You're, you're in a corporate environment, right? And you you suspect that the people you're working for, the authority figures are your boss, your immediate boss, your team leader. There's a pathological narcissism we've already established as a perfectly possible chance that he or she is.
What steps do you take? Are you talking about removing yourself from that situation from that environment? Or how would you deal with that narcissist? How would you deal with that person?
The advice because narcissists impose a shared fantasy in all types of relationships, not only intimacy, not only intimate, but in friendships, in the workplace, in church, the army, you name it, whenever the narcissist comes across someone who can serve as a source of supply, or someone who can serve as an intimate partner of some kind, the narcissist imposes a shared fantasy.
And in the shared fantasy, he's God, and you're the worshipper. The shared fantasy is in control. And you are coerced in the shared fantasy.
So the principles are identical in all the. So the advice is no contact. No contact is a set of 27 strategies that I designed in 1995.
Yeah, it's still the best advice. The second best advice if you cannot go no contact, you have children with a narcissist, you can't lose your job, for some reason, you can't move away from.
So if the second best advice, which is not something I came up with, I regret to say, but it's a great advice is gray rock. Gray rock means to render yourself uninteresting to the narcissist. A bad source of narcissistic supply because you're stupid. Or you are incapable of curiosity. You're not a wordy adversary. Not a wordy object to be owned.
Narcissists don't have adversaries. They're God.
What do you mean? What adversaries? They're not adversaries. They're God. Some contemptible, inferior people may consider themselves to be the narcissist adversary, adversary or enemy. But that's because they're deluded. And they realize the omnipotence, omniscience and perfection of the narcissist, they would have never considered themselves were enemies, because to be an enemy, you need to be equal.
So not known, not as an enemy, but as an object to be owned. So if you are a rock, so you have to minimize your problem here, Sam, is if you're in a corporate environment, and I have worked in a few, don't attract attention to yourself. Yeah, minimize yourself. I mean, Robert Greene talks about this in the 48 laws of power as well about never upstaging the master.
That's essentially what you're talking about. They're You're forced to say, no, no, my first advice is to disconnect, resign, resign, literally. Because it can end really bad.
It can end really badly and can affect your future career. Narcissists, if they are mortified, narcissists can be narcissistically injured. It's when you challenge, undermine the grandiosity in some way, a self perception or self image, you cause them discomfort by doing this.
But they can also be mortified. Mortification or system mortification is if you shame the narcissist inadvertently even in public. The narcissist is giving a presentation. And you raise the hand and say, I'm sorry, but this slide is wrong. You've shamed him in public, that's mortification. You have become his mortal, his mortal enemy.
Well, he doesn't have enemies, but you become something to be quashed and crushed. And destroyed forever and ever. Amen. Confined to the outer oblivion of deep space. He's going to pursue you. He's not going to pursue you for years. He's not going to pursue you in all future careers. He's got narcissists are exceedingly vindictive. When they're exposed to mortification, this is known as the external solution of mortification. It was first described by Libby, not by me, by Libby.
So when an narcissist is ashamed or humiliated in public, in front of an audience that matters to him, yeah, is going to ruin your life period. It's going to be he's going to focus on this, this is going to be his laser force.
So it could have been extremely badly. And the danger is in any environment, whether it's an academic environment or in a work environment, if you want to engage, you want to ask questions, and you're curious, you're all you could put your foot on a grenade, metaphorically with a narcissist very easily.
Yes. And unfortunately, the incidence and prevalence of narcissism, pathological, is increasing. Yeah, studies by Twenge and Campbell, the newer generations, people under the age of 25, under the age of 30 by now. They're much more narcissistic, they're five times more narcissist.
Do you think social media is fueling narcissism? Do you think?
No, I think it's the opposite. Social media caters to narcissism.
Okay.
I think social media is a reaction to narcissistic needs.
Yeah.
But I think the restructuring of society enhances or rewards narcissism. For example, people are now self sufficient. Technology rendered themselves sufficient. Technology is also some kind of one matrix, if you wish, because technology is all encompassing or engulfing or pervasive, the internet of everything. And technology provides instant solutions. And in this sense, technology is omnipotent, this omniscient like God is God like. So if you own technology, if you control technology, then you're as good as technology. And if technology is God like, then you're God like. That's why everyone in this dog nowadays is an expert about everything. People argue with medical doctors and with professors and with why because they have access to Wikipedia.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, right?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing because it gives the purveyor of that knowledge a feeling of power.
I think I think there is a phenomenon that I call malignant egalitarianism. Malignant egalitarianism, we're all equal. We're all equal by virtue to having possessing access to the same resource. But you can serve the Wikipedia, I can serve Wikipedia where you go. And so people would not hesitate to argue with me about diagnosis that I invented. They would tell me that I don't understand the diagnosis. And I better watch. Listen, this is not better. She knows better. And there's a diagnosis that I invented.
And so technology empowers people in the wrong sense and renders them more narcissistic. That's for sure.
But I think technology was a reaction to the rising tide of nonsense. And we're going to see more and more and more narcissistic technologies.
Because narcissism is a vicious cycle, vicious circle. It is it is self generating, self assembling and self empowering.
In short, the more narcissists they are, the more they structure society so as to reward narcissism. And the more narcissism is rewarding, the more narcissists there are. It's a feedback loop.
So for enforcing feedback.
Do you know in July 2016, new scientists, Science Magazine, New Scientist came up with a cover story. Yeah, July 2016. And the cover story said, parents, teach your children to be narcissists.
Yeah. Hello, everyone. That's a short clip from an episode with Professor Sam back mean, where we talk about everything to do with narcissism. If you want to watch the full episode, it should be right about here. And subscribe button should be right about somewhere down here.
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Thank you so much.