A study by Jean Twenge (San Diego University associate professor of psychology and author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before) has shown a moderate increase in narcissism in the modern college student compared to previous generations. She recently garnered quite a bit of press for this study that tests 16,000 college students from a period of 25 years for narcissistic personality traits and values.

Twenge fears our society will experience increases in negative personal encounters because individuals with high self-esteem are disinterested in emotional intimacy with other humans. I imagine that the lack of intimate bonds with other humans prevents development of empathy and/or sympathy. Without the ability to relate to another person’s experience, the narcissistic individual may be harmful and abusive. Twenge has also studied social rejection throughout her years of work and finds that narcissistic individuals tend to strike out in response to rejection. This emotion-based reaction suggests, to me, a lack of reasoned evaluation of the situation and a considered response (even if after the heat of the emotional moment of rejection). If narcissism is increasing in the each generation, then we have more individuals without empathy, sympathy, or responsive interactions. The net result is an increase in reactive encounters that are interpersonally harmful, emotionally and physically.

Twenge argues that the roots to this increased narcissism may lie in self-esteem boosting programs in early childhood education. These me-first values are nurtured in burgeoning adults by internet services that enable self-promotion on a massive scale, websites such as YouTube and MySpace. Browsing the web pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education (or contemplating a few of the survey findings mentioned in the article linked earlier in this paragraph), one could add that alongside the narcissism, there is also growing trend toward increased laziness, or expecting to get something for nothing. I emphasize the word increased because I do not want to vilify any generation. In our society, we all have the same tendencies because we share cultural values. And, this generation did not accomplish their high scores on the narcissism survey without the help of the generation that reared, enculturated, and educated them.

Twenge’s study has shown that there is a moderate increase in narcissism over the past generation and other sources point to an increase in laziness in the same group she studied. Is this a lazy narcissism that meets Pecks’ definition of evil? Above, I gave the example of large scale societal consequences of lazy narcissism through the creation of ranked hierarchies. On the small scale, we can use the modern college student from Twenge’s study. Specifically, I’ll use concerns widely expressed in the Chronicle (first persons, forums, articles) about the corporatization of academia as a consumer service provider, wherein students are consumers and professors are service professionals. An example of this phenomenon is certain students expecting and demanding top grades in the classroom without earning them. To students in this category, the A is earned by paying tuition, showing up, submitting work (but not necessarily on time), and taking tests (but not necessarily passing). While the service in this economy is transmission of knowledge through various forms, this category of students believe the service is a diploma supported by a high GPA. On the course-level, the service is a high grade. This is lazy narcissism because the demand assumes that student is the most valuable shareholder in the classroom and his/her need ranks higher than the professional ethics of the professor in student assessment, the needs of other students, and the value of the grade, GPA, and even degrees awarded at that university or college. The evil here lies in subverting the integrity of the system for individual assumptions and self-value which demeans the professor and the other students. If the professor capitulates, that professor is corrupt and causes widespread damage to other students in the course and, ultimately, perhaps the value of the degree itself. System entropy ensues and many are harmed.

Of course, there is more than one student in that classroom with the same self-valued expectation for the highest grade. Each of those students is in conflict with one another because if the professor gives them all As, they may feel they received what they paid for but they will be no better than anyone else and they will not achieve their end goal, a high-paying job since everyone graduating will have the same GPA. If the professor equally gives As to students who earn them and students who demand them, everyone is cheated as well. The students who earn the As have the same credentials as those who demand them and, on the job market, encounter a glut of applicants , some of whom are not qualified but appear so and compete for the same limited resources. Those who don’t earn the grade or demand it, don’t get access to those resources. Those who demand the grade and get it, enter the market and a job unprepared and fail to perform the job damaging the employer, the clients, and the employee him/herself.

In a previous post, I talked about M. Scott Peck’s definition of evil. Is an act evil if the evil is not intentional? Even our court system has categories of charges reserved for unintentional criminal acts (accidentally killing someone gets you a charge of involuntary manslaughter). The value of Peck’s definition is that it holds an individual responsible for his/her actions. No individual can get away with arguing that a lack of intention equates innocence. If the student(s) from the above example says, I didn’t intend to devalue other students or compromise the integrity of the professor, or degrade the value of the degree, are they innocent. Their goal was to expend no energy and receive benefits from others who they deemed less valuable, at cost to others who are also deemed less valuable. By not examining the larger implications of this simplistic approach to higher education, those individuals are lazy. They choose to leave the unexamined, the larger implications of their motive (personal gain), unexamined.

To say that every person should strive to contemplate motives and outcome is unrealistic and a bit of an ethical high ground that is untenable. Perhaps, though, given the nature of the modern world and the imperfection of humanity, I can say that every human should strive to take responsibility for failure to examine the unexamined instead of the usual reaction: denials, cover-ups, finger-pointing, and scape-goating.

Whether large scale or small scale, a lack of desire to expend energy practiced regularly alongside promotion of self above all others, is modern secular evil. Many people may be unwilling to accept this as a definition of evil due to the long-standing religious associations of evil as inherently dark and supernatural (even if sometimes manifest in humans). Why is there such a reluctance to label negligence, ignorance, self-love as secular evil (or just evil) and promote personal responsibility as a societal obligation. Because it would mean a lot less personal gain and a lot more equity. Sadly, even the marginalized may be reluctant because they have internalized the hegemonic value of the meritocracy (which actually has now become the hegemonic value of the capital corporatocracy–money talks and people obey) and believe they can achieve a higher rank (and, look down on those in their previous rank as being lazy to not have achieved like them).

Even though it may come at a cost to self and require effort, reducing credulity by examining the unexamined is necessary to take the powerful concept of evil out of the realm of the supernatural and place it every human, for better and worse.