56: The New Narcissism

her name correctly. Kristin is an essayist and a cultural journalist. Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The London Review of Books and Plus one in The Parish Review, and anthologized in Best American Essays and elsewhere. She received a Rona Jaffey Foundation Writer Award for Nonfiction in twenty thirteen, and her latest book, which we'll be discussing today, is The Selfishness of Others, an

essay on the fear of narcissism. Really nice to meet you, Kristin. It's good to meet you too. Thank you for having me on your podcast. So I'm really excited to talk to you today about a lot of related topics that kind of all center on this idea of selfishness. But we put lots of labels on these things. So it seems like these days, as you point out, every time someone's that we perceive them as selfish, we put the labeled narcissism on them, and you kind of refer this

as the new narcissm. Can you told me a little

bit about what this idea of the new narcissism is? Well, I think the new narcissism was a title that a magazine gave to So I don't know if I guess what I'm trying to look at is in the context of the history of the way the word has been used in psychology, and then, of course, you know, even long before the birth of what we know as psychology, by as long as it goes of it, you know, in literature, like what does it mean today that this word seems to be like the popular insult for someone

who you know, we want to name is selfish? So I guess we might compare it to a religious word, which would might you know, might be wicked, right or even evil. But now you know, when I hear my friends like condemning an ex boyfriend or something, We'll use the psychological diagnosis instead. And so I just got interested

in that. And I got interested in it because I think I've felt that urge myself, and I've you know, I've felt the fear that there's a coming selfie apocalypse, you know, and I want to work against judgment in myself, you know. But I also got interested in it because it's a little bit funny, you know, like that moment when you're at the end of a conversation with someone and you're like, she didn't ask me a single question

about myself, right, Yeah, what a narcissist. Yeah, But in that moment, you're stuck in this kind of like self centeredness too, right, So there's something circular about the diagnosis that seems like part of what's funny about being human, you know, Do you know what I mean? Oh, I definitely do what you mean. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I wrote the cover story for Psychology and Ala Sound's and now now I'm like super conscious about coming across as narcis no right, you know,

but I'm just telling his fact. I wrote a cover story for psychology day called how to Spot a Narcissist? And I can't tell you how many emails I got from mostly women, So that's another fact and saying, you know, thank you so much for revealing. Now I know what my ex husband was. He never paid me as much

attention as I felt like I deserved. So I'm like, that's interesting, right, It's like, wow, so there's an interesting interaction going on there where kind of when we feel like we're not getting, you know, the attention, we're like, oh, that person's so selfish. So is there real narcissism? I mean, you know, I know in psychology there's a clinical term to define it. Do you want to unpack with me today?

What are the essential features of narcissism and what aren't I can do that if you want, sure, but if you if if I can ask you the question as well, right, absolutely, yeah. I mean as someone who's you know, more trained my PhDs in English literature, right, So, as I read a bit into the history of the way psychologies define that word, I found a lot of sort of contradictions and a lot of changes over time, which of course is going to happen, right, Like that means that people are thinking

and disagreeing and developing. But this concept seems like it can be very contradictory and kind of a hall of mirrors even within psychology itself. Right, And I think that, you know, I don't know if you know this book.

Elizabeth Lundbeck wrote this much longer. The book's called The Americanization of Narcissism, and it's kind of it's an account of the way that the debate over narcissism is really central to how the sub fields of psychology kind of split historically, you know, So like how you define narcissism's kind of becomes part of why groups split. So we have let's unpack it. So we have the clinical definition, right, which it seems to me to be a thing like

that this is a deaf personality disorder. That is, it seems measurable and see it because a person who has MPG is doing the same behaviors right without over the course of their adult life, without being able to learn or change. Yeah. Yeah, So the question is, well, what is a narcissist? We'll use that word all these I'm not a big fan of labels in general. As a kid who was personally labeled a lot as a kid

is not being smart as well. You know. So there are these just the you know, lots of labels we throw around. The kind of the thing with these labels that kind of like it's a way of dehumanizing someone right as creating the whole, especially the label like pejorative labels like narcissism. It's a way of well, that's the whole essence of the person, therefore they don't have experiences. We kind of like way of objectifying a person as well.

