Narcissistic Abuse: Robinson Crusoe Strategy (Barefoot Mediator Podcast, Jane Gunn)

I think narcissism, I mentioned that narcissism is a clinical entity it has become the very word has become debased and molested and now is misapplied to a variety of situations and people when it shouldn't be.

Also, narcissism has been put, introduced into a straitjacket in the diagnostic and statistical manual. It's a straight jacket of a list of behaviors, which are essentially social behaviors, or lack of social behaviors, anti-social behavior.

And then there's a list of traits. It's a list, it's categorical. It's like a list-based approach to diagnosis, which is a huge problem.

I think that the two basic dynamics in pathological narcissism are the inability to recognize other people as separate to you and external.

Yes. Regarding everyone as an internal object, which is manipulable because it's internal.

That's the first problem. And the second problem is thefact that narcissism, pathological narcissism, is a reaction to abuse and trauma in very, very early childhood. And therefore, this abuse and trauma disrupt the formation of a self. Ironically, the narcissist is selfless. Doesn't have a self. It doesn't have what Freud used to call ego. There are no mechanisms within the narcissists that allow the narcissists to interact with reality, to differentiate reality from fantasy, to regard other people as stand-alone external objects which are separate to the narcissists, to develop empathy, to engage in productive relationships which involve intimacy and true interest in the partner, they're unable to do all of this because their development, the development of narcissism, has been disrupted very early on and has never resumed in any meaningful way afterwards. So these are the two core issues in narcissism. All the rest are symptoms. It's like we keep discussing the symptoms. Narcissists are exploitative, they're envious, they are this, they're that. It's like discussing temperature rather than discussing the pneumonia bacteria.

It's going back to the root cause, isn't it, to say where to the...

We need to go back to the root cause and we are not doing this. We're not discussing trauma in narcissism. We are not discussing problems with the perception of other people in narcissism. We are not discussing problems with the perception of other people in narcissism. We are not discussing all these. We are confining ourselves to symptoms, behaviors, observations.

It's all very phenomenal logical, very superficial. There's no real dive into the depth of narcissism. And narcissism is an abyss, a huge abyss. I think narcissism, and I'm not alone, and preceded by giants like Otto Kernberg and others, I think that narcissism is possibly the second worst mental health affliction after schizophrenia. I think it's that bad and so did Otto Kernberg and quite a few others. It's really bad. And so to say, well, narcissists are basically glorified aholds or exaggerated jerks. And that's not correct. That's not true at all. This may be the facade, but it's not the background, not the hinterline.

So this makes a lot of sense, Sam, and are you alone in following this path and looking at the root cause and finding this link to trauma and being able to explore that or other people joining you?

There are other people of course. People like Judith Herman, who is trying to link trauma with borderline personality disorder and so on so forth. But we are faced with a major problem in the profession. And that is the fact that starting in the 1970s and 1980s, we have discarded everything that came before as non-scientific. So starting in the 1980s, there is a pretension to science. Psychology can never be a science in principle because its raw material is mutable and changeable. And so it can never be a science. It could be a form of literature, structured literature, insightful literature, of course, but never a science. And yet there is this pretension to science. Psychologists believe that if they use statistics, it makes them scientists, you know. And so we dumped, we just trashed everything that came before. I'm talking about Freud and talking about Jung and talking about Kohl and even Kernberg. We just trash these people. We have committed but receded. But at the same time, the whole profession became ruthless, ruthless and rootless. Ruthless and rootless. And so it's not going anywhere because it deals with apparitions, it deals with superficialities, it deals with observation, because that's what science does. Real science is about observations in laboratories, about experiments, about studies. We don't deal with the essence of the sun. We observe the sun. We don't have a dialogue with an atom. We observe the atom. And so they say, well, it's the same for people. We don't need to talk to them. We don't need to go deep. We don't need to understand. We just need to observe them.

It's a kind of second generation behaviorism. The original behaviorists dealt with rats and mice, and now the modern behaviorists are dealing with people.

And yes, it does of course provide the capacity to predict certain behaviors under certain circumstances.

So it's pretty useful when it comes to advertising or politics or show business and entertainment.

Making behavioral predictions is a moneymaker proposition, a money making proposition. So that's why all the emphasis is on that.

I mean, you can't make money by realizing that the narcissist cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy. What kind of money is it in there? This insight couldn't yield any kind of profit or income.

