Back to the Future: Is the force with you?

Malcolm White

This article considers what happens when brands progress from narcissism to solipsism, which makes them incapable of making a proper assessment of whether what they offer is different to or better than the competition.

There are few things worse than when the person you're sitting next to at dinner talks incessantly about themselves. Psychologists call this narcissism. Actually, there is something worse than narcissism: solipsism. Solipsism - from the Latin solus meaning 'alone' and ipsemeaning 'self' - is an extreme preoccupation with one's own ideas and feelings and an inability to see any situation from another person's point of view. While all solipsists are narcissists, not all narcissists are solipsists. Narcissists are marginally more outward-looking than solipsists, if only because they seek out other people to confirm their superiority and...

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