Modern Wisdom - #278 - Professor W Keith Campbell - The Psychology Of Narcissism

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

W Keith Campbell is Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia's Franklin College and an author. Expect to learn what The Dark Triad is, how narcissists and psychopaths are linked, what social media's influence has been on narcissism, why you might want to increase narcissistic tendencies and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% off all LipoLife & Jigsaw Health products at https://naturesfix.co.uk/modernwisdom/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy The New Science Of Narcissism - https://amzn.to/3opQaH1 Follow Keith on Twitter - https://twitter.com/wkeithcampbell  Check out Keith's Website - https://wkeithcampbell.com/ Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello wonderful people, welcome back. My guest today is Keith Campbell. He's a professor of psychology at the University of George's Franklin College and an author. He specializes in narcissism, which is a word that everyone throws around now in 21st century with smartphones and selfies and social media. What does it actually mean? What's the psychology of it? How do you study it? So today, expect to learn what the dark triad is. I'll have narcissists and psychopaths are linked. What social media's influence has been on the uptake of narcissism, why you might want to increase narcissistic tendencies and much more. We're going to a ton of other stuff. I've been talking a lot about the men's rights, red pill movement. We're getting to some of that today and some wider things to do with what it means to lead a meaningful life. Keith's a really, really interesting fellow. If you enjoy the episode and you want to buy his book, as always, it is linked in the show notes below. And if you use that link to go and buy

anything by any of the authors, you'll be supporting this podcast at no extra cost to yourself, just at an extra cost to Amazon, which is brilliant. But for now, it's time to learn about narcissism with Professor Keith Campbell. Talking about narcissism today, the it get thrown around quite a lot? What is the correct definition of it and how does it manifest? Well, you're right. The terms used a lot. The most basic sort of foundational definition is somebody who has a very positive view of him or herself, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration.

So that's that like in a nutshell, when you talk about narcissism, you usually talk about positive self-view. I think you're better than other people. You have some challenges with forming close, caring, empathetic relationships with people. And you need people around to kind of boost you up, to bolstery you, to admire you, to give you a positive attention, et cetera. So that's kind of the general term. When people are used in the street,

they're often using it in a bit of a pejorative way to describe an ex-boyfriend or an ex-boss or whatever. So people don't really use it technically right, but then when you get into the psychology and the science part, you can break it down farther into really three different definitions of narcissism. The one we're probably most familiar with is the personality trait.

And when I say trait, I mean that this is something we all vary on. There's a continuum. Some are more narcissistic. Some last most people around the middle. There's a continuum, some are more narcissistic, some less, most people around the middle. There's a trait called grandiose narcissism, which is this sort of sense of self-importance and a sense of entitlement, but with grandiose narcissism, what you see is some energy and maybe charisma, sometimes charm and drive and ambition.

So the more grandiose narcissists folks you meet are the ones that end up and you know in politics or in leadership because they have this drive and ambition and they're often very likable people when you first meet them and you don't see that the dark or more talk talks excited narcissism until later on. There's another form of narcissism which is less familiar to most of us, but it's when you see more with counselors and clinicians and, you know, in the mental health world, it's what we call vulnerable narcissism. So these are people that have the same sense of entitlement, but rather than be more ambitious

and energized, they're a little more nervous, have low self-esteem, a little more introverted, sometimes called covert narcissists or basement narcissists or in the closet narcissists because you have, and so you have a fantasy about being successful, but there's not really energy or drive to make that real. So, and so you can imagine if you think you're great and you're not out there engaging with the world, you have a tendency for depression and anxiety and loneliness because you're not getting what you need. So the more vulnerable folks end up in the clinical settings more. And then to make it even more confusing, there's a clinical or psychiatric disorder known as narcissistic personality disorder, NPD. And this is an extreme form of narcissism that's grandiose and a little vulnerable.

And what happens is your narcissism gets so extreme, it impairs you in life. It either destroys your relationships because you can't have loving relationships with people or it ruins your work because you take too many risks or you're a terrible boss so you can't listen to people or whatever. And then it becomes a disorder, but that's relatively rare. Where the confusion comes in, as people say, you're a narcissist and you're like, what do you mean?

You mean I'm kind of a cool dude who's got a lot of girlfriends? Or do you mean I'm kind of a loser at my mom's home on the internet trolling people trying to get attention? Or do you mean I have somebody with a clinical disorder who should see a psychiatrist and be treated? And so that's where a lot of confusion comes in is the different definitions that are associated with narcissism. It's interesting that you can have one trait, one sort of source code that is underwriting

the way that someone is created. And yet when that tree starts to grow up, it can lean to one of a number of different ways in creative right-year shapes. That is a very interesting way to put it. And I think part of it is that EGO, that's if you think about the source code of like EGO, I want attention, I'm better than people. If you pair that with somebody who's got some social skills

and whose parents said, you're awesome Keith, you're great, and you have some confidence, that person can become a successful sort of grandiose narcissist. But that same characteristics, but the person was maybe abused or traumatized. The parents, you know, I'm kidding. Incredible trauma. Parents that were more cold and dismissive,

who didn't have the social skills ends up on this more vulnerable path. So you could see that idea, how you could bend these different forms in different ways, but they're both very ego-based. I read Robert Plomans Blueprint last year talking about the influence of genetics on everything that we do with regards to behavior. And I think that your findings with narcissism match up with what he said, it's around about 50% is nature and 50% is nurture.

Yeah, that's, that, Flomin, it's funny, I remember studying him in graduate school. Have you read, Blue Point? Have you read his new one? I haven't, no. Oh, Keith, you would. It's really good. Oh, yeah. I mean, being honest, there is a couple of takeaways that you'll already have, and they are,

every trait has significant and sizable influence from our genetics. Like that's the big red pill, but as you go into stuff like, in adoption studies, weight is completely correlated between biological parents and not at all through the adopted parents, which is crazy, especially when we live in a world that's a meritocracy. But yeah, so talking about genetic influence on narcissism. Yeah, so you find that pattern with narcissism that you, and so generally you're getting

about 50% like you're saying about 50% is inherited. It might be narcissism in terms of trait seems to be a little bit on the higher side, but you know, they're all about 50%. When you look at that other piece, about 10 to 20% is parenting, maybe 10%. So the parenting piece is never as important as people think. You know, the people think parenting is really shaping you. Parenting matters a lot. Your parents have to feed you and love you and do all these things, but they can't really shape you that well to be one kind of person or another.

The other piece that's really hard to predict in this about 30% maybe is just what they call non-shared environments. It's just sort of the culture you grow up with, the friends you have, the weird random stuff that happens. And that seems to be what's going on with narcissism. So there is some genetics, but that's certainly not the whole story and the other pieces are a bit hard to find.

Why does it exist? Like the trait must have had an adaptive use. Why is it here? Yeah. Well, you can think about, that's a hard question to answer. So there are a few ways to think about it. One is you can go, well, what are the benefits of narcissism? Where does it really benefit you?