In the clinical literature, in my opinion, the essence of narcissism is entitlement. And I think that we get confused between all these different things that are correlated with entitlement that tend to form the narcisis contract, but by themselves they're not actually narciss So, like I talked about essential features earlier, but I've been having a discussion on my college right now because I really firmly believe that we've

misappropriate grandiosity. Like every time someone has a grandiose thought, the psychological literature labels them as a narcissist. And you rightly sow in your book talk about the corporate narcissist, the communal narcissist. And I'm so you basically took on my establishment and I love that you did that because I completely agree with you. You You know, it's and I've been having this conversation with some narcissism and experts in

the field back channel and through email. I really, you know, you look at these some of these serferences, the communal narcissist construct take that a lot of those items reflect just someone who's a grand vision about helping the world. I mean, to me, that's just wrong to just call that person a narcissist, Like don't we want more people in the world who have grandiose images of helping people? Like is that a horrible? Is that like a selfish thing?

The question is it's tricky, like where do you pars it out? And it's very tricky, But it turns out scientific big difference between an item of just grandiosity, like I want to come up with a big idea someday that helps a lot of people, versus I want to come up with an idea that is the best, that is the bestest idea. I want to be the best at helping others, right, And so yeah, you would you

draw the line there? So entitlement would be and this idea should be magically accomplished without me having to work for it, right, like it should be. It should be given to me the image of having done this thing, whereas grandiosity right, whereas grandiosity is like, you know, you're maybe you're overly optimistic, you're your ideas it's too big person to write to carry out. But that kind of might motivate you to do something good or important in

the world. Is that it's the realism part, right, It's really the realism part. Yeah, But you know, you bring up something that I noticed as soon as I started telling people that I was working on the topic of narcissism. And I don't know if you've had this experience, since you know, you've worked on it for much much longer than I did. But so I would tell them I'm researching narcissism and I'm working on this book, The Selfishness

of Others. And I noticed that one of the very common reactions I got was that people started getting nervous and then they would try to use the word narcissist a lot in conversation, which I think is the way to tell me, you know, I know what the word is so I'm not one, right, And I think that there's I think that there's a real guilt around self focus and maybe the kind of grandiosity that we need to get by in well, you know there's that, or even to a flourished with capitalism and you know, to

deal with academic competition maybe or whatever. Yeah, but why this guilt. It's like we fear being called a narcissist, I do you know more than almost anything else, right, And yeah, absolutely, do you know what it is? You know what I think it is. I think people are scared of not as coming across as inauthentic. So there's a deep seated fear, you know. I think it's related to the oh what is it where you're scared of being found out? What's it called? There's a imposter syndrome. Yes,

it's called imposter sycrume. I think people afraid of you're somehow if you're called and if it's if everything you've done in your life is just reduced to, oh, well, you know that person's actually just a narcissist. That actually I think like kind of canoes, like all the stuff

you did wasn't really worth it, you know, it wasn't real. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I remember when I was just beginning my dissertation, we had a like writers group in the English department where we talked about everyone's fear of being a fraud, you know and like, and that was the first moment when I was like, oh, wow, ironically, I guess we all share the same fear, you know, but narcissists don't have that fear. See, this is the interesting thing is that

most people have that fear. But actually people who are clinical narcissists that you show up in therapy and get diagnosed by the DSM or whatever is high entitlement, high all these things, they actually never worry about these things everyone else is worried about in this world, right, Yeah, So maybe the best sign of a true narcissist is the lack of fear of being called a narcissist. Yeah, I think so. I think so there actually is scientific

we start selling. The best item to measure narcissism is just ask someone are you a narcissist? And if you say yes, then actually you probably are a true, true narcissist, as opposed to trying to you know, being like scared that you are and you know, like saying well, I don't think I you know, those people aren't the real you know, No, I think there's an impulse too. And you know, we're making generalizations without evidence here, but we're

just thinking, right. But I think there's an impulse to say, you know what, I am a narcissist, because there's a bit of a like over on our end, on myself, you know, on the lave person's side, there's a bit of a feeling that sometimes that we should measure ourselves according to how mentally healthy we are, and there's some pressure you know that I think from the authority that

psychology has in our lives. At least I feel it sometimes, you know, I click on the quizzes, the personality quizits right, just like I okay, I'm like, okay, you know, am I healthy? Could I be more mentally healthy? And so saying yeah, I'm a narcissist is also a way of just saying, like, you know what, whatever, I'm not going to be moral. You know, I'm not going to care about this, this kind of moral diagnosis. I mean, the subject is really it was hard to think about for