And frankly, brands in psychology, they go to profitable propositions, like a grant would gravitate or something that could be applied in advertising.

Yes, I get it. Everything, follow the money. Everything follows.

It's a corrupting influence.

Yes, yes.

It also motivates many, many scholars and academics, motivates them to jump the gun.

Yes.

And to come up with findings based on very luridly put together studies, non-representative samples, wrongly applied statistics, and outright fabrication.

Consequently, 80% of experiments in psychology cannot be replicated.

Yes.

This is known as a replication crisis.

We see this in so many sectors of society, though, don't we? Where money talks and people follow the money with their studies.

But I wonder then if we can talk about how you see narcissism as this. What do you call an organizing principle in society? Do you see it then reflected in or manifesting itself in families, in groups, in organizations, and then in the wider society through politics?

Human history can be grossly divided into two parts. The first part has dealt with tangibles. All kinds of tangible. Commodities, land, and tangible. Even money was tangible for a while.

Now we have cryptocurrency.

Yeah, I know.

So in the second period has dealt with symbol and the manipulation of symbols.

And within this second period in human history, it's pretty recent. And within this period, started with the Enlightenment in Europe in the 17th century.

We've had phases. We've had phases.

And the most recent phase is attention, the manipulation and commodification of attention and now the manipulation and commodification of reality itself.

Yes. So now we are on the verge of coming up with products that package reality, manipulate it, and provide you with alternative reality or augmented reality or everything but not actual reality. That's the metaverse, for example.

Yeah. To a very large extent, I would say social media.

Social media, yes, I was going to say social media.

So I'm attempting desperately to respond to your question because it's a deep question. And unfortunately, I can't compress it more than that.

So in an economy whose main products are attention or main tender, legal tender, is attention.

In reality, narcissists are uniquely positioned to benefit.

Because narcissism is the art of garnering attention, also known as narcissistic supply.

Yes, I see.

And narcissists are experts at substituting fantasy for reality.

Narcissism is a fantasy defense, gone awry, fantasy defense writ large.

Narcissists are experts in garnering attention in order to support their fantasies, which sounds like the job description of the future.

Yes.

In other words, narcissism is what we call a positive adaptation.

Yes.

In other words, narcissism is what we call a positive adaptation.

Yes.

In our emerging civilization, narcissists are uniquely positioned and uniquely skilled to benefit.

And so narcissism is on the rise, on the increase, on the ascendance, because more and more people discover that being a narcissist pays.

You could even become president of the United States in some cases.

So there's no incentive to modify or regulate narcissistic behaviors, to transform somehow narcissistic traits into pro-social traits.

Yes.

To treat narcissism, if you're diagnosed with it.

Why would you treat narcissism if you're working in the finance industry, for example?

And it suits you, yes.

So I see a couple of things you've said there, Sam.

You know, one, it probably has its origins in trauma and there are many different kinds of trauma that a large number of people are probably experienced. And then that maybe creates the potential or the traits that can then go on to be emphasized, if you like, if one sees an advantage in, would that be right?

The environment that we have created, the new economy, new society, new civilization, in short, has probably been created by narcissists and schizoids, which are close cousins to narcissism, and is conducive to narcissism.

Narcissism pays.

It's exactly like, let's say, if you are in Nazi Germany, psychopathy pays. And if you're in prison, crime pays. Adapting to the environment is the number one dictum of human life.

And ironically, mental health is defined as adapting positively to a changing environment.

Yes.

So in Nazi Germany, an altruistic charitable person would be mentally ill.

And in Auschwitz, a happy-go-lucky person would be mentally ill.

And in today's world, anyone who is not a narcissist has a problem.

And I can foresee a future where we would be treating people in order to inculcate in them a modicum of narcissism.

Gosh, Sam, that's a scary thought.

Actually, I'm not originally what I'm saying.

In 2016, in July, New Scientist came up with a cover story.

Parents, teach your children to be narcissists.

Right.

Because it's a positive adaptation to a changing environment.

Yes. And what are your thoughts about that?

Yes, I agree.

You do?

I fully agree, yes.

I even think that psychopathy is the next thing.

I think we're transitioning to a world where narcissism, coupled with psychopathy, a condition known as malignant loss or psychopathic narcissism, would be the name of the game.

These people would rise to the top.

We already know that in corporate settings, for example, studies by Hare, Robert Hare and Babiak, we already know that in corporate settings, there's five times more psychopaths than in the general population.