And when we think about evolutionary terms, we usually think about sort of resource gathering or mating. Those are kind of the big evolutionary questions. Narcissism is linked to short-term mating success, so people are narcissistic are good at finding mates. They're good at becoming leaders very quickly, so it has some maybe very short-term advantages. The challenge, and this is where it gets complicated with the evolutionary models, is if you're if you evolved in a small trot, you know, we're talking 50,000 years ago, you got your group of 50, 100 people and you're the narcissistic jerk who's who's

hucking up with everyone else's spouses, they're going to kill you. I mean, that's just what happened if you look at the hunter gather tribes, they'd they'd have some in your family take you on a walk and you just wouldn't come back. They'd be a hunting accident. 100 gather tribes, they'd have some in your family, take you on a walk and you just wouldn't come back. They'd be a hunting accident. There'd be, so these more psychopathic individuals were weeded out in those smaller cultures often. But you imagine when a culture gets bigger, you live in a big city, a big urban center.

There's no check on ego, there's no check on narcissism, it thrives better. But I think that narcissism is really beneficial in sort of new situations in the short term where you don't see the benefit of these long term established relationships. It just not as useful. Yeah, so in a society or a community where you are held to account over longer periods

of time the narcissistists going to lose, but in shorter interactions. That sounds a lot like the way that psychopaths work, that they can never stay in a town for too long because they screw over people and they realize who they are. Are all psychopaths narcissistic? And how does narcissism and psychopathy relate? Yeah, they're cousin traits in a way. What psychopathy and narcissism and psychopathy relate? Yeah, they're cousin traits in a way.

What psychopathy and narcissism share is this interpersonal, we call antagonism or interpersonal callousness. They're willingness to take advantage of people and put yourself first, looking out for number one. So that's something that's very common with psychopathy and narcissism. Really the difference is with narcissism,

you get more of that interest in attention or positive feedback from other people. So often narcissists aren't as dangerous because they still want to be loved. So, okay, whereas the psychopath, the psychopath is simply out to get whatever they want at any cost, whereas perhaps there's a little bit more somewhere in the background, there's an echo of a virtue or integrity, even if that's only outcome-based for the narcissist. Yeah, so the psychopaths, I think, of is more predatory. I mean, and again, these things

will, like if I gave a group of psychopathy measures and narcissism measures to people in a lab, they're going to correlate very, I mean, they're going to correlate strongly. They're cousin traits. And sometimes we talk about a dark triad of traits that includes psychopathy, narcissism, and this other one which is Machiavellianism, which is named after Machiavellia wrote the book, The Prince. It's a characteristic of people who are really manipulative. So they're not necessarily attention seeking, they're not necessarily,

they don't necessarily want to just steal stuff or get stuff, they're more manipulative, but they all share this core of antagonism or callousness or willingness to exploit other people for your own ends. I wanted to dig into the dark triad. Reason being, the first time that I got introduced to it, I was reading a menonism blog. So part of this red pill movement, the pro men, it's essentially a men's rights movement on this particular blog. And I found it fascinating. Some of the stuff that they put out was really interesting. And then there's an entire, that there's reams and reams dedicated to cultivating dark triad traits.

So they basically say that having those dark triad traits will allow you to be more resilient. A lot of these people in these realms are perhaps divorced, perhaps involuntarily celibate, someone who maybe doesn't succeed socially so well. First off, what is, can you dig into the dark tried and then secondly, can you imagine why someone in that situation would need it or even think about trying to develop it? That's really interesting and I'm kind of, it's kind of click and when you say it. So I haven't really thought this through, obviously.

But when we talk about these dark triad traits, these are traits that share a core of darkness. And darkness and psychology, what we call low agreeableness or callousness or maybe trait antagonism. Maybe easiest way is meanness. People are mean. So dark people are mean people. That's probably an easy way to say it. Say it. And they're different kinds of mean. The challenge with men in relationships sometimes is you hear men say, well, assholes always get the girls. Yeah. Okay. So all be an asshole. Now, if you study what an asshole is, an

asshole is somebody who is callous, low-integriableness, and has dark traits. Basically, an asshole is right at the center of the dark triad. That's kind of what an asshole means. It's somebody who's a jerk, who's antagonistic, and mean. Self-centered. So, people think that's what people want. That's not what people want. I mean, there's no research I've ever seen that says, you know what I really want is somebody's just an asshole. That's really what I want in my life. When you look at the narcissism research and dating,

people aren't, and I'll say women, but it goes both ways obviously, but women are dating narcissists because they're jerks. They're dating narcissists because they seem confident and charismatic and attractive and exciting to be with at first. The problem is over time, when you're dating somebody who's charismatic and exciting to be with, you go, okay, now's the point in the relationship where we're going to get to know each other and be more emotional and talk about having kids.

And the guys like, I don't really want to do that part in the relationship. Where'd you get that idea? I'm really kind of into me and having fun and it's cool to have you with me, but I didn't want to settle down. And then she goes, well, you're an asshole. Well, yeah, but I'm also kind of fun and charismatic. And you like that part of me. You like the part that makes me fun and cares me.

You don't like the asshole part. That's what you don't like about me. So, the people, so guys watch this and don't mind goodness, that woman's with an asshole. All be an asshole. No. You should be charismatic and engaging and have a sense of humor, take care of yourself and be have some confidence. Don't be an asshole. But that message gets really distorted. But this is a my area, Chris.

No, no, I think you've hit that now in the head. It's putting the cart before the horse. It's presuming that the emergent property of the narcissism, which is effective, needs to actually, in fact, it's baby and bathwater. It's's I need to be a narcissist in order to have the charisma. So there's a few things that you said at the beginning of that little passage. There's a quote from the Red Pill movement, Alpha Fox and Beta Cooks. So it's that the alpha male will get it and she'll make rules for the beta that she breaks for the alpha. And all of this is built around this sort of cult of alpha male-ness, right? And a lot of this, you would be fascinated by some of the Red Pill

movement and meninism blogs that are out there. Our slash men's rights on Reddit has a lot of this stuff on there. And yeah, it's interesting, especially upon reading your work how the narcissism side of it has been utilized by people. It's been glorified by people as a tool that should be used, that should be cultivated, because it's going to cause, especially a lot of these people, I think, have been hurt by women, perhaps in the past, or never had success with women, which has also caused them to be hurt. So by increasing that narcissism, they're increasing the distance between them emotionally,

between them and the other people. And that's where this blend, you said before, of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. So it's outwardly being grandiose because of inward vulnerability. I'm trying to protect myself from being hurt by seeming like I don't give a shit and never fully investing in people. That's interesting. So it makes me think of four things, and I'll probably forget the second. But first, when we talk about callousness, you know, you think about a callous, a callous works both ways, which I never think about because I think about callousness is I treat people callously, but also it means I can't feel as much.

And what you're saying is these people are wounded and so they develop a callous, like I'm not going to let myself be wounded. Now the reason we call vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism, both narcissism, is back in the psychodynamic days, the ferny days, you know, you go back 50-100 years, people thought that what was on the outset of you was almost the opposite of the inside, just they thought that's the way the mind worked. So that, gee, if you seem really confident underneath, you're probably weak. It doesn't really work like that in general life.

There are people who are confident, there are people who are weak, and there are some people who are both. But most confident people are just kind of confident. But what you're describing is a very Freudian process almost where people are, they feel weak, they feel they can't succeed with women, they see other people are, and they go, you know what, I'm going to be, I'm going to toughen up and grow a shell and then enact and sort of aggressive and confident way maybe. And that will convince women to like me. And I can't get hurt because I've got this big shell around me.