a while because it does make you self conscious. I did kind of design the book to make you as you're reading it worry, you know, to feel the fear of being called and being disposed to called. This topic is so complicated that, you know, maybe you should just relax, don't worry about it, don't judge people so much, you know. So I'm really glad you made that point first, wall,

like everybody just calmed down. But then there's the question about empathy that I wanted to talk to you about, because you know, there's this idea that narcisses are empty inside and the rest of us are operating there on

a full tank. But that's quite an assumption, you know, Like I think all of us are kind of just trying to make it through the day, and maybe there's a greater capassion if we kind of have great, you know, connection about our common humanity as opposed to sticking some people in the their dead inside box and those that aren't. That seems so binary, doesn't it. It does? But I mean, do you think that from a cognitive science point of view, that there are people who are done inside? Can you tell?

Can you guys tell by looking at brains? Yeah? Well you can tell, yes, you can tell by looking at brains, whether you're likely to have psych be a psycho not you know, have psychopathic tendencies, and that tends relate to being emotional bluntness. But even people with emotional bluntness, what that means is that they still have emotions. They're not dead inside. They tend to just operate more on basic appetites, so they still will feel, you know, a sexual rout.

They're almost like an animal walking around with basic primitive emotions, and that's that they have a narrower set of emotions that they operate on a daily basis. So that's true, and we could operationalize that as being dead inside, but that's actually a very small proportion of population, very very small. Actually, the number of you know, bonafide you'd be by the hair checklist, get a psychopath diagnosis is vanishingly small number

of the general population. So for everyone else there actually is. I don't think that idea of dead inside really. I think each of us go it throughout our lives at some point feeling dead inside, like when we have existential crisis or when we just have depression. People who have depression feel dead inside, but then when they go through help and they often join the human race, again, so you know, like it's not like a stable thing that it's like, oh, you're dead inside. That's it. You're done.

You know, there's hope, you know. When I was going through and checking some of my sources that at the very last sort of night before I turned in the book, I re read Froid's essay on narcissism and he has this and the first time I had read it, I was very resistant to it because it was so much about femininity and women and gayness, you know, like and so I was like, you doing obviously, you're just he's projected.

This isn't this isn't science. You're just projecting. And then I read it, of course, you know, many more times, and then I read it one last time and there's this sentence in it that describes exactly what you just said, the way that someone who is feeling sick will withdraw from people and from things and that, you know, and he describes it in this beautiful way, and I finally really got it, and I was like, I recognized that experience, because that's what this last month writing this book is

what a great analogy between being a writer. Yeah, yeah, I hope temporarily, and I do think temporarily, I'm recovering now like someone who appears to be self absorbed and selfish because I'm withd On from my loved ones. I'm spending my you know, and it feels sick and it's over now. But I understood what he was describing, you know, which I love that. Yeah, anyone. Yeah, Freud wasn't a total hack, No, he's kind of a He's just really

thinking in his writing, you know. And you know who I prefer better than Freud and the well I like you, but I actually really like someone called Karen Horney, Yes, and she challenged a lot of the feminine ideas that Freud had. But you were asking about Tucker Max and in this I thought when I came across your interview with him online, I found it so fascinating. He clearly someone who is so thoughtful about what he was doing, right yeah, oh yeah, reflective, almost purposeful, really smart about

other people and how they work, right yeah. And but also the way that you got him to talk in that interview, someone who's really changing, you know, who was in process, who was trying to figure out how to deal with the way that this I'm an asshole thing

which was always pretty tongue in cheek. I think for him, from what you know, from what I can see from reading like how that how that was sort of functioning in the world and limiting his life, and and so it just doesn't strike I mean, he's the kind I guess part of what I was doing in that chapter about him is like saying, like, he's the kind of guy that gets described so often on the sort of self help websites that are about, you know, how to deal with your bad boyfriend. And yet he's not the

dead inside. He doesn't seem dead inside right in the way that you were just saying about that that very small percentage that we fear. And so I guess i'd wonder for you, like, what does that mean about the way we understand empathy? I know that's a very big question, but clearly, you know, I mean there's is that did he just have cold empathy? You know, like he can read the people's minds, he could develop a good theory of mind but didn't care, doesn't have compassion or I

