Narcissistic Privacy as a Barrier to Socialization

A democratic society is characterised by tensions between private and public interests. At different stages of a society’s development, the emphasis shifts to one side or the other within the dialectic of both aspects of the functioning of society. We believe that the degree of disharmony between the two can result in problems and phenomena that ultimately pose a serious threat to the functionality of society as a complex whole. This study focuses on the phenomenon of privacy in relation to human socialization in a changing open society. We are convinced that in the last decade and especially in the post-pandemic period we are experiencing an unhealthy assertion of private interests that stem from the narcissistic mental world-setting of contemporary man. We seek to highlight the causation and manifestations of a narcissistic culture, part of which is a lifestyle of dominance of privacy curved in on itself, and the implications associated with it – especially in the realm of social interest and interpersonal socialization.