Yeah. It's that mimetic quality that we have, right? We're trying to reflect what we see with people. Yeah. I'll send you some, I'll send you some article links once we're done. I think you'd be really interested in looking at it very so my my chat with a lot of these when i think about so the other thing is alpha males now i i don't get the alpha male thing so much i remember i was in africa and i looked at it i was looking at this group of gazelles. And I was with this guy and he goes, well, here's the alpha. What does the alpha do? Well, the alpha spends a year guarding every woman in his hair from guys until he gets exhausted and dies in a year or two.

Because it's being an alpha male, it kills you. I mean, that alpha males in nature, they just kind of die out. And the fact is humans were much more balanced than that. We don't really work with these really strong alpha hierarchies, like a lot of other creatures do. And so the idea of wanting to be an alpha male, I'm like, dude, that's a lot. It's a cult of personality now. That term on the internet is thrown around by a very large minority of men

in a particular type of thought pool as the pinnacle of what you're supposed to become as a man. And I think another part of it in terms of the alpha male thing is just being confused about the metrics of success, because the interesting thing with narcissism, as far as I see it, and specifically with being an alpha male, is that outwardly you have all of the trappings of success, and because I'm never going to get to see your internal scorecard, it almost doesn't matter.

So this ruse, I think, is promulgated in a number of ways, one by people that are narcissistic and alpha males having that outward success. Secondly, by them never seeming like they suffer with criticism, so they almost seem invulnerable to it, and then thirdly, that they will begin to believe their own bullshit after a while. But the bottom line, we don't know what Conor McGregor or Elon Musk or some alpha male red pill pick-up artistry guy What the thoughts inside of his head are like when they go to sleep on a nighttime when you put your head on the pillow No one gets to see that but we we observe the objective metrics of success the Instagram followers the wealth the girls

Yeah, in psychology we have we call it sort of Yeah, in psychology we have we call it sort of extrinsic or external values or motives or goals and intrinsic values and goals and extrinsic ones with narcissism the easiest way to remember this is sex status and stuff you want sex You want to have high social status and you want material goods that show people like I saw them a greater guy with his million dollar watch And it kind of look cheesy, man, I'm a watch guy. I didn't even like the million dollar watch, but I's got a million dollar watch. Looks cooler than I am. But that's that. But but but when you regulate,

extrinsically, it, it, look, I'm not telling anyone not to go for it in life. Please go for it. Please be as much as you can I've tried you know But know that when you start competing to be the best at sex status and stuff one You're always competing you're never gonna win because as soon as you get to the top Someone you're gonna be knocked off and someone else will be so that's just the nature of it You've been an entertainment. Yeah, I've been in you know, you just this the nature of you can You've been an entertainment. You know, you just, this is the nature of you can't be on the top forever unless you're a country music star in the 50s in America. And you're going to

get knocked off and you're going to die alone. And that's the worst part you can't have love. And so what happens is you see guys that get, you know, their my age and they're kind of like, where's the love? I don't mean love in my life. Yeah, yeah, because you're an arrogant dick and you've got all this great stuff and you've got $1 million watch, but you don't have any love. And you can't buy that, you can't buy a happy family, you can pretend you have one, you can't pay. So there's this, you get this really foundational loss in terms of emotional connection. And that's the cost.

You know what else it is as well, thinking further into this, a lot of the people who are proselytizing about the virtues of being an alpha male, a guy's in their forties are in their fifties are in their late fifties, who are almost acting like these savant sages of masculinity, who are talking about how it should be done, but they're playing a game that someone 20 years there junior should be playing and by the time you get to 50 you can't get in the mix with 21 year olds in a night club anymore you need a family around you you need people that it doesn't scale that's a perfect way to look at itism doesn't scale across a lifetime. And all of the things that you do should compound as appreciating assets, not depreciating ones. The equivalent for guys choosing girls is choose a girl that is beautiful. It doesn't matter how hot she is.

Hotness wanes with age, beauty increases with age. I like that way of framing it. And what you see with these sort of the more dominant narcissists, folks, is they'll start one family and then they'll wait 10 years and when they're 50, they'll just redo it. And then they'll wait 10 years and do it again. And so like my dissertation was on trophy spouses.

So it's kind of interested in how you get... Do you know what my Instagram Instagram bio is. No aspiring trophy husband. Not a bad plan, you know, it works. But, but the idea is that you kind of replicate this pattern over and over, but you know, by your time you're 60 and you got a one year old with a new wife, it just looked, I'm like, oh my God, that just sounds exhausting. I mean, so I, I just, like I said, I love success. I love masculinity. I'm saying go for it.

Do what you're going to do. But this alpha thing is just, I think it's a bit misguided. I agree. What does narcissism have to do with mass shootings? You looked at Elliot Roger as an example. Can you talk about how narcissism manifested through him? Yeah, so I'll step it back a second to Columbine if that's okay because that's really where we started with this in the Narcissism world. So if so when I was doing research this is back in the 90s and I was doing a post stock with a friend named Gene Twangie we're in our basement lab and there's the shooting at Columbine which in the US was a big deal. This is these two boys went and shot up a

school in Colorado And then afterwards, they said, you know, I can't spillbergs going to make a movie about me or Tarotino and I can make anybody think anything I want. And we read this stuff and we're like, oh my god, these guys are using words straight off the narcissistic personality inventory. That's weird. So we started like wire people doing these shootings, what's the point. So we started like wire people doing these shootings, which the point. So we started looking at it and what you see and this is part of the story in these shootings is you find people who are threatened. You get ego threat they call it or self-esteem threat or generally feel that they're not up to, they're not alpha males. Like in the case of Elliot Rogers,

you know, this is a case in Santa Barbara with a guy who asked a woman on a date. She rejected him. He's like, no one, you know, everyone's rejecting me. I'm going to show him who the real alpha male is, and then he went and killed some of his friends. So what happens is you see these young guys, it's often got usually guys, they get ego threats. And then to establish dominance, what they do is go commit a mass shooting

There may be right a manifesto with it So I've read a lot of these are very dark, but often the manifesto is about how I should be in charge the world that should work for me Anyway, you see this pattern and a lot of those shootings in the case of Elliot Rogers I thought it was very interesting as well because he was a kid who had a lot of map money and power his parents were very successful He's a good-looking dude I think he had a BMW. He should have been able to date. He should have been able to function in the world he couldn't and his His way of dealing with that was to literally resort to mass shooting.

He worked it out in his head that the best way for him to reestablish dominance in a world that didn't accept him was to go kill people. So that's where you get that, where you get that narcissism school shootings, as the shootings themselves are way to reestablish dominance and often if there's a manifesto, it's something that's a way of becoming a great figure. I mean, it's like a lot of serial killers. They're high-status, successful people. I hate to say it's successful, but they're famous because you can use murder to get successful. I wonder whether the alpha male cult that we've got at the moment is using sex, weaponizing

sex in the same way. Well, I haven't won the world in the way that I think it should be one. Perhaps they don't have the compulsion to go shoot up a school, but they have the compulsion to use and abuse the opposite sex or the same sex depending on. I'm going to guess there must be narcissistic alpha males in the gay world as well. I'd be really interested to any of the gay guys that are listening. I'd be really fascinated to know if there's more there.