don't know. It seemed like it complicated that interview complicated a lot of the simpler ideas about we have empathy and our people who are nurses just don't. They can't, they don't. You know, it's such a great question. You know that part of Tucker's life where I interviewed him was ray on the cusp. You're right, you sent something. There was Ray in the cusp before he made a shift to a whole new chapter of his life as a father. You know, he's a father now and all

these things, and a businessman. So I think that it's a very tricky. This question of empathy is tricky because there are a psychologists have to have various components of empathy. So I don't think empathy is this thing that you either have or you don't as a person. You know, each one of us throughout our day wax and wane, and how much we're focused on others, how much we're in our own head. That's called being human. It's constantly going back and forth. There's no you know, even saints

act out of character the majority of their day. I mean, the recent research on personality traits shows that these are not stable, These are not actually within person variation is greater than between person variation, which just means throughout the course of your day, let's say you're an introvert, you know. There are many moments through your day react extrovert, you know, and what does that mean to be who you are? Who is the real you? You You know? I don't think.

I think the idea of the self as is kind of becoming clear that it's an illusion in a lot of ways, because there's lots of sides to ourselves and we're constantly having these different sides. So I think that throughout our course of our own day, there are lots of moments where we show zero compassion because like maybe we're working on a math proof or we're intensely writing, and then our partner comes, you know, and says like, hey, do you want to Hey Kristen, do you want to

get some food with me? And you go shut up, you know, because you're and that's a moment where you've showed zero compassion well, or empathy. So do we want to say that you're therefore, oh, I discovered you're not an empathic person, you know, Like, no, you've just discovered that she's normal, she's a human. So the question we're really asking psychology is, well, do some people on average tend to be a lot less empathic during the course of their day. That's the real question, not all or none.

And I think that you know, there was a period in Tucker's life where in college which and he wouldn't be the f like he says, he's you know, he's like maybe one of the first to write about it so publicly, but I was in a fraternity in college.

The point here is that, you know, I think that these human I think a lot of people go through periods in their life where they are more immature in their responses and defenses and are more self focused than there are other periods in their lives where there aren't And I really do believe that these things can wax and wan across our lives. The real question I think that fascinates you and fascinates me is you know, well, are there some people very small minority, but are there

people truly truly throughout their whole life? It's kind of like that ship is gone and can never activate that chip ever. And I don't know the answer that question, other than there does seem to be some people who, because of a combination of genetics and horrible, horrible maltreatment in childhood, like abuse at a very severe level, they at one point of their life. Almost all of them

have been born with that chip. But what has happened is it has become so shut off that they almost don't even know how to access that brain region anymore or the you know so. And that's a fascinating question because and you tend to find that. If you just find the abuse, or you just find just the genes,

you don't find that. But when you find the storm, this perfect storm of someone with the anti genes that increase the probability of antisocial traits and horrible maltreatment and environmental conditions that allow them to act to enact their dark desires, then you do you do tend to find you know, what approximates evil? I would say, but I would say that's very small. We're talking definitely less than one percent of the publish Does that all make sense?

What I said? It does make sense. I mean my hunt then is that, like, if you're in a relationship with that sort of person, right, whether it's a parent, a boss, you know, a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, it's probably not that hard to figure it out, right,

that's right, that's right. So then my interest is in the people who if we take the kind of trait model of you know, like that there's a kind of continuum that people who might perform those patterns patterns that's right, that's what they are, and do things that you know, this, do the sort of things about which you and I would say I would never do that, right, I would neverice.

So then there's a sort of a I don't know if it's a philosophical question or or what, but for me, the question is is it better in all the senses of better, better for the world, better for my relationship, better for my well being, better for that person's well

being and growth? Right if I treat them from a kind of diagnostic standpoint, like looking for the traits and trying to say you're this, and therefore I'm going to treat you as different than me, or do I have a kind of do I kind of try to unlabel them, right, not label them? See what are you doing? Right? That's my question, and that's a life question, but also a question for how we whether or not, you know, we should maybe push against the impulse to diagnose for the

people that are do you know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying, and I think It's a profound question with a lot of me with a lot of importance for people's life. So let me tell you how I think about this. I think, first of all, is the healthiest thing for your well being is to get off the label train. Get off that train and take responsibility for your life, take responsibility for your actions.

