For the record, Seraphita, note that Barry has no training in or special knowledge of abnormal psych and isn't in a position to diagnose anybody with NPD. Moreover, he has a habit of creating his own negative characterizations of Robin and then declaring them by fiat to be typical of NPD. I suspect this one is of that ilk.
Robin may well have been suffering with NPD during his cult-leader days 30-plus years ago, but Barry didn't know him then and so, again, wouldn't be in a position to say even if he did have the training to deliver a diagnosis. No reputable mental health professional, moreover, would hand out such a diagnosis based solely on a person's posts to an Internet forum. Barry's entire NPD formulation, where Robin or anybody else is concerned, is a scam, something he uses purely for purposes of demonizing people whom he finds threatening. The Robin who showed up on FFL a couple years ago did not fit any of the DSM-V criteria for NPD, BTW. Yes, Robin (today's Robin) did become very taken with various performers, including Gaga. That isn't exactly considered symptomatic of a personality disorder given how many people it happens to. Has nothing to do with his response to Khomeini decades ago. And to the best of my recollection, he never argued with anyone here about Gaga. Generally speaking, he was always clear and explicit that his takes on just about anything were his takes, not some gospel truth handed down from above. As for Gaga, he decided not long after he wrote what Barry quotes that she wasn't quite what he had thought she was. And he didn't blame the Vedic gods or anybody else for his misjudgment. IOW, this post of Barry's is just one more episode in his continuing series of demonization fantasies with regard to Robin. For the record, s3raphita, this projection of idealized fantasies onto Khomeini is pretty much standard Narcissistic Personality Disorder stuff, combined with mania. What happens is that the NPD individual, *lost* in self-obsession and convinced of how important *he* is to the world (we *are* talking about the person who billed himself as the "World Teacher," after all) gets high on mania and looks at someone else and projects that same supposed grandiose greatness there. So for Robin, Khomeini became the same kind of God-directed leader he considered himself to be. But it's not *just* Khomeini he was a fan boy for. And the fan boy schtick was not *just* in the past. Robin did the same sort of fantasy projection on other people whom he chose to focus on during one of his manic states. For example, check out what he said about Lady Gaga back in June, 2011. It's the same schtick. And he carried on carrying on about it for some time, ready to argue with anyone who disputed *his* "accurate" view of Lady Gaga, because of course...they're wrong, and he's right. I suspect in a few years, when no one even remembers who Lady Gaga was, he'll issue a "repudiation" of what he wrote back in 2011, claiming similar levels of delusion. He'll probably even find a way to make his mania someone else's fault: "Lingering influence from the Vedic demons who once convinced me I was enlightened made me write this stuff about Lady Gaga." :-) :-) :-) My take? She is so passionate and devoted to her musicand her message (inner God-given dignity of every person: "For God makes no mistakes" BTW) comes through non-didactically, non-sentimentally. As you say, her effect on her "little monsters" is real. They can't help what happens to them during a LG performanceand I have been in a live audience watching her: she does more good for each person than TM ever did (if you will excuse the hyperbole, the bitterness, the outrageousness of that declarationbut for me, it's true). No one of course is 'transformed' but her effect seems to make people a little more sincere, a little more intelligent, a little more grounded. Although I doubt ANYONE knows just how she is doing this. For me, her dedication as an artist is pure and deathless, and this invites a grace which desexualizes her just to the right degree, while allowing her, non-egotistically to sacrifice herself inside her art. And the form and message of the art are one. That almost is unprecedented in my experience. (I have been a performer myself). A woman dishabille and yet private lust for her is not permitted. This is because her art is (and the woman behind the art) so sincere and inspired that a certain chasteness secretly enters into the contextdefying the very provocative and sexually uninhibited way she performs. Inside her performanceI have studied her carefully up-closeshe is that good (as an artist) that she surrenders all of herself, and from within this posture of total giving, she is able to create an effect which defies analysis. People feel good, but it is not an escape, nor is it some kind of epiphany. She just works on you, and the sensation (for me at leastand it seems reflected in the faces of most of the audience as well: see that HBO MSG Concert) is controlled by a beautiful intelligence. You will also notice she never breaks her concentration. She remains Lady Gaga, even in her intimate improvisational words to those fans who are standing near to her. She does not get off on the energy, the rush of her performance. She remains invulnerable, poised, focused when all that adulation and enthusiasm comes at her. She wants to stay inside herself, and not be seduced by any experience of what it is like to be her performing. For me this borders on the miraculous. Vanity, pride, egotism are banished in the commitment she has made to her artand I would say, even her 'religion', for she certainly believes she has a message, and she efficaciously communicates this message so it goes right into people. Lady Gaga stays in her persona even when she gets into bed with her mother at home. (Someone sent me one of her tweets in which she announced she was just then in bed with her mother.) Or when she walks into her dressing room after a fabulous (that's the right word) show. Among men, women, gays, she stays the same, controlling, disciplining herselfthis so as not to weaken the potency of her destinyfor she clearly believes and experiences she has a very specific destinyand it goes beyond Picasso or Beethoven. She stays locked inside that destinythe destiny of the ultimate 21st century, postmodern artist. As for her bisexuality, her drug use (she confesses she composes some of her songs high on marijuana), her whiskey-swilling, her masturbations, her easy offering (at least in the past) to older men, her cigarettesher generally, at least overtly, dissolute life style, I say this: It is necessary for her in order to project her art and her message that she be completely anti-naive about everything. In fact that she is experienced in everything. This way no one can insinuate that her programmatic belief system comes from some failure to know about the hard facts of life. No, she has seen it allat 25 years old. And by the way, if you notice, when she performs, her age disappears. You can't tell how old she is. That's a marvellous testimony to how affectionately the gods of music (the happier ones) have taken her up. She is a transcendent artistin the act of performing. And she is performing right now as I write these words. Right in character. There is no showing another face to anyone. She is Lady Gaga all the time. Lady Gaga is riding some wave of grace and brilliance that, in my intuition, has to come to something other than what you rightly and shrewdly predict for her. I don't know what it is, but I do know this: underneath Lady Gaga is a very lovely girl with the sincerest desire to love and to bring happiness to people. She is an extraordinary human being I believewith all her faults of courseand blind-spots. For the time being, she is making it. You either get Gaga or you don't. Or rather, to get Gaga is to go more or less all the way. I went all the way in order to understand her. I think I do. If I may be permitted to say so, I have a love for Lady Gaga that I have never had for any other artist I have seen perform. And I think she would make a wonderful dinner guest. Interesting, intelligent, sophisticated, trueand ready to crucify herself for her art. It's quite a beautiful thing to watch.