Yeah, yeah.

That's 500% more.

And we know that in certain professions, narcissists are massively overrepresented.

They gravitate to this profession.

And these are not minor profession or tangential or fringe professions.

This is politics, judiciary, law enforcement, the media, the entertainment industry, and so on so forth. The people who decide our lives.

There's a massive overrepresentation of narcissists.

Yeah.

So these are the people who what we see succeed in a traditional sense.

They rise to the top of an organization or they take control. They are dominant.

But what about the rest?

I mean, you're saying, yes, those might be useful traits for people who want to survive and succeed.

But what about those who are members of the family, members of the group, members of the organization, members of society who are subject to the narcissistic traits being played out?

When I say that narcissism is an organizing principle, it's also a hermeneutic principle, in other words, a principle that makes sense of life, a principle that imbues life with meaning and direction and purpose.

When I say this, it means that we're entering a world where everyone would want to be a narcissist.

Some people would succeed because they're predisposed to being narcissists, genetically or by upbringing or whatever.

And some people wouldn't make it. And they would be failed, what we call collapsed narcissists.

So they wouldn't make it. And they would be failed, what we call collapsed narcissists.

So they wouldn't make it.

But everyone would be a narcissist to some degree. Everyone would adopt narcissistic behaviors and traits. Everyone would toe the line. Everyone would use the same text which self-identify as narcissists.

There would be like texts which identify you as a narcissist, so this will be there.

And within 10 or 15 years, narcissism would be the bontone, and everyone would try to conform. And we would use tenets of narcissism to organize the institutions of society.

The various styles of communication and attachment. Behaviors such as dating, sexual scripts, social scripts, everything will reflect to this or that extent an involvement of narcissia or the influence of narcissism.

So today when we say narcissists, we think of a minority or abusive, exploitative, disempathy, and really, really bad guys or girls.

But 20 years hence, you wouldn't need to say narcissists, because everyone would be a narcissist.

And so, people would exploit each other transactionally, and it would be considered utterly ethical and acceptable behavior. People would not have empathy, would lack empathy. Empathy would be a relay of times by gone. And those with empathy would be considered naive or dumb or mentally ill.

I know it sounds bizarre, but this is exactly the way religions develop.

And in my view, narcissism is a secular religion.

Each and every narcissist is a godlike figure in his own eyes at least. A godlike figure.

And the narcissist worships his or her false self.

And so it's a church.

Narcissus is a missionary. They try to convert you to their point of view.

A narcissist would like you to tell him that he's a genius. So he wants you to convert to his point. He introduces you, inducts you into a shared fantasy.

So this is a contagion. This is something that people don't appreciate.

It's a contagion. It's a pandemic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's exactly what I was thinking, Sam.

And I hear what you're saying, but I feel more than sad. I feel sort of very bereft that, you know, this is a world that we are creating for ourselves, that we lose this sense of empathy and the ability to be real and interact with our real selves.

I mean, it's against everything that I work for.

So, you know, I wonder, is there an alternative to this outcome?

It's natural for people of any given generation, to mourn and grieve and bemoan the changes of the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the people born into the age of narcissism would regard it as utterly normative and normal. They wouldn't say anything wrong with it or anything strange with it.

There's a lot of things we regard as normal.

I've been listening to an ecological doctor who would say, we regard the fact that one in three people will develop cancer as normal.

But that's just because we look at it in the context of society today.

If you look back 100 years, that would not be normal at all.

That would be abnormal.

We tend to normalize via habituation.

Yes. Become habituated.

Yeah.

So, for example, the hookup culture.

The hookup culture is an example because sex used to be associated in the minds of everyone, men included.

At the time, sex used to be associated with emotions. I mean, men resorted to prostitutes, for example, or sex services, but within decent society, so to speak, sex was always associated with emotions.

I mean, read Jane Austen. The most emotional characters in Jane Austen are actually the men. The women are pretty calculating. Is he a good catch? Is he agood catch? Got to get married before they're 18, Sam.

Yeah.

And the men are the emotional, you know, all over the place characters.

Yes, yes.

And yet today we became habituated to sex which is utterly devoid of emotions.

And actually the younger generations regard emotions as faux pas.

It's impolite to catch emotions. This is the phrase they're using. Catching emotions is highly uncivil and a breach and transgression of the code of social conduct. And this has happened in 40 years.