You actually have a lot not you particularly crisis, but all of us have a lot more power to control our lives then we think, we realize we do. You know, my boss here, pen Martin Seligman coined the whole idea of learned helplessness right where we tend to get into a situation where and I think it's very easy for a lot of people in abusive relationships to get learned helplessness. What they don't realize is that they actually can make concrete,

set boundaries. There are a lot of things that we can do, you know, where at the same time we can still accept the person. So I actually think that, you know, I'm a big fan of acceptance, self acceptance, but also other acceptance. These are patterns, deeply ingrained patterns of behavior in your partner or a close friend, or whatever it is that is in your life that you can't sharee you shouldn't be in the business of trying

to change. So you either make the decision to take responsibility for your life and get out and like say, you know what, I don't want to be this person's friend anymore, you know, like, and you say you and you you have an assertive conversation with this person, say you know, look, I just I don't think this is working as a friendship or as a relationship. And you get out or you make the decision, you know what, that's that person's character. And I accept that person's character,

both the good and the bad. I love when we I love how zany he is or she is, and how unconstrained they are, and that's awesome. I can't stand when they get angry at me for things they don't do, but I'll take responsibility for that. And when they do that, I'll say back, I'll say, you know what, that wasn't my fault, you know, like just so you know that wasn't my fault. And I'm not going to deal with you when you're like that, and I'm going to go in the other room now. And you kind of take

that responsibility for yourself in that situation. Now. I don't want to be an apologist. Of course. You know a lot of people hearing this right now and say, well, are you advocating you know, like if you're an abusive relationship, That's totally not what I'm saying, but because I think that a lot of times it can be hard, especially if someone's physically abusive, right, But I'm not really talking so much about that. I'm saying, you know, I think

we can accept others and still take responsibility. Does that make sense? Absolutely? Yeah, I agree with you, and I also am. I mean, I was so worried in writing this book. I think I I felt like I should begin every paragraph with you know, I'm not talking about if you're in an abusive religion? Yeah, we have to say that because kind a nuance. Yeah right, yeah, absolutely.

I don't think it does any justice to people who are in abusive relationships for this word or this label to be just applied so generally, right, Yeah, we should distinguish between that and sort of the kinds of the dynamic of everyday selfishness that we all go through in relationships, right, and absolutely choosing again and again to turn towards someone and to try harder to understand them rather than turning away. Right, And do you know what, Kristin, You're absolutely right. I

think that values come into play with this. Some people might actually be okay. You know, there are jerks in this world. You know, that's what we tend to call a narcist. But like it's not from a moral stamp, but like, if you're okay with being with someone who's a jerk, that's your own value and that's your decision.

You know. It's like it's like, you know what, I'm with a jerk, Like, but they're also an amazing artist, and they're also great in bed, and they're and you list all these things that outweigh them being a jerk. Then who are we as a society judge, Oh, she's staying in that relationship with that jerk or he's in that But it's like it's no one's business in a way unless that person is genuinely like you know, not

happy and it's against their value system. And I think you need to know yourself, Like, if you have a value system that I don't want to date jerk, and you are dating a jerk, then take responsibility for your life and say that's this is against my value system, you know what I mean. But if it's not against your value do you know what I mean? Like, it's not who am I to judge what in that situation?

If your value system is different than what you're actually doing, you're the one who's the fraud in the fake, right I mean? Or you might do some work on that instead, And I think I wouldn't say I wouldn't go that far, but yeah, I know, but just like in terms of the language of the narcissist story, right well, right, yeah, we saw that person who's a jerk also a fake,

which is really interesting to me. Someone is performing a self more than other people do, right, And yeah, we're also all most of us are insecure, deeply insecure humans. It's it's part of being human. Yeah, that you wrote about these websites where they get together and they spend all day on these chats chatting with each other about

how horrible the person is about doing something about it. Now, I don't want to again, you know, I feel like I had to keep prefacing this with like, I don't want to shame the person, but I guess I want to empower people to realize that there is something they can do about it that is more productive than just labeling another person. And do you know what I mean, it's a tough I mean, it's a tough subject. It's so tough. And there's one study and I don't it

would take me a second to find this source. But there was one study that I read that really gave me pause, and it was maybe you'll know what it was. It was a study about the way that people who are I think score high on the MPI respond to kindness, and that they respond to kindness by becoming more manipulative. Right, And that gave me pause because they see kindness as an opportunity for exploitation. Right, that's super interesting. I haven't

come crossed it. So this is the thing. This would, like, I think, destroy my entire argument. But if that's true, right, if that were true, if that's replicable, if that's you know, if that were true, that in being kind and understanding, I mean, I guess this is just the old Coha

