This is a narcissistic society where the losers are pushed to have less and less and the winners take more and more.
Without regard for consequences, now, such societies inevitably always explode. It's a question of time.
They always end in social unrest, bloody rebellions, bloodshed, massive wars, tens of millions dead. Always happen, always will happen.
Finally, the losers will take to arms and kill the winners and destroy the order and ruin the wealth and drive us back a hundred years and we start again and again and again.
This is the cycle of narcissism.
Narcissism is not linear. It doesn't lead from point A to point B. Narcissism is cyclical. This always brings us back to the starting point.
Always we have to start from zero with narcissism.
Consider, for example, Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler took a relatively big Germany. Look what he left behind in 1945. Look what the Germans had. Germans had to start from zero. There was nothing there. Total obliteration. Nothing was left.
That's narcissism.
So that's the first problem.
The second and even much bigger problem is that narcissism is a religion.
That is something no one understands. No one understands.
I'm trying now, last six months, to make people understand this.
Narcissism is not only a mental health disorder. It's not only a principle according to which we organize society. It's not only a principle which can explain to us many things that are happening around us in our relationships, in our politics and so on. It's not only these things, but it's a new religion similar to Islam or to Christianity or to Judaism or to Buddhism. It's a new religion.
But it's an extremely malicious, toxic and dangerous religion. Never before has there been anything remotely similar to this religion, because it has a few features that no other religion ever had.
But before I go into that, do I have permission to talk about this? Before I go into that, I want to explain why I'm saying it's a religion.
Consider how narcissism is formed, how it becomes.
What happens is there's a child. The child is abused by the parent.
Abuse can have many forms.
Abuse means when the child is not allowed to separate from the parent. A child is not allowed to become an individual, when the parent subsumes the child, takes over the child.
So it could be via sexual abuse and physical abuse or verbal abuse, but it could also be by using the child to realize the parent's unfulfilled dreams or by using the child for some other form of gratification, for example, parentifying the child or by triangulating with the child, teaming up with the child against the other parent. Whenever the child is used as an instrument or extension of the parent, whenever the parent does not respect the child's boundaries, this is abuse.
So some children react to abuse, a minority, react to abuse by developing narcissism.
But what is narcissism?
The child creates a separate entity, the false self. The false self is everything the child is not.
The child is helpless. The false self is omnipotent, all powerful.
The child cannot predict the behavior of his parents, his capricious, violent, aggressive, abusive parents. The false self is omniscient, knows everything.
The child is told by the parents that he is imperfect, not brilliant, unworthy and a bad object. The false self is perfect and brilliant.
But when we have an entity that knows everything, has all the power in the world and is perfect, what is the name of this entity? It's a God.
This is God. God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is perfect.
The child creates a God.
The false self is a God. It's a religion. It's a religion with one God, the false self, and one worshiper, one adherent, the child.
So the child forms a religion, creates a private religion where there is a God called the false self.
But you know, when you have a religion, you need to sacrifice something to God. You need some sacrifice.
So in the old times, we sacrificed cows, we sacrificed lambs. But in some religions, in some locations, people sacrificed their own children.
The monarch, Abraham almost killed Isaac in the Bible. So child sacrifice is pretty common.
What happens in narcissism? Same. Child sacrifice. The child sacrifices his true self to the false self.
The child says to the false self, my God, the false self, here I'm giving you my true self as a sacrifice. I'm killing my true self for you. And you will be from now on my God.
Narcissism starts as a private religion. And then every narcissist is a one-man religion, a one-man cult.
When we have a society full with narcissists, we have a society full with gods. We have a society full with worshippers. We have multiple cults.
Narcissism is therefore a non-monotheistic religion.
So going back a very long time, it's paganism. It's a form of paganism. We're going back a very long time before monotheism. It's a non-monotheistic religion with as many gods as there are adherents, as there are worshippers, but still it's a religion.
It has all elements of a religion. It has sacrifices, a worship, it has perfection, it's a religion.
So it's the first network religion. It's the first distributed religion. It's not a religion with a central figure, which we all worship, but it's a religion where the worship is distributed, the gods are distributed, everything is distributed.
It's a modern religion. It's the first modern religion, because in today's world, the ruling metaphor, the ruling organizational principle is the principle of the network. We organize our computers as networks. We think of our brain as a network. We interact socially in networks. In business, we network.
There is a concept of networking in business. We go to conferences to network. It's all about networking.
The dominant metaphor is networking. Even marketing is made via networks, MLMs and so on.
So the dominant metaphor is networking. The new religion, of course, would be a religion that uses the dominant metaphor. It will be a network religion.
And there's only one type of religion that is distributed and networked, narcissism. And so it's a new religion.
Within a few decades, the dominant religion will not be Islam, will not be Christianity, and not anything else. It will be narcissism.
Why do I say it with such certainty?
Because the old religions don't fit the modern world.
The old religions are hierarchical religions. There's hierarchy. There is God and there is you. And you are inferior to God.
We live in a society that is totally egalitarian. We live in a society that is totally networked. And we live in a society where everyone believes themselves to be equal to everyone else in knowledge, in expertise, in access to the truth.
So we don't accept authority. We don't accept expertise. We reject authority. We hate authority. We hate expertise.
So the old religions don't fit the new mindset. Don't fit the new metaphor. Don't fit the new world, the modern world.
A new religion is emerging. We're in the middle of a massive religious revolution, similar to the emergence of Islam in the seventh century, or more precisely, the emergence of Protestantism in the 16th century.
It's a massive religious revolution, bigger than anything in human history, because it's everywhere. All previous religions were localized religion. Islam was Middle East. Christianity was Europe, largely. You know, they were all localized. Judaism was, God knows where. I mean, it was all localized.
This is the first global religion, because we live in the age of globalization. All the features of the modern world are features of this religion. It's globalized. It's networked.