You mentioned something just during that passage, does narcissism skew male? Yes, yeah, does grandiose narcissism skew male, vulnerable narcissisms about 50-50, and the personality disorder is about three-quarters male. Wow. That really is a male-dominated trait. Yeah, it's the, but some of this is, you know, you think about clinical diagnosis and

they tend to gender some diagnoses. So you'll have the two people come in and a man will say, well, you're narcissistic and a little vulnerable and a woman will say, well, you're borderline and a little self-centered. So sometimes they will place people a little bit. I mean, there could be some gender, but generally narcissism is more masculine trait. How do you measure it? Well, if you're measuring it in a personality form, like if you want to take your own narcissism or if I were doing a study

there's a bunch of scales the the most common one is called the narcissistic personality inventory you could google it and it's not you know it's 40 questions the most common form there's there's other vulnerable narcissism scales like the hypersensitive narcissism scale this bunch of them for clinical so when you do normal personality testing, it's called low stakes, meaning people will tell the truth, because what do they care? They're just taking an anonymous survey. If you're doing clinical work, it's harder, or if you're working in a, in a, in a, in a, in a prison system, a forensic system, it's harder, because people don't want to tell you the truth. So if you're going to a clinical

setting and you're getting diagnosed, they might do a structured interview. Well, they'll sit down and ask you questions and kind of go through it that way to do a more formal diagnosis. What's the narcissism recipe? So when I think about personality traits, this is a bigger answer, but there's personality traits are captured in language as adjectives. So whenever you use adjectives to describe somebody you're often talking about personality, they're quick-witted and hot-tempered and a little zany. So there's all kind of personality traits. And when you when personality psychologists over the last decade, starting with, you know, Galton and your country, I'm

starting trying to chunk these traits up. They said, well, let's start, move, saying together, well, somebody who's creative and curious and zany, those are probably similar. Somebody who's nice and kind and caring, those are similar, so I chunking them up. When you do that, you end up with five traits. They call the big five. And so those big five traits, which are, I'm gonna just tell you, an openness to experience, conscientiousness,

which is dutifulness, extroversion, or energy, agreeableness, or niceness, and neuroticism or instability. So they spell ocean, if you ever wanna remember extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, extremism, same ingredients, you just kind of organize them differently. It's the same with personality. You take these basic ingredients and you organize them. So for narcissism, what you get is a big dollop of antagonism, kind of mean and self-centered. And then you add that extroversion piece to it. So you take, you know, lower greableness and extroversion, that's a recipe for grandiose narcissism. Take that same lower

greasiness or meanness or callousness, add neuroticism, anxiety, depression, and you end up with vulnerable narcissism. Does that make sense? So that's the idea that you can use these basic traits to make more complicated traits we talk about. A trait like psychopathy is really primarily just antagonism. It's really in the big five, it's just a big piece of that antagonism that's sort of carved up in a certain way. So what this allows us to do is personality psychologists is whatever the trait is, we can take that trait, put it into big five terms, and then translate

in into whatever trait we want. It's a bit of a rosetta stone for our traits. I mean, this is getting a little nerdy, but that's kind of how we do it. I get it. What's the goals and motives for an assist? Well, you know, it's really, it really comes down in terms of the broader goals to sex, status, and stuff. That's where a lot of it can be framed into getting leadership positions, getting power, getting money, getting access to sexual partners. Even for the vulnerable ones?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just they're just scared to do it. The motivational structure is the same, but they don't have the right, so in the old psychoanalytic literature, they'd say, you know, to be really narcissistic, you have to be really talented or really attractive. Because if you're really attractive or really talented, people will let you get away with it. So people who are vulnerable have the goals, they want to be successful, but it's scary for them. So let me give you a specific example, selfies. for them. So let me give you a specific example, selfies. So selfies, you know, we started studying selfies when this, you know, five, 10 years ago, and this, I guess it's been about, yeah, it's almost 10 years since people started taking selfies, been a while. And what we found

with selfies are people who grandiose narcissists, they take selfies very easily because they like themselves, they're happy to show their abs, their more selfies very easily because they like themselves. They're happy to show their abs. They're more full body and they're more alone. They don't have any problem sharing selfies. It's just kind of what they do. People who are vulnerable want to take selfies too, but when they do it, they don't really like what they see.

They get anxious. It's not as much fun for them. So it's very challenging. So if you talk to influencers who have more vulnerability, and maybe you do, I haven't talked to that many influencers. But when you talk to people, it's very painful. They're like, I had to put this picture out of myself on Instagram. I wasn't sure if I was hot enough.

I want to be hot. It's a real struggle for me. So that's the problem with the vulnerability is like you want to be out there, but you've got all this concern in neuroticism that's kind of keeping you back. Yeah. Let's talk about social media. I've got some thoughts in my mind about that. I really want to dig into, but I want to kind of close the loop to the social media world

at the moment. Have you guys been tracking narcissism through the advent of social media? Has there been a statistically significant increase? Can we say that social media is feeding narcissism? Or is it just enabling narcissism? So, it's a little bit more complicated than that, I think, historically, because when we first started looking at this, and Jean Twain and I wrote a book called The Narcissism Epidemic, like a decade decade ago into the Great Recession,

so it's by 12th. And at that point, we saw narcissism really spiking up with college students and social media. And I really thought that there was this dynamic feedback loop going on where the social media was really encouraging narcissism. And maybe it was. But then what we started noticing,

is we started seeing these very negative sort of side effects of social media, especially in girls, where they'd report a lot of social comparison processes. So like, I am online and I look at my friend and she's so happy and looks so attractive. And I'm not so I feel bad or fear of missing out like FOMO. So people get on social media like, God, these people are so happy and I'm not at the party. And so it's almost like social media started making people depressed in a way. And we saw a change of people go from Instagram

to fence to fake Instagram, to Snapchat, to TikTok. So they're kind of moving away from the social pressure. At the same time, when you look at the research on narcissism at social media, it seems to be self-reinforcing, which is kind of what you hinted at, that people in narcissistic use it and it reinforces their narcissism.

So I put out my insta-posed, everybody likes me. I go, God, I'm pretty hot. I'm gonna do it again. That's reinforcing, but it's not turning you into a narcissist, it's sort of reinforcing what's there. So my guess is there's a lot going on here. It's individually reinforcing, but at the cultural level, it's having these side effects

that aren't necessarily predicted or aren't always feeding in the direction of narcissism. Jonathan Heitz work on that in the coduddling of the American Mind was so scary. There's for the people that haven't seen it, there's essentially a graph that talks about, is it anxiety, disorder and depressive sort of episodes amongst teenage girls? That precisely the ones that you want to give sympathy to. You know, like a 13-year-old girl that feels anxious and depressed, it's just, you know, you just want to make them feel better. Yeah. And it's the advent of Instagram

2012, I think, and you just see it's like a line in the graph. Like Tesla's stock price last year. There's just a line. It's gonna pop right. Yeah, exactly. And it just lifts off. One of the interesting takeaways from that was to do with the fact that girls use words and more social back stabbing techniques in order to deal with disputes. And the hypothesis that Jonathan suggested for why that wasn't happening with guys is that guys will just throw hands and then pick themselves up off the floor and sort of

then you best friends with the guy that you just had a fight with five minutes later, but because girls don't necessarily have that physical outlet, naturally, that has caused the increase in depression and anxiety. I think there's that, sometimes people talk about like cyber bullying or whatever, that you can get those indirect negative effects. And the other thing to add to what you're saying

that makes it even worse is in the old days, if everyone hated you, you could move to the next town and change your name and start school again and no one would know who you were. But now, you know, your social identity follows you. So these kids, it's very hard to escape some of the bullying and stuff if it gets bad. So it can be dark, yeah.