Kurrnberg debate. Right, But if it were true that in being kind and understanding empathetic towards someone who's trying to manipulate me, I'm actually making their problem worse and creating more, you know, possibly paving a way for whatever, for bad things to happen in the world. That's challenging. Like this is a difficult question, That's what I'm saying. Is there difficult? There a point? What is the point at which you

write someone else? So I don't know. I mean in the book, I tried to just wrestle with it, right, Yeah, And I guess I become more concerned with this way that. And I don't blame this on psychology. I mean, how could you blame something on psycho You are a little harsh on psychologists in one chapter, which was I remember, there's one line where I was like, whoa too chee? You said, you know, on those who who need this the most become psychologists. That's not me, that's Alice Miller.

She's a psychologist of the drama The Gifted Child. Yeah, okay, so you didn't say that, No, but I did kind of you know, sinuated it into it at a crucial It's probably true though, But the thing is it's probably true. But then, I mean, what she's saying, I think is that people who have had maybe cold or cruel parents become highly sensitive to figuring out what other people are doing.

She tries not to use the word narcissists, chooses it rarely right, and that what else would motivate someone to go into the profession of psychology but desire to understand, you know, how people work, because maybe it's something you I don't know, you couldn't you know control? You're interested in how how people work, how the performance of self happens, and so on. I think what I was trying, I

didn't feel like I was like condemning psychology. I was more trying to point out how the methods of different fields really influence the claims that they make. Right. I thought it was a great point. I mean, and I think, I don't mean that that's bad, Like we need all different kinds of approaches right to how you say other selves,

how selves work, and so on. And I think there's value in I mean, I find great value and say, social psychologies attempt to get out of the subjective point of view and try to see things across great numbers of people. I think that's important. I think that it's just that the way in this moment where on the Internet, where I start translating it really quickly and then turn it into kind of a world diagnosis of a whole

culture that I'm somehow outside of. I think that moment is very interesting, right, because it's like I'm maybe responding to the authority that psychology has in my life by trying to then become a kind of psychologist myself, you know,

and hold myself above the people I'm around. And it's I guess it's which brings me to like another question I have for you, which is, like, what's it like to try to translate this work which you do in you know, in labs, in with the computer for you know, crunching numbers, or in therapy rooms to people who are reading, you know, a thirty second Haffington Post, you know, like

an article of that. How to you know, the listical thing that you make a gentle fun of in one of your pieces, right of how do you diagnose your boyfriend in five seconds? Yeah? Like, do you find yourself trying to both work within that and against that as someone who's speaks and writes publicly about the work of psychology. Oh? Absolutely, I'm learning as a science writer, and I think I'm maturing. Let me say so myself. I look at some of my older writings about narcissm and I even the article

had to spot a narcissist, and I don't. It doesn't feel good to me anymore to these labels. I'm more on your side these days about it. And I'm not just saying that to be agreeable. It really has been a shift in my thinking about this stuff to the

complexities of being human. And I wrestled with that a lot when I wrote my recent book Wired to Create, where I talk about how creative people tend to take the dualities in them that most of us, all of us have these contradictions, but creative people are really good at reconciling those contradictions and integrating it, and even just like the whole point of the creative process for them is to make meaning out of themselves and the contradictions

and others. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized that, Yeah, gosh, it's really hard to write about this stuff because I want to now not use the word narcissism, because I don't want to label people, but I want to describe a set of characteristics that everyone I know. It's so easy, it's so easy to just slip into this language and to be part of it, like you said, but I want to be out of

it as well, nuanced away. And it is hard, It's really hard, because how do you describe, you know, tendencies towards these traits, but give it a neutral label of some sort in a way that people will understand. Is gosh, that's hard to do. If you if you have an idea how to how to write about that in that way? Let me know the thing that will go unnamed. You know, it's hard. It's a question similar to the question that I have as a writer, and we all have, but