Yes. So.

So we're going down this path then, Sam, and, you know, we see more and more narcissistic traits and behaviors in families, in organizations and in society, fueled by social media, no doubt, and our online presence.

Is there another way? Is there an opportunity to step off this conveyor belt somewhere and create a different kind of society for those of us that want to be real in our families and in our organizations?

Well, the good news is that there is this principle of pluralism.

So if you don't like society, today you do have the option, the technological possibility to disengage and group with like-minded people in a silo, a thought silo.

Yes.

And engage in confirmation bias to your heart's content.

Yes.

So, but this would be the only strategy, withdrawal, avoidance. The only strategies available to people who detest narcissism and regarded as dystopian, the only strategies would be avoidant strategies, what we call life constriction.

But yeah, there would be islands of people who would rail against narcissism and so and so forth. But that would be, these would be rare exceptions. The same way we look at the Amish today. They rail against technology.

Yeah, absolutely.

And in some ways, they're a healthier race than the rest of us in terms of...

Take into account that there are two billion people on social media.

Yeah.

And that social media is one hundred thousand million percent a narcissistic platform. They are narcissistic platforms, multiple.

One hundred thousand million percent, because the stock in trade of social media is attention and it engages in envious competition. There is what we call relative position, competition, envy. It's immediately recognizable as some kind of narcissistic extension or extension of narcissism.

And there are 2 billion people on social media. And the number is growing.

And social media are becoming more radicalized and more extreme in their narcissism.

Compare, for example, Facebook to TikTok.

As time passes, the platforms themselves become more and more and more narcissistic, and some platforms are utterly psychopathic.

I won't mention names.

Yes.

But we are faced with this situation, and two billion people have opted.

So I've made a prediction 10 years ago that humanity will be divided in two parts.

The part that accepts narcissism as an organizing principle. The part that is in a mood with ambition and competition and doesn't see any advantage of benefit to empathy and is bottom line oriented.

The part that is misanthropic and atomized. The part that values self-sufficiency.

And so there'll be this part of the global population and there'll be another part, which is the exact opposite.

And I think this second part would gradually win off social media, would kind of reject social media, and the metaverse and all these forthcoming, the onslaught of oncoming technology.

So there will be a non-technological luddite, if you wish, part of the population, and a technology-addicted part of the population with technologies propagating and disseminating and inculcating narcissism.

That's the way I see it.

So there will be an anti-technological revolution, an anti-technological tidal wave, reminiscent very much of the Hargraves weaving machine.

There will be a technological war. I'm pretty convinced, a civil war regarding technology.

I think so.

I went to a conference 10 years ago where the speaker was talking about revolutions and the revolutions we've gone through and the technology revolution, but beyond the technology revolution was maybe what you're describing, the consciousness revolution or the ability to come back to conscious choice, thoughtful, critical thinking, and that was actually maybe the next and superior stage to the technology. So there must be some people who...

No, I disagree vehemently. I don't think there will be a global trend that will engulf and encompass everyone.

I think the vast majority of humanity have made their choice, unequivocally made their choice, and they have chosen narcissism.

These are the selfie generations and so on, the digital natives. They've made their choice and they're highly narcissistic and end of story. It's irreversible. It's wishful thinking to say that this can ever be reversed. I mean, this is the end of a story.

And there would be, I mean, there would be a minority, maybe, a sizable minority, I don't know, but there would be a minority who would reject this and there would be a kind of conflict of some kind.

But to say that we are transitioning to a higher consciousness, that is woke bullshit. I'm sorry to say. It's as much nonsense as a lot of the victimhood messaging that's coming out of woke movements.

Out of? Woke movements.

So, Sam, your advice, I know I heard you giving a lecture to young students. I don't know what year were they just about to leave university or just starting.

I was 17 years old on average.

Oh, really? So they were just about to start. I traumatized them at age 17.

But I know your advice was life sucks and you're on your own. And I mean, tell us a little bit about that message for young people because it seems to me quite a harsh world that you're painting for some.

And this message then that, you know, this is the world you're coming into.

I don't know whether you got any feedback from those students sometime later.

And I've been optimistic.

There was, I think, before the pandemic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.

And there was an optimistic lecture, actually.

I wouldn't use the word harsh, but use the word realistic. This is the world we live in, and we're doing a disservice to youth when we tell them otherwise.