Think about it. Let's think about the three S's, the sex status and stuff, which I love to remember what narcissism, what narcissism, therefore social media has permitted everybody to ubiquitously communicate their sex, their status, and their stuff. Here's a photo of me with my girlfriend wearing my brand new watch and I've got an extra hundred followers than I did yesterday Which is 10,000 more than you've got Yes, yeah, I I've described it this way and I don't know if it makes sense But I'll try it with you is bit coin and those kind of crypto networks work on mining

So you have people that are actually you know using computer power to self algorithms and that would keep the network going. With something like Instagram, what you need are influencers. Those are people who are out there getting, you know, who are attractive people who are getting attention. Mining attention. Yeah. Mining, you need attention minors. And they're the ones keeping the network going. If it weren't for people out there seeking attention, the networks would drop. But Facebook, rather than paying those people directly in Bitcoin, like, you know, cryptos do, they do it indirectly, they pay you in dopamine.

Right. They pay you in dopamine, sort of like being paid in cocaine, you know, when it stops, it's really bad. Yeah. And so that's, so that's how I look at these systems that narcissism is kind of integral to the function. It's not the whole thing because rage is really an important thing.

But if you look at what's shared, it's rage, humor, ego. And that's how these networks are built. So they need, I mean, you need influencers for the network to work and they're the miners of the network. So they're kind of like ego networks in a way. Did that make sense?

Absolutely. A little bit. Yeah, yeah, I like that. So what I wanted to try and talk about is the relationship between talent and narcissism. So what I find particularly interesting is that narcissism with talent comes across as justified charisma. Konna McGregor's a good example of this, right?

For all that he lost a couple of fights recently, one against the greatest boxer of all time, and one against arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all time, he's a guy that is just brimming with extroversion and charisma. Is there some nasty, I don't know whether many people would call him narcissistic. However, let's do a thought experiment, and in another world, Conor McGregor

has all of the same extroversion and charisma that he has, but has lost every single fight that he's ever had. His charisma and extroversion haven't changed at all. The things he's saying are the same. It's the justification based on talent which has and yet far more people would accuse that version of him of being a narcissist. What's going on? Right. Because I think if you're successful enough people think you deserve it So column a Gregor is a great fighter so it can be an arrogant jerk

I'm not saying that's true, but that's you know that would make sense like yeah, you know You're a king you can be an arrogant jerk You you just you got the status to do it But if you don't have the status then you're just a poser you're worse than me and you're acting like you're Conor McGregor. I mean, you're not him. You're worse than I am. I hate you. So there is that piece of status, but the other thing that I think is important is that you can be really successful in athletics and you don't have to be an arrogant jerk. And in fact, people will like you even more if you're not an arrogant jerk. And in fact, people will like you even more if you're not an arrogant jerk. And your career is going to be better in the long term because you're going to build relationships

on the way. And then when you, you know, when he transitions from being a fighter into something else, if he had relationships, I mean, he's got two kids now. Yeah, he's got family. My reads two kids. I've got two kids now. Yeah, he's got family married to two kids. Yeah, I should say, I don't know the guy, but I mean, it's just, if you're that arrogant, it's hard, it's going to be harder to transition when you're no longer the celebrity. And celebrity is very short. So there must be a way to weaponize or to utilize and have charisma, extroversion, self-belief, outwardly focused,

without it being narcissism. Where does that line lie? Yeah, I think it's really the interpersonal piece. So you can be confident and extroverted, but you walk into the gym, and instead of saying like, I can do better, do you, you go to the weak guy, and you go, hey, let me help you out.

Like, dude, McGregor helped me out at the gym. Yeah, he's a good guy. He kind of took the time to help me out. And also, everyone's talking about what a legend you are. So you can be nice. You don't have to be, you know, you're the best, like everyone knows. You don't have to prove yourself. So I think that, I mean, I've been at the University of Georgia, which is, I mean, you

would know in England But we have a lot of world-class athletes just nature of a college big football program I just I'm not an athlete guy. I'm not into it But I know a lot of great athletes a lot of really nice people that are athletes that are world famous the good people You can be competitive on the court and not off the court You know what I mean? So you can turn it on and off, but the challenge is that people can't do it anyway. There's a spectrum.

There's a paradigm that I learned about last year from Kyle Eschenroder wrote this wonderful blog piece and he talks about four things people think they want to want in life and he talks about how that's something that you don't actually want. And one of them he talks about to do with fame and he says most people want to be someone what you should strive to do is to do something. You don't want to be someone you want to do something. And it seems like a lot of upon reading your book a lot of the pain which is felt by narcissists is to do with unlived potential, a gap between what they feel like the world should be giving them and what they're

getting. But obviously part of that is down to, what are you giving the world a reason to give you? Like your actual output should be reflected back with the adoration and all of the rest of it. But what we see, you know, coming from a reality TV background, which I've been in, that is the epitome of instantly becoming someone without having done anything. So people are given this inflated sense of self. And I think you talk about it, it's ego inflation. They're given this inflated sense of self.

But I think that it's incredibly hollow. I've seen behind the curtain with this stuff, I get to look at the inner world and the outer world of what a lot of these people talk about. And there is a big imposter syndrome that goes around because they know it was given to them so easily, this fame, the millions of followers, it was given to them essentially, and this is the big lie about reality TV, like they don't deserve it. No one deserves it. Like Elon Musk deserves it. Konomeger deserves it. You know, they deserve tens of millions of followers because they've done something. They've become someone. Their fame is a byproduct of their success, not the reason for it, carpifull horse again.

This is so interesting. So, when we, you know, this is going back in time and I forget how old I'm getting, but I first noticed this with Paris Hilton. Well, I'm like, my goodness, she's one of the first people I've seen since some of these 70s people who's famous for being famous. Just a celebrity, just like a queen used to be. And then the Kardashians. And then reality television.

And there was research done by Dr. Drew Penske, who's an American like CNN psychologist guy and a guy Mark Young who's a professor at Southern Cal where they gave the narcissistic personality inventory to 150 or so celebrities on the show. Great study. And what I loved about it is at the end they sort of said, well, here are the scores and celebrities are, you know, relatively high, but the highest scores were reality television. And what's interesting at the time was like, well, these are people who are famous, but they're famous for not doing anything. They're just famous for being famous.

And so then the question is, who's lining up for this? Like, what's the, what are you lining up for? I mean, what are you, what are people lining up for with the LA television? Is it the fame or is that fame a launch pad for? Sadly, something else? I wondered about this.

When I went into Love Island, which was a second reality TV show I did, there was only two people out of the entire cast when I went on who weren't either unemployed or self-employed. They didn't want reality TV to be a springboard for their career. They wanted it to be their career. This is my opportunity to be special.