just also how do we write for the internet? Yeah? Right about stuff that's very very complicated that people want to read very quickly. But I mean, I don't know, I don't have an answer for you. That's exactly the problem you should be working from, right, That's that should be the problem. Yeah. Absolutely. Can I bring back an

idea about empathy for a second. So Paul Bloom has made an argument recently about why empathy is very myopic, very narrow, and how we'd all be better off without empathy, and he has a book coming out of the Case against Empathy, and the case against empathy is not a case for narcissism, which is interesting. That's not the opposite flip side of it. He views the flip side of

it compassion, and compassion is different than empathy. There is emerging brain and research showing that when we automatically feel the pain of others, we are more likely to have emotional burnout. You know, like a lot of nurses doctors wouldn't reduce their empathy, But compassion is different. It's more of a feeling of love and warmth towards a person

who's suffering without feeling their suffering. So it does complicate the picture a bunch because you can't just say just because someone's low empathy, they're a narcissist, you know, like

that's way too simplistic. Someone might take a more rational approach to things where they don't want to be They want to like actually not be biased by how someone's feeling in the moment, to kind of get a bigger picture view of what might be going on to help the person truly, because there are moments when having empathy can get in the way of actually giving the person what they actually need. So I just want to put

that wrench in things because it's really tricky. Well, you know, it's write a little bit in the book, and I started thinking about how that exact problem is complicated by our desire to be seen as decent and good and empathetic. Right, So if we're just looking for the moments when we can feel empathy because that makes us feel good about ourselves, we might actually, you know, and it's a complicated argument, but we might actually be less likely to understand what

someone else is doing. Right. And that's a good point. Yeah, it's a really profound, like that's very different. So I guess that brings I mean, that brings me back to the question of then why is the narcissist our favorite insult in, our favorite name for our whole culture right now?

And it seems like it's there's something very to me, very profound going on in like this moment in history where maybe because of the Internet, maybe because of like how self reflective we are, because of your discipline, we're all, you know, evaluating ourselves in ours it's our fault. I don't have a like, I don't feel helpless about psychology. I take responsibility myself. Yeah. Good, But we are partly

all because we're creating the constructs and tests. Yeah, but like what you know, in this moment in history when you know, right now we can see each other's faces, but if we were just messaging on Facebook, we'd be having to decide how to whether to trust each other, you know, whether to like I did with you right when you messaged me, I was like, oh, so I trust this guy. Seems nice. He could be faking, right. I don't have the advantage of whatever mirror neurons or

whatever it is. I don't have some of the major ways in which we understand and interpret each other otherre's actions. I can't see your eyes, so I can't read your mind in the eyes, but like you know, no, we're faced right, yeah, yeah, And so I think we're more and more conscious of both how performed selves always are, how much we depend on that mirroring and that physical presence to understand each other. And then you know, we're trying to understand comprehend so many more people at such

a greater rate than we used to historically. Right, And here I'm just speculating, you know, but this is my hunch about like why in this moment we might feel insecure about our ability both to decide whether or not to trust other people and ourselves because we have to more explicitly perform ourselves every day. That takes us to the big question that you brought up about the whether the self is you know, even a thing, and whether it's sort of dissolving in this moment, and like what

is this? You know, it's stuck, it's very deep, and I just, you know, I take a very Maslow approach to a lot of this stuff, and I think that we should wreck And this is so consistent with your own ideas in your book, but we should really just acknowledge that esteam needs are a basic need of humans, and if we're not getting those needs met, like we can turn into jerks. All of us can have the

potential for that. And when we're in a relationship, we need to recognize that if we're getting upset you know, that our steam needs aren't being met, they're a good chance the other person is being upset too that their steam needs aren't being met. And so you have two people who think each other are narcissist when both people are just not getting a basic fundamental human need a satisfied to the level which they feel like they need it. So that's just my thinking about that. Yeah, let's trust

each other and acknowledge we have these needs. And if someone's needs for that are so great, then maybe we might want to distance ourselves a little bit because that could happen. But I think it's okay to lead to

with trust. I don't know, just in my opinion. Yeah, but you know, in the I don't know if you read comments sections on online, but you know, it's like you've got that problem multiple by just exponentially, where people are just like distrusting each other right away, right and assuming that the position that the others coming from is going to be a selfish one, therefore it can be just condemned, and then these fights pile up, you know.