I think the greatest role of any educational institution and any lecturer and any educator is reality testing.

We need to equip and prepare people for reality.

However abhorrent that reality may be.

So I think the younger are exposed to four trends which drive them away from reality, encourage them to engage in counterfactual thinking and to become delusional.

So, deceiving.

Number one is risk aversion.

We are terrified of risk. We dedicate an inordinate amount of time to avoiding risks and mitigating risks and managing risks and measuring risks. And I don't know what. Incredible amount of it.

This is extremely counterproductive because risk is the engine of growth and development.

Yes. Absolutely.

The overprotecting children, sheltering them is a disservice.

So this is the first trend.

The second trend is victimhood. Victimhood has become the most predominant identity. That's not me. That's a sociologist Campbell who said that we have transitioned from the age of dignity to the age of victimhood.

So now victimhood is everyone and his dog is a victim and there's a problem because there's a shortage of abusers.

Because everyone is a victim, you need to find an abuser.

Sometimes you have to share an abuser with someone, which is very inconvenient.

Everyone is a victim and victimhood became not only an identity movement, but victimhood imposes obligations on other people because it self imputes rights.

If you're a victim, you automatically have rights.

And these rights impose obligations on other people.

So now children, kids are into this. They are victims as transgender people as, I mean you name it, they're victims. There is intersectionality, which is great.

Because if you're a black girl, then you're twice victimized. I mean, it's wonderful.

And everyone is collecting victimhood badges and competes, there's this competitive victimhood going on.

Competitive victim.

So that's the second trend.

And what victimhood does, it disables you. As a victim, you're always passive. When you lose your passivity, you're no longer a victim and you're a risk of becoming an abuser. You need to stay passive. Otherwise, you lose your membership in the club. So it encourages passivity.

The third trend is the savior, rescue a trend.

That it's learned helplessness.

By freezing, because, you know, when you're faced with a threat or with the risk, there's flight or fight response.

So by choosing flight or by choosing freeze, because the third reaction is freeze, by choosing flight or freeze, I'm handing my agency to an outside person or institution or who would act as my saviors or my rescuers or my fixers or my healers when I go to therapy.

You know, people come to therapy, especially young people. I work a lot with young people. They come to therapy and they sit back and they wait.

You're supposed to fix them the way a mechanic would fix a car in a garage. You know?

So they're there. They've made an effort. Isn't, shouldn't this be enough? They made an effort to attend the session. Shouldn't this be enough? Doesn't this entitle them to being fixed or being healed? And so on.

So this learned helplessness is a third trend.

And the last trend, I mean, there are many others, but the four that worry me the most, the last one is what is entitlement.

The sense that just by virtue of existing, without any commensurate hard work or hard study or investment or commitment, just by virtue of existing, you're automatically entitled.

The very concept of human rights is a form of entitlement because you gain these rights by virtue of being human, which I think is very bad psychologically.

Similarly, civil rights, we take them for granted.

Because we are the passive recipients of these rights. We are entitled to them. We're entitled to democracy. We don't have to fight for it. We're entitled to it. We're entitled to be respected.

Why should I respect you? What gives you the right to be respected?

So risk-taking, victimhood, savior-rescue a conflict, and empowerment.

And so that all comes back, as you said, Sam, to, you know, reality, coming back to reality.

And yet part of the definition of I understand it, right, of a narcissist, somebody who doesn't live in reality.

So how do you persuade someone of a generation which is tending towards narcissistic traits to accept the advice you're giving here, which is get real, live in the real world, don't live in this make-believe world?

Well, not everyone can become a successful narcissist.

Narcissism is a choice of fantasy over reality. That much is true.

But you do need certain minimum, there are minimum requirements. And only a tiny sliver of the population meet these requirements.

After all, there's something like 1 to 3% of the population are narcissists. Forget what self-styled experts. The nonsense there is pure online. Only 1 to 3% are narcissists.

So not everyone can become a narcissist. And then if you can't succeed in fantasy, what's your other option?

There are only two options, fantasy or reality. And because the odds are stacked against you, statistically, you're going to be a collapsed narcissist. You're not going to succeed. You're going to make it as a nonsense.

It's like entrepreneurship, you know?

Yeah, entrepreneurship is great.

But how many successful entrepreneurs are there?

You know?

So we need to prepare the youth for reality.