I've always felt like as everybody I think in the heart of hearts feels like they're unique, right? Because we only get to see our own motivations. We view the nuance of our phenomenological experience from a front row seat, and I only get to see the outward things that you say. And I'm like, well, look at how deep and meaningful and the unique thoughts I have because I can't see your deep and meaningful

and unique thoughts. And I think what it's given people is, look, this is your opportunity to be someone, to be unique, to be adored. Finally, everyone is going to see that that very particular combination of thoughts and personalities and traits and everything else that you have, finally, you're going to be able to get your pedestal from which you can shout about it. But it's

easy come easy go, you know? And that is personally where I think, if I was a young person now looking up to role models to want to become like, you need to look at people who are scaling over time, who are leveraging and compounding over time. So you need to be looking toward people like, the richest guy on the planet is also going out with grimes, right? The richest guy on the planet, he's been on Joe Rogan, he's smoking weed, he's living a good life, but he actually adds value. That's the guy that is compounding. The people that are easy, come easy, go a hollow. The sad point is there was no equivalent in the past because we didn't have

such frictionalist communication that meant that you couldn't weaponize fame in the same sort of speed that we can now. Oh, right. It is, I mean, that's, first of all, that's kind of terrifying to me that you're saying that people want fame. But, I mean, I, I mean, I, I, I'll tell you a story. So in my life, I do work and every once in a while, I get famous, but it's for like a week. So it'll be like the biggest, I mean,

this is going back like the biggest story in the world for like three days and I'll get a bunch of hate mail and then biggest, I mean, this is going back like the biggest story in the world for like three days And I'll get a bunch of hate mail and then like I get forgotten So so I've got through the fame cycle a bunch of micro fame not real fame. No one knows who I am But I had one of my grad students do it We had a paper come out on narcissism and it was narcissism in Facebook This is way back in the day We did the first study on that and people were very interested.

I said, go be famous. And the first day, she's like, this is awesome. This is so much fun. I'm talking to everybody. And then a day later, she's like, this is awful. One day, she's like, I've got all this hate mail. Everybody hates me. And I'm like, exactly.

One day, you got to ride the fame cycle for one day and realize you don't want to be on it But how do people know you know? How would you know what fame is like and tell you got to do it and and what they tell kids is you know My kids are watching I mean my kids are watching like Australian model shows They're probably watching love island Australia because the American shows are so boring now. They have to watch Australian ones. You know, the number one aspiring job that primary school children want now is a YouTuber? I mean, I mean, I love the entrepreneurship of that,

but it's just not a long term. Like you said, I end very much in investment terms. It's like you could leverage it all on Bitcoin, it might work, or you could just slowly invest in sort of dollar cost average. I thought it was Randalls and kind of way to your 40, 50, you can have some wealth, but it's gonna take about 20, 30 years. That's just the nature of it.

Yeah, it's interesting, man. There's a lot of different rabbit holes here. Let's talk about other people, perhaps try and give some takeaway some actionable takeaways How can we help someone who's a narcissist to change like is that even ethical to to reduce someone's narcissism? well, I mean I don't go around trying to change anybody for anything That's just my my general in life is everyone leaves their own life, and I'm not going to tell anyone what to do.

So ethically, that's how I frame it. But if people want to change, and often, you know, when we first started studying narcissism, when I first started doing this, I thought people in narcissistic, they're kind of into it, and they don't want to change, because it's working for them. And I thought that for a long time, but with the recent research what we're seeing is that people in narcissistic often see that their interpersonal antagonism is costing them in life. Basically, they go, my relationships aren't as good as some other people's because I'm kind of an arrogant jerk. And I'd love to be able to have more connection, have more love,

especially when you get older. You know, imagine being 50 and single and hitting the bar. I mean, it just, it just sounds, I'm sorry, I was at a bar like two weeks ago and I'm like, my god, I spent my whole life trying to get out of this place. I'm not coming back. back. But so there's this realization. So what do you do? What do you do? Well therapy seems to work for narcissism. I didn't think that at first it seems to work, but the challenge is that people have to stick with it. And what you see with people in narcissistic going to therapy and I go, this isn't working for me. This person doesn't get how unique and special I am. So one thing is to, you know, therapy is a great idea, but the other thing is, and that's what I talk about

in the book, is figure out what the problem is. If your problem is love, focus on love. You can still be exciting and charismatic and a killer and an adventurer and try to win and competitive and love. You know, they're not these things aren't at war with each other. So my advice is usually don't, you know, don't have to worry about your arrogance, just focus on being connected to people.

And if you get that connection, your arrogance will take care of itself. Is it time why you would ever prescribe someone to have more narcissism? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I should, I said that too quickly, didn't I? But I just love free narcissism for everyone. Yes. Well, so like in my job is an academic, the way it works is you're a student and then to go get hired, you have to go around to these different universities and do job talks. So they'll fly you in to the University of let's say Southampton in England where my advisor is I'd spend two days meeting everybody on campus meet the dean meet the faculty meet the students and I do a talk or two. The people who are successful at that are confident and charismatic

and extroverted. They're sort of narcissistic. So you need to have that ability to carry yourself in a confident way to succeed. It's crazy. It's not the way we should select academics. We should select them on what they do, not how they perform in public. But we select them that way. So cases like that, where you need public performance,

where you need to meet people, where you're competitive, unlike you've got to have some confidence, you've got to have some ego, you've got to go into it. And so, narcissism is not bad, it is a trade-off, and it's really useful in some situations. The problem is when you start thinking you're like you start owning it, like I'm better than everybody, I really am better. I'm really famous. I'm really more special than these other real, like we're not, we're not that great. I mean, they might remember Elon Musk, not remembering me.

Richest, richest guy on the planet, yeah. Right. It's interesting how, especially in this world, and you know, this is going out on YouTube, thousands of people are going to be watching this on YouTube, plus even more on audio, listening on audio. And one thing that I've realized over the last couple of years, especially as video has become frictionless for communicating with people, and especially the audio platforms have kicked

off. Precision of speech and confidence in your own words is used as a proxy for truthfulness and capacity. So the more able that you are to articulate the things that you're saying, the more truthful people presume the things that you're saying are. And that, it's not quite narcissism, but I think it's the same sort of model or shape in that there is this outward display and someone is making an inference that goes deeper from that.

Yes. And I mean, that's not unusual. This is what you see with a lot of, you know, added, in the old attitudes research, as we trust people who are attractive and seem like they're Component even if it's another area and also people's arguments look competent. So there's you can dress up things now and Make them appear to be To be like you said substantial, but they don't are necessarily substantial But people aren't reading philosophy deeply anymore. Like, when I was a kid, I mean, I shouldn't, I sound like an old guy, am I an old guy? But like, I remember reading Plato's Republic because I was like on vacation, I'm like,

what else am I going to do? You know, it's got Plato in two days. I don't get the sense people are doing all that deep philosophical reading because there's too much other things to do. I'm not doing it because I'd rather turn on a YouTube show and check my email in the morning and drink coffee. So our whole way of conversing has gone from sort of books to these to YouTube. I love YouTube podcasting and YouTube and I think it's a great way to have discussions and I really let's what I'm doing. I love the format, but

Yeah, it's very hard for people to know the truth Because you're just looking at what's on the surface and people aren't reading the science and they're not reading the philosophy And I'm like, please do that you can go to Google scholar and find everything. Yeah, everything's out there now read I wonder what is gonna happen long term with this. It really does feel like the structure of narcissism. This, have you heard of the term fronting? Do you know what fronting is? What people like a posers kind of is that? Kind of.

