I find your claim dubious, but in any case, the N word existed in english before it became a slur too. But centuries of racial abuse made it into a slur
Why do you think the N word existed in English as anything but a slur? Narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder are not equal. I’m open to changing terminology if it’s doing harm, but I think this one needs to be that the term for NPD should likely change. From what I know (and correct me if I’m wrong please), the common usage of “narcissism” has very little to do with NPD, which was coined later and seems almost derogatory in itself (in effect, grouping those with NPD along with the type of asshole commonly called narcissists)
Edit: I have been convinced that this story I was told was wrong about NPD. There doesn’t seem to be a usage of narcissism outside of attempted psychological prescription before 1900 in english, and only first in 1899 in German which caused its use in English.
The common use of narcissism in the vernacular originates with Christopher Lasch’s book The Culture Of Narcissism, which put forward the thesis that NPD was becoming more normalised in contemporary america. That book inspired self help guru hacks to sell books which told people that all their problems are caused by people with NPD holding them back and abusing them. People love being told that all their problems are caused by a vulnerable minority that seeks to destroy them, that’s how Hitler got into power. So anyway, these books inspired the idea that everyone’s abusive parents and bosses and partners are narcissists, and once that happened, more and more people started drawing on this growing linguistic awareness of the word narcissist, generally falling into one of two camps: Either they hate people with NPD and think we’re all abusive, or they don’t know the history of the word and just repeat it without thinking. And those two groups sound identical when they throw the word about as an insult. When I call out use of the slur, I never know which of the two groups I’m about to have an argument with. Sometimes it’s both.
I’m taking you in good faith here, despite being warned that you’re a possible “wrecker”. I have been convinced that my post (where I tried to make clear that I could easily be wrong) was incorrect about the origins in english.
I think what we’re really getting at here is a difference between some of what constitutes a psychology which is deserving of protection from incorrect associations with acute attributes found in broader populations. The R word clearly describes something which cannot be described as “traits everyone has but this person has more of it” but is instead taking a broad and incorrect category and using it to demean both the target and those who are neuro-atypical. With Narcissism, it seems that those in favor of using the word broadly are really then taking a stand that NPD exists as just an extreme of the scale of narcissism and is, therefore, to be less protected. I am unconvinced of this argument, or at least not convinced that, even if it were true, the word “narcissism” is really necessary outside of medical contexts. I think this is unpopular on hexbear based on the posts I’ve seen, but I’m fine with stopping using the word outside of describing possible the specific psychology.
I think an interesting thing to consider though, which doesn’t discount this argument, is the social situation which leads to the commonly used terms. Anxiety was a term used broadly to describe a spectrum of anxious traits in the middle of the last century and was for the first time made primarily psychological instead of sociological. The same can be said of despression in recent years. I think that narcissism as a psychological disorder likely also has a base in liberal capitalism which has only gotten more acute, and it may be less widespread and blamed on failures of society once we move on from this terrible ideological base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*removed*#Etymology_and_history
This says first use in english was 1574, first derogatory use was 1775
The separation of ‘derogatory’ and ‘patronizing’ as your link shows is not a difference in it being a slur or not, but a difference in social understanding of the word. It was always a slur
edit: I say this not as a disagreement about the term narcissism, but that it’s comparison to the N word seems unfounded to me and not related, maybe even downplaying the relative harm of the N word.