Now, there will be 1 to 3% of them who would create fantastic worlds. They would create social media. They would create the world of finance. These are worlds of fantasy because these are words where we manipulate symbols and so on.

Yeah, there will be 1 to 3% who will end up owning Facebook or, you know.

And this 1 to 3% they will be naturally selected in a Darwinian process.

But we can't prepare children for a life that does not correspond or is not commensurate with their skills, talents, and predispositions.

We need to prepare them for reality. It's much more likely they will find themselves, they will end up in reality than in any other option.

I feel happier about what you're telling me now, Sam, because if it's 1 to 3% are truly in that narcissistic spectrum and the rest have got to accept reality, that sounds a better equation to me.

Not really.

Not really.

Because the reality they would have to accommodate themselves to would be a reality created by the narcissists. It would be a narcissistic psychopathic reality.

So the elites are becoming more and more narcissistic.

These are studies, these are not just, you know, a rant.

Yeah, yeah.

The elite are becoming more and more narcissistic and increasingly more psychopathic. The world is being shaped now by narcissists and psychopaths, almost exclusively.

So even in traditional societies, even in collectivist societies, narcissism is an organizing principle.

So your grandiosity in a collectivist society would be belonging to a certain company or group or club. While in America, your grandiosity would consist of an individual accomplishment, but it's there.

So the whole world is becoming narcissistic psychopaths.

So these people who cannot make it, these people who cannot become narcissists and psychopaths, they will be second-class citizens. They will be enslaved.

We are entering a civilization of a crust of 1 to 3% who would rule as elites, but not even pretend.

Today we have the pretension of democracy or the pretension of liberalism or the pretension of human rights.

Narcissism psychopaths don't bother with this nonsense.

Yeah.

That's why, allow me just to say that this is why authoritarianism, autocracy are on the rise.

Yes.

This is exactly why.

Because these people, the Putins, the Erdogans, the Netanyahus, the Viktor Orbans, the Donald Trumps, they don't bother with niceties.

They don't.

What you see is what you get in this case.

That's it. They're narcissists. They shape society to reflect their own predilections and proclivities and fears and phobias, paranoia, and whatever, and you have to live there. You have to live there. That's your ecosystem.

So it's not an optimistic.

It's not a new phenomenon though, Sam. I think what you're describing with a layer of elites who are narcissistic by trait or personality and everybody else existing underneath, it's become more apparent now and it becomes more manageable with technology.

It's not about structure. Of course there's always been lobsters to borrow from Jordan Peterson.

Yes.

It's not about structure. Of course there's always been a hierarchy. It's not hierarchy. It's about values.

It's about values or more precisely the lack of values.

This is a new elite. Of course there's always an elite and the Hoypolloy or the proletariat or the pronds there's always this division of labor but the elite that is coming the elite that is forming as we speak would be dramatically different to any previously because it would be narcissistic and psychopathic.

And narcissists and definitely psychopaths lack so many elements of humanity, of being human, so many elements of humanness, being human, that there could be a good philosophical argument that they are not.

Not in the superstitious, idiotic sense that they are demons or, I mean, forgetthat's not my style, you may have noticed, but I mean, if you lack empathy, if you're unable to conceive of other people as external to you, if you regard them as internal objects that you can manipulate, if you have no access to emotions, tell me in which sense are you human? In which sense are you?

I've just taken away the three critical elements in defining who is human and who is not. You may be an Android, you may be a robot, you may be a great simulation of a human, but in which sense are you human?

I don't think they are.

Well, there's humanity and there's humility, and I don't see either of those in the characters you describe.

Narcissists and psychopaths lack the most basic prerequisites to qualify as members of the human species, psychologically speaking, organically, biologically, they're human.

But psychologically, they're not as we define a human.

Sam, what have you learnt from coming to terms with your own diagnosis and understanding how to manage your own traits?

No, I prefer to keep my private life off limits.

Okay. I'm here in my capacity as expert on this.

I was just interested to know whether that has informed some of your things.

I prefer to keep my private life off limits. Thank you.

Okay.

And so what advice do you have then for listeners coming to terms with the world as it unfolds, who don't particularly necessarily want to become or develop their narcissistic traits?

Expect nothing. Isolate yourself to the best of your ability, become totally self-sufficient. As far as you can, of course. There's always dependency. There's networks of dependency. Unfortunately, you cannot evade them or escape them.