It's basically narcissism. It would be narcissism that was unjustified. So it would be all show no grow basically. Okay. Okay. And it does really feel like, I don't know whether it's peaked. I think the pandemic's definitely put a dampener on it. You know, there's only so much that you can flex when you're locked down in your house. I've got to wear a mask when you're outside.

But it definitely felt for a long time throughout the back end of sort of the 2010s that this was really picking up speed, that it was more about the transactional transient nature of how flash and how quick it would you could be. Even when you think about public intellectuals now, so let's think about Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro too, sort of popular public intellectuals. Yeah. Both of those guys, then highest levels of popularity are reached when they dunk on someone on TV because of them being quick-witted and Ben Shapiro is saying, well, why aren't you 60? Or Jordan Peterson, like, ha, goturing. Like those guys have done Shapiro slightly less because he's not an academic, but he's

a lawyer, he's got a doctor of law. and John Peterson has been lecturing in psychology for years, he's a clinical psychiatrist, right? You didn't get famous for doing that. He got famous for like the flashy charismatic, got you moment. And because of that race to the bottom, I wonder, I wonder what is going to happen long term. I'm so fascinated for the next decade. I think technology is going to be interesting to see what direction. That goes in automation, loss of meaning, this anomy, normlessness, loss of traditions. Let's bundle all of this together, right? Increasing the secular society, people getting married later, fewer people having children,

fewer people getting married, women having careers right through and not having children. Like, man, this next 10 years is going to be, I think it's going to be like nothing else. I follow all those the data and marriage and childlessness and I see a huge amount of atomization. Like just people isolated and living alone and trying to find meaning on their own. And we've been writing about this a long time, but this sort of this rampant individualism, but we got rid of religion, so there's no more religion. And so what happens is you have this space, so what comes in? Well, there's been this huge interest in spirituality that's come in huge. I mean, it's just like the psychedelic work. And that is, that is enormous now because they got rid of religion.

You know, so people are jumping on all sorts of stuff to fill it up. And the other thing I, I guess is where I wonder where the hell are people going to find meaning? Like if you have a world that's all just networks and atoms, where do you find meaning? If you get rid of religion, you get rid of tradition, and you don't have kids. When you have kids, you have to redo everything. So when you have kids, you're like, I got to take my kids to church. I'm been at church in 20 years, but I'm going to go back. Oh man, I got to go to the local school. And then you're walking your kid down the street and you're talking, you know, so having kids re-socialize this

people, they're engaged in society. But if you street and you're talking, you know, so having kids re-socializes people to engage in society, but if you have a half or a third, you know, a third or half or more of the people not even chill, children, they never engage. It's just, they're just gone. I don't know. I mean, it's, it, and I thought two other things just to, um, um, the other thing that I think is an issue is we're all on social media and we feel like we're talking to each other on social media like I'm having a discussion with you. But really what we're doing is we're making networks in a giant super brain, a giant super association network, like Twitter's a giant super association network. Association networks are like dumb brains. They're like the dumb stereotype in part of your brain.

You have that makes quick decisions and stereotypes and heuristics, but it doesn't think clearly. And we've created like a massive dumb brain. And we think we're engaging with people, but we're not. And that's how I take it. Like I think I'm with Twitter at having a conversation, but I'm really just a network and a giant meta node. And I'm creating something bigger than me.

Where's this feels like an actual discussion? What was the second thing? Is it, Pardon? What was the second thing? He said he had two things. I probably just totally lost it. I'm sorry. That's absolutely fine.

Yeah, I'm just really, like I just feel like everybody's drifting off and I don't know the's that's that's that's okay. Yeah, I'm just really like I just feel like everybody's drifting off and I don't know the forces that are going to bring people together and it scares me a little bit because there's so much room for forces to come in and start doing that job. Man, we could this is a whole other podcast episode, but let's think about how politically affiliated people are, how vehement they are patriotic about their different political affiliations, movements like BLM, and Tifa, how much people support sports teams now. You people have a religious fervor around their sports team.

They do, think about what it used to be, you would go to the same place, the same day of the week, every single week. That would be church on a Sunday, while it's the stadium on a Saturday. Now, you don't even, when you can't go see live sport, you can still have your Reddit thread or your WhatsApp or Telegram or Signal group chat with the other fans that are season ticket holders while you watch the game on TV. Other things

that people are sort of bowing themselves at the church oven, I think, is a good thing is the Church of Marcus Aralius. Copies of meditation sold out at the beginning of 2020. Sold out. Couldn't get them on Amazon. That's selling a book out. I had a book that's a thousand years, I don't know when. 2000 years old. Two and a bit. Yeah. I had Donald Robertson on Scottish stoic philosopher and philosophy expert. He's also CBT trained, which gives him a very unique insight. And he was saying, when he talks to people who are trendy and now into stoicism, a lot of them have actually had CBT before, and he asks him, so why are you so interested in stoicism? They say, well, what I wanted was like CBT, but bigger. You know, what I wanted was

like Western yoga with the spiritual side. Like that's what they want. And what all of these different things, whether it's the sport, whether it's the political movement, whether it's the animal liberation movement, veganism, climate change, I want belonging, I want a sense of structure, I want a linear sense of progression, I want an example from role models and people that have come before me that tell me what I'm supposed to do. And someone's looking to a Roman emperor that's been dead for 2,000 years sometimes. I have, I mean, I've kind of vassalate now between like real pessimism and real optimism

about things because I'm like, because I kind of see the old world dying and you see the new world coming in and you just don't know how it's going to work out. And at one hand, I see people just breaking. I just look around and people are depressed and they're isolated. And what we're doing to people is just, I mean, as a psychologist, this is God awful. I mean, isolating people, keeping them out of the sun, having them order awful. I mean isolating people keeping them out of the sun having them order food I mean it's just cheese and it's destroying people But I've had so many conversations and that the interest and spiritual growth and you know in stoicism or psychedelics or yoga I mean this stuff is people are like trying to find something and

and the stuff is people are like trying to find something. And so it's this really interesting time where they kind of controlled all the standard stuff and that non-standard stuff's coming in. And I don't know how it's gonna shake out. I really don't, but we're in a major transition. I think that the pandemic, it's an absolute catastrophe. And for the people that have lost loved ones

and family members and stuff, it is not good. But I really think it put the brakes on some quite malignant parts of modern society as well. I said it earlier on, you can't flex with a face mask on. You can't show off your brand new rolls' rice when you're not allowed out of your house to drive it. And I think it's reminded us of how many people have spent more time being in touch with their family because they're terrified they're going to die? I'm aware that holding a viral gun to the head of your mother or grandmother isn't necessarily the best motivation for it, but perhaps it's reminded us exactly what sort of matters. And yeah, I don't think that a pandemic isn't necessarily the optimal strategy for causing that to happen within a civilization, but in terms of trying to find silver linings in the cloud, I definitely think that that could be one of them.