You know, but the truth is that all of our decisions are selfish ones by definition, because we're the only frame of reference we have. Whether we realize it or like it or not, you know, all of our decisions are selfishly motivated, even pro social decisions. And that's the fact. The word selfish doesn't have to be a bad thing. You know, if I'm sitting alone watching a beautiful sunset and no one else is with me to watch it,

am I being selfish. You know, it's like, I think what we really mean is, you know, this person is not considering the needs of another person to extend to which it's hurting someone. And that's a different territory. That's I think there's different categories of selfishness, but I don't think just selfishness in itself. All it means is that it's coming from yoursel and for all of us. You know,

everything is selfish. Really when we consider the needs of other people, you know, I guess that is selfless, but it's not a hundred present selfless because evolution evolved us a system that where we get a reward, intrinsic reward value for helping others as well. So it's almost impossible to completely disentangle that. But while we're getting really deep here a second. Yeah, yeah, you know, I say that and it sounds skeptical. I'm actually a positive psychologist, so

I don't say that in a skeptical way. I think that I guess I want to make a point that we throw around that word selfishness, and I think this does relate to the essence of your book. We throw that around in a way that it's like it's always a bad thing if we're not considering the needs of

another person. But I think that it's it's important to recognize that we all have this tendency to be selfish because we are the only frame of reference we have, and just by the nature of being self absorbed or being like wanting to be happy for yourself is not,

by itself, you know, a horrible thing. Yeah, I would put it maybe because you're still it's like, we can't get away from this word selfish, right, but we're you know, but like when you get really get down into it, that word itself assumes this like difference between self and other that doesn't it doesn't hol up in many philosophical traditions, religious traditions, and also you know, in fact, in like neuroscience in some ways, right, like we are living through

imitation of others, Like we learn to be ourselves by imitating others, and we have I guess I would say this just in a more poetic way, like we in addition to what you're saying, like I would say, I also am always amazed by how people are always stretching to get out of that spot where they're stuck at the center of the world. But they're always right. They're always longing to understand others, to not be trapped there in only our own perspective, you know, to like, do

you know what I mean? Oh, gosh, I totally know what you mean. I mean, And that's what you know. That's what people in your I mean. We the fact that we study each other, right, we want to understand how everyone else works. We want to understand the difference. We want to Well, that's that's the great value of humility is recognizing what you've recognized. That's wisdom. You recognize that all of us are have the self selfish viewpoint

of the world. And you know, these body these people that become Buddhist monks, they're not all becoming Buddhist monks or because they're all narcissists and they want to be trans they want to be transformed. They're becoming boudhed monks because they're human and they and they have the wisdom to recognize that there's a greater perspective, that no single person has a perspective on the world that's the truth or reality. So so so yeah, you make a lot of

really good points in your book along those lines. And I think maybe, like I mean, I do think that we we, whoever the we is, that there's an over use of narcissism this word as a diagnosis that has a moral implication and as a kind of apocalyptic story about the future. Right, I do think that's overuse. But I also think that like it's good that we see like the thing that we're naming as like evil or harmful in that word is evil and harmful. It is what right, it's I just want it to be stretched

a little bigger than any given individual, you know. So I've been thinking since I got done with the book about the ways in which, like say, whiteness is a kind of can be a kind of narcissism, right, the inability to see outside of a position of privilege in a certain situation, right, like in the city, to see except for from the position that you're in in the world. But then like written large over history, right, you know

what I mean? And so like, yeah, of entitlement and kind of blindness to others is something that we see in it is what causes harm. But part of why it causes harm is because it maintains a myth. Uh oh, I don't want to get too deep, crazy, but it makes that, you know, it maintains this the myth of that we're separate, right. Yeah, so maybe one of the most uplifting aspects of your book is is that if we want to have true empathy, we need to be a little bit more lenient on our labels and recognize

we're all just trying to get by. We're all just trying to get through the day in a lot of ways. And yeah, is there anything else you want to add to this interview? Yeah, my head is kind of spinning with all the topics. But it's very cool to talk to you. Thank you, really cool to talk to you too. Thanks. Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott barrk Kauffman. I hope you found this episode just as

thought for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com.