But orient your life to become more and more self-sufficient. Make it a life goal to become more and more self-sufficient, for example, by becoming maybe self-employed, one example.

Expect nothing, you'll never be disappointed. Minimize vulnerabilities, exposure and sharing. These are dangerous, and becoming more dangerous by the day.

Leverage opportunities, situations and institutions in your favor, and try to the best of your ability to limit your empathy where you can make the most difference without incurring any costs which are excessive, which is not an easy proposition in today's world.

No.

There is no refuge. People deceive themselves and they say, well, this is the situation in North America or in the United Kingdom, in the West.

So if I move away from the West, they go to Asia or I go to Africa.

These people have never been to Asia and Africa. I have lived in this continent. No difference whatsoever.

How narcissism manifests, the way it is expressed, is different, but it's there, absolutely there. And it's on the ascendance, exactly like in the West.

It's a global phenomenon. There's no refuge, no sanctuary, and no escape.

So make your life into a lifeboat and a sanctuary and a refuge. And prepare for the worse. Because it's definitely coming.

And these are not the ramblings of a messianic nutcase. This is unfortunately, I think, a well-considered, quite cool-headed observation of things the way they're going.

So make your life into a life raft or a lifeboat and prepare for the worst.

Yeah. It's a Robinson Crusoe mentality, I would say. If you need a role model, then I think Robinson Crusoe would be it, because he didn't give up on being productive or being creative or he didn't give up on life. Robinson Crusoe embraced life.

Even more so after he found himself in the status of a castaway. He embraced life.

And yet, he was very vigilant. He was self-sufficient. He was not naive, not gullible. He did not develop any expectations. He didn't have any expectation. He was positively surprised when the ship was on the horizon. He didn't expect it.

I think it's a perfect model for today's world. We are all islands. We're all islands and there's an enormous perfect storm, which is already happening. A twister of incredible proportions.

Yes.

A period of transition, of course. A hundred years from now, we look back, and we see this is a period of transition, of course. 100 years from now, we look back. And we'll see this is a period of transition.

I'm not kidding myself that this is unprecedented in human history.

But regrettably, the people who are going to take charge are severely compromised, severely deficient.

There have always been dictators, bloodthirsty and blood-lusting people, and there's always been narcissists, there's always been, you know, there's nothing new in this.

But there's never been an elite that is essentially deprived of any ability to relate to other people. Any empathy, any access to emotions, in short, any common ground with others. There's no common denominator, no common language, no common ground, no possibility to efficaciously communicate with these people, with narcissists and psychopaths. The communication is on the surface.

Now, narcissism and psychopathy and the prescription for the young that I mentioned, it's about self-efficacy.

In other words, the ability to obtain favorable outcomes when you act in the environment and on the environment.

And it's about agency. And it's about the environment. And it's about agency. And it's about personal autonomy. And it's about independence.

They're all very laudable things, commendable things.

It so happens that these are also the only protections against narcissists and psychopaths.

Unfortunately, you can't exercise these faculties within society shortly. You won't be able to. Because there'll be no society.

Society is a very new concept, by the way. If you go back to the 12th century, there's no concept of society.

Society is very new, a new concept, new idea. Whose time has come? I mean, whose demise has come.

We're going to revert to much earlier period, a feudal period, in effect. We already see this in income inequality.

So we're going to go back. We are going back in time, we're time traveling, to a feudal period, new, neo-feudal period, which is totally atomized because people up until the 16th or 17th century, they didn't belong to countries. They belong to their village. They define themselves via their local patriotism. They belong to a village.

And so it's going to happen again. We're going to be totally atomized.

And we're going to go back to our tribes, our smaller groups.

Even smaller, yeah. I think locations, maybe a single building, maybe something like that, and even that is optimist.

I think the vast majority of people would end up in a room with being very close to suspicion in every way, shape or form, working from the room, living in the room, entertaining themselves in the room of the apartment if they're lucky because housing prices are what they are.

So, and I think that will be it. And I think that will be the new organization of human groups or collectives. I wouldn't say societies anymore because there will be not communal interactions. Community interactions will become more and more dangerous. The world is becoming dangerous.

I agree with you on much of that, Sam. I don't want to find that there's only a bleak outcome, but I think your advice to be Robinson Crusoe, but Robin Hood, dear, Robin Hood versus Robinson Crusoe, isn't it really?

Robin Hood was a bit of an outlaw, but yeah.