Do you think that, I mean, I get that same sense too when I talk to my kids because I'm trying to figure out kid culture. So I ask my own kids. I don't really, you know, and I notice the fashion is really kind of boring, almost 1930 style, a lot of 1980s kind of mom fashion, I see him wearing, it reminds me of what my mom wore, so I don't hate it, but it's very boring, it's not really showy. So I got the sense that people like you said aren't flexing this much. And I wonder if the pandemic hastened the change we were going through, or if it's just, as soon as the pandemic

scone, it's like a recession, whenever it's like when it's a recession, they're like back to simplicity. And then as soon as the recession's over, they're like, after I get back from my holiday in Spain. Yeah. I think a big part of it's that there was something you said earlier on, and I totally forgot to bring this up in a world where everybody is trying to be pushy and showy and flex online and play the look at me roll. There's a place for narcissism to manifest in someone being overly subtle. The person that's like

the aloof muse in the corner of the room, you know, he's got his elephant pants on and a sleeveless t-shirt and he doesn't need that man Like, you know, I'm not part of that man like that's not my thing man Like that kind of approach and you think it's just different routes for people trying to find their uniqueness and this is like I am Completely folly to I speak to the internet three nights a week in an effort to do the same thing Like I want people to hear what I've got to say, but the more that we become aware of our cognitive biases in this way, I think the more that we can get closer

to what a true sense of virtue is. Yeah, I have, you know, I wrestle with my own need for fame and attention a lot. And one I can see it, I don't know what elephant pants are, but they sound whatever. You know those, when you see people go to Thailand And one I can see it, I don't know what elephant pants are, but they sound, what are they? You know those, when you see people go to Thailand and they're kind of like wide. Oh yeah, the back.

With the elephant saw, yes, yes, gotcha. Yeah, so what happens is like we're all in this fame status race, because that's part of life. We're all in it. We can't not be in it. That's just the nature of it. So what I look at, it is like are you going to get attached to it? Or you're not going to get attached to it. If you start getting attached to fame, if you get attached to fame, you're dead.

That's why it's healthy because once you get your name, you're going to get that hit off the crack pipe and you're going to say, I need another hit. And you're only going to hit off the crack pipe and you're gonna say I need another hit. And you're gonna say I need to hit and you're only gonna get two or three in your life. And then you're gonna die alone chasing that fourth hit. Maybe I'd love to hear what you think, but I am like, fame is great, but whatever you do do not get attached to it because it ain't and I don't know what you're, but so I'm tell people's like go have fun, but if you start thinking this stuff's real, it'll it'll eat you alive For me, I think panic there. No, not at all for me. I think it's Use the fame, but know that it's not about the fame There's a really a really good quote and this is this is to do with money, but it works for fame as well

And this is to do with money, but it works for fame as well. Making life all about money is like making a road trip all about the gas stations. Like you wouldn't go on a road trip and just visit every different gas station that you could. That's not the point. You need the money to keep going and it's a useful tool to ensure that your road trip doesn't stop. But you don't do a tour of gas stations. And I think that you can apply that analogy to fame as well. That fame are these, it's this little bouncing on a trampoline. And each time that you bounce, maybe you can bounce a little bit higher

and bounce a little bit higher and bounce a little bit higher. But it's not about the fame. And like, man, this is coming from some of the free charcoal toothpaste on Instagram, the blue tick on Twitter, like all that sort of stuff. Like, being there seeing it done, all that sort of stuff. Being there seeing it, don't it, got the t-shirt. But it's facilitated me to do some things, but I'm so glad that I never started to swallow my own bullshit with regards to that.

A perfect example that the listeners might be able to relate to is that when you're on TV, when you're famous for essentially having done nothing, like being someone not doing something, all of the praise that you get is hollow. You don't feel love, you feel praise. And the reason is that you're playing a persona, it's a role on TV. Whereas if I get a message from listeners to the show telling me about how it affected them or something they liked, that like hits me in the feels so hard, this guy came up to me at a fitness expo six months after I started the show and he was telling me that his dad had recently passed away and the episode with Corialin that I did, your book,

Corialin, had reminded him that, I made him realize that he was distancing himself from his father's death and not fully accepting that it had happened and that was causing him, and his, that was causing him to be a bad dad and a bad husband. And he came up and he said, man, just wanted to, told me this story, man, causing him to be a bad dad and a bad husband. And he came up and he said, man, just wanted to, told me the story. Man, it's what I did. Thank you. And so you can imagine with this fitness expo, so I've been like going to the gym for months. I mean, good, I got my top off. Everyone's training. There's like thousands, hundreds of thousands of people there. And I'm weeping in front of this guy. And I'm like, this guy

is just fully torn me up because I was like alpha mailing around having this good time And this dude came in and totally side-swiped me like a fucking articulated Laurie And I'm there in front of him and I'm like protect like do I pretend not to cry like am I trying to like not do this thing like sort of Pretending I've got an itch on my head doing it every five seconds and That to me like that story It gave me meaning in a way that I'd never felt before. I hadn't got that when someone goes, man, you know, when you wore those shorts on love island, the orange ones, not the light orange ones, the darker orange ones, and you walked down those

stairs, it was so meaningful. I was lost and alone, and in this place of existential dread, but after I saw you in those shots, that doesn't happen. I'm going to be shallow. I was like, I'm done Chris. I'm just going to be shallow rest of my life. Done happen, right? No. Man, this is a thing. Like what you're doing on these podcasts is authentic. It's what it sounds like. You can't talk for this one and not be man. Like if you if you tried to play persona for four hours a week, you would be fully exhausted. Right. And so that's what I really enjoy podcasting and I don't really talk to media. I'm not that they're asking me to talk to him, but I don't find it that useful, but I find these more useful because they seem more authentic.

Because like you said, you can't really fake it for an hour. That's interesting to hear. I never could act. I just couldn't, I can't really fake it at all. I mean, I can put on a, I can do an act. It's performance, but it's close to truth, you know? Yeah. I think, I think that this movement that we've got here towards stoicism, towards spirituality,

towards psychedelics, consumption of long-form content, people learning how to read again, there's like a reading movement, there's even a bookstagram movement on Instagram, which is people who basically run book clubs and talk about the books that they're reading and then do book summaries on Instagram as well, and they all discuss it in the comments below, get better with books, Jim Malayne, my buddy's been on the show, fantastic guy. And all of this, I think, is a counter-culture movement. I think it's people realizing that the hyper-normal stimuli

and the dopamine manipulation that we're having, people want less, oddly. For the first time in ever, people want less. I, well, when I, you know, I'll put on like Bob Dylan albums from the 60s sometimes and they make sense. That's how crazy things are. I'm like, God, I finally understood subterranean's homesick blues in 2021. You know, that's how crazy it is.

But, um, I sense this counterculture too. And I really, glad you see it. But what's interesting to me is the people doing the psychedelics aren't the same people that we're doing them when I was at Berkeley. They're like the country guys and the folk guys. It's weird. It's like, it's like the sides kind of changed in a way. And so it's very hard to see, you know, but it's, but it's happening and it's really, it's just, anyway, it's very powerful. I don't know how this is going to shake out, but what you're saying makes me feel good. Next people are thanking.

Next decade is going to be interesting. Keith, today's been awesome, man. The new science of narcissism will be linked in the show notes below on Amazon. Where else join us, send people? Oh, any place. WKAMBO.com, basically, I'm not very good at fame, I apologize. That's just Google me. That's fine. I'll throw what I can find if you want. Tiny little fragments of your... Tiny fragments of your...

Digital Ghost platform that you've got. I'll get them and I'll throw them in the show notes below. Thank you very much for today, mate. Thank you very much for today mate. Thank you.