, Gary, it ain’t arrogance itself that anyone gives a damn about. I should that was perfectly clear from my posts. It’s the type of behavior that arrogance can lead to that is concerning. That, too, should have been clear from my post. Did I not mention the slide from arrogance down into condescendence and contempt? I’m certain I did. And even Collounsbury had recognized that as a vaild point. Surely a perceptive individual such as yourself can tell the ducks from the geese. > > And in any case, this was a rather calm and polite thread. If you wish to turn in into something else, well, have at it. \*\* To answer your last point first, please let me say here and now that I have no wish to make anything of anything. I’ve spent the last week working in France, and have pretty much had at least 4 arguments every day started for me as I appear to be wearing some badge that marks me as an official spokesperson and defender for Anglo-US policy. Right now I don’t think I could face another argument if I wanted to. All I’d say to your initial point and clarification (other than thanks for the compliment) is that we seem to agree on arrogance, and why try to predict what may happen? If someone violates the rules, they go. Till then, it seems fair to wait till it happens. Now if anyone can tell me what country squire is doing posting about NPD and how it relates to the OP I’d be damned grateful. Surely narcissm is also a common trait amongst internet pundits? Hell, some of my favourite posters are narcisstic - me for starters. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/86 "2003-03-28T05:47:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Hell, some of my favourite posters are narcisstic - me for starters. Hah! YOU? He was clearly talking about ME (and am I going to be interested to know how he got my files from my shrink). ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/87 "2003-03-30T08:29:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hawthorne \* > \*\*Well, that’s ten stories of steaming fetid pustulous crap. > > If you want to be Cassandra’s time capsule, write yourself a registered letter, bucko. If your return is to be more than a wank, you have to inform and persuade. I get a lot from you - I can’t recall seriously disagreeing with you, and I learn a lot. But if you’re as arrogant as I am in real life, you won’t feel diminished if you have to stoop to concquer. If it’s worth making the point, it’s worth making it it in a way way that will be heard. I agree with what Uncle Beer has been saying. \*\* I should leave well enough alone, but I do feel it necessary to point out you have utterly misread what I intended, or I failed in communicating. My point was, and I apply this to all posters, rather than vanting my quals or whatnot, it is far better to look back at the record. I apply this to judging others, I would apply it to myself. I can claim whatever, the question is, do my analyses stand up to the testing of events. It’s up to the reader to judge. If that is “crap” or arrogance… Well I live on another planet it would appear. Finally, I should be clear. In no manner do I think I have nothing to learn from other posters. In two narrow topics I have some expertise, and in one, but by dint of the rarity of the expertise, on the Middle East, I in fact have little to learn here. Narrow topics. I read other threads, I engage other topics. I am sure you have noted forays of my own into financial and economic topics. I consider myself well-read in the area, but long from being an expert. Largely I ask for more learned interventions, for the very reason I have a lively sense of the limits of my knowledge in those areas, despite being moderately well learned. I hope that is clear enough. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/88 "2003-03-30T09:18:01Z")
Hey, well, welcome back. Missed having you around. Since I’ve got 8 years under my belt on institutional sales desks of some ibanks, your _presentation_ seems quite normal, but I realize some people in the real world don’t understand where you’re coming from and what then is automatically assumed to be _attititude or arrogance_. To me it’s just normal, but we are playing by SMBD rather than trading floor rules. [Later when things settle down in your neck of the woods, we should have a thread on a certain conservative administrations’ cut-and-spend policies and protectionist bias. Naturally that would probably best be served via content worthy of a great debate but held by necessity in the pit to allow a reasonable flow of bile.] ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/89 "2003-03-30T10:30:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by China Guy \* > Hey, well, welcome back. Missed having you around. Since I’ve got 8 years under my belt on institutional sales desks of some ibanks, your _presentation_ seems quite normal, but I realize some people in the real world don’t understand where you’re coming from and what then is automatically assumed to be _attititude or arrogance_. To me it’s just normal, but we are playing by SMBD rather than trading floor rules. Thanks. Yes, you’re right, I am ‘institutinoalized’! But you’re right, not trading floor or boardroom rules. Trying to polish off the edges. > [@](#): > > [Later when things settle down in your neck of the woods, we should have a thread on a certain conservative administrations’ cut-and-spend policies and protectionist bias. Naturally that would probably best be served via content worthy of a great debate but held by necessity in the pit to allow a reasonable flow of bile.] I presume you’ve been following Martin Wolf [FT]'s prescient analyses? Very worrisome. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/90 "2003-03-30T10:31:38Z")
I also am incapable of even a modicum of proof-reading, it would appear. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041/91 "2003-03-30T11:59:01Z")
> [@](#): > > _Collounsbury_ > I should leave well enough alone, but I do feel it necessary to point out you have utterly misread what I intended, or I failed in communicating. That fine. It’s all the way you said it. And of course the way I put my post was intended to be a demonstration of that. I should have put a smiley there. So far the good signs far outweigh the bad, which is very pleasing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-collounsbury-mea-culpa/164041.md?page=4)