Oh, Sam, thank you very much. Have you got one final word that you would like to share?

I think the only thing we didn't cover, and by the way, it's not bleak. You keep saying bleak and dystopian and horrible. I can see on your face that you're a bit discombobulated.

It's bleak to you and me.

Yes. People in the future would not consider it as bleak at all. They would consider it as normal.

They would be joyful. They'll be happy.

Even today, 42% of adults in industrialized societies choose to remain lifelong single. The rate of marriage is down by 49%. Many, many women and men decide to remain childless. And they're extremely happy with their decisions. Many studies show that childless people are much happier than parents.

So it's not that the future looks bleak to you because it's unfamiliar.

But habituation and familiarity, they would breed joy, not content, but joy.

I don't think we should be that pessimistic. The new normal, that's all.

One thing I think we didn't cover is gender.

Yes.

And there is a war. There are two trends. There's a war between genders, and there is the emergence of a unigender.

And so this to add to your bleak outlook, already I think there's a disconnect between men and women.

And I'm now putting aside homosexuals and other sexual orientation, but heterosexual. Already there's a serious schism and braid between men and women.

It has numerous reasons. I will not go into them right now. I have a whole contemporary sexuality playlist on my YouTube channel.

But I think it's a threat much bigger, much larger than climate change.

Climate change is a huge, huge threat.

But we're going to adapt. We're going to move inland. We're going to find a way. We'll survive. We'll survive climate change because we have already. Humanity emerged during the Ice Age. And then the world became 20 degrees hotter.

Absolutely.

And we're happy. Look at us.

Your son then.

So I think we will survive climate change. I am not as sure that we will survive the estrangement between men and women. Not as convinced.

The break, the schism, the divide between men and women is really beginning to worry me considerably.

That is something I agree with you is bleak.

That is bleak. There's no redeeming feature in this.

None, not one.

And yet it's growing all the time.

If you follow Pew Center, they monitor the population of the United States. You follow their studies in the past 20 years. It's shocking. The numbers are shocking. What's happening is shocking.

If you talk to young people about dating, about sex, it's shocking. Even the frequency of sex, of course, is declined by 40% among young people, the number of sexual partners, but also the frequency of sex.

They're disengaging. They are divorcing each other. They're avoiding each other. They're terrified of each other. They're anxious when they are to be alone.

The population is going right down in most countries.

Population is going down.

And now there's this myth that the planet is overpopulated.

Of course it's not.

We are 300 million children short because we have pension systems. And these pension systems will collapse. They're not young people to support them with their work.

We need 300 million people, new people, to support only the pension system. And we need another around 200 million people to support consumption at its current level without growth.

So half a billion people are missing.

It's completely wrong to say that we are overpopulated.

We are overpopulated by old people. I mean there's like one quarter of a population in industrialist countries is old.

Yeah, we have a surplus of old people, but not of young people.

And here again, we come to the issue of gender. It's very difficult to procreate if you decide to remain a lifelong celibate or, and in Japan, lifelong celibates are the majority among people under age 35.

By the way, the same trend is happening in the United Kingdom.

That is bleak.

That is bleak.

Yes.

And sad in many ways when one understands the benefits of connecting and...

The charm.

Yes. the charm is good I mean the achievement is gone yes that I know that I come to this as a as a as a mother and a grandmother you know I see the benefits of procreating and creating children and family. I feel sad that others will not experience that joy.

It's not only children, but even intimacy. Even, you know, there's many other joys, except in togetherness and companionship and support and sharing a common history, memories, experiences. And it's so much to recommend this.

And yet, the men and women increasingly regard each other as enemies.

In all age groups, by the way, but especially prongs and all beyond.

And this I regard as a serious threat to the existence of the species, much more than climate change. Much more.

That's why I wanted to mention it.

That is bleak.

And that's the only bleak thing that we've discussed. Believe it or not.

Yes. It might be your least.

Good.

Okay.

Well, we'll forget Robin Hood. We'll finish on Robinson Crusoe and finding our own lifeboat, which I like the sense of, Sam.

Thank you so much for your time. It's been really, really interesting. And I'm sure there's a much wider conversation we could have given more time.

Thank you for having me in your podcast. Take care.

Thanks, Sam. I hope that recorded right at your end.

And try to put an end to it and not quite sure how long.

You can take out the bit about Robin Hood. And also you may take out the bit, I'll take it out where I ask you about your.