I agree with the heart of your post but not with the box-sorting and I disagree with the idea of sociopaths being made and not born.
Elsewhere I've said that I think much of the shit we're in comes from the relentless celebration and elevation of "neurodivergence" as a wonderful, wonderful thing, and the use of them as fronts, so to speak, by the actually sociopathic and those who aren't necessarily miswired but merely evil and with the power to be so, successfully.
Rather than "sigma empaths," maybe it's plain essential animal instincts. Look how relentlessly they're trying to get the littlest kids now to ignore their own natural unease with the trespassing of boundaries. Everyone everywhere is being told to ignore anything and everything that just feels off and instead to just "trust the experts."
We got an oversupply of psych grads and they gotta make money and devising fancy ways of naming things is a great way to sell books.
1) I fucking hate that commercial, and I hate that our state tax dollars paid for it (not to mention all the propaganda billboards that are still up).
2) At least when I learned about them, the "classical grandiose narcissist" and the "malignant narcissist" weren't understood as "this one is just a worse version of the other." The difference was the presence or absence of misanthropy. Grandiose narcissists weren't misanthropic; they were too self-centered. Malignant narcissists feel their superiority entitles them to immorality, like Rich Sanchez. Grandiose narcissists are capable of behaving at least as badly; in fact, they're more likely to behave explosively. "Covert narcissists" were compared to people like incels or school shooters; they behave explosively because they quietly foster more and more resentment at being treated unfairly, but the core pathology is the same (I deserve better, unequal treatment than I receive). Communal narcissism was the only truly new concept I saw there.
3) I don't think many of the things being described as communal narcissism are rooted in pathology. I think they're fairly typical social characteristics being hijacked and exploited, and I don't think it requires (but it certainly doesn't exclude) the presence of psychopaths. End-stage capitalism is about manipulating such a tiny remaining delta of motivation that ALL of it reads as psychopathic manipulation, because there's really no other ground left but the fundamental distortion of our emotional landscape and free will. People said this about marketing 50 years ago; they were hypersensitive to processes that have, in the intervening time and with the benefit of better data technology, achieved the "meat machines" that Harari loves calling us.
Big fan of Dr. Ramani here, especially her MedCircle Master Class interviews. Excellent read, and I've come to agree.
One thing I might parse a bit is the word 'sociopath'. I agree it is correct to specify 'psychopath' as different in that there is a strong morphological difference in the way their brain is wired. I have years of productive chatting with self-proclaimed (and I believe rightly so) Athena Walker on Quora because I think the lack of capacity for normal empathetic neural processes has some implications for the moral development of A.I. But 'sociopathic' seems to have at least two distinct conversational meanings:
One is as you brought up, those 'dark-triad' / cluster B personality traits that appear to be more influenced by 'nurture' (or lack of) rather than temperamental nature — such as dysfunctions arising from the trauma of bad parenting, poor education practice, or extreme circumstances such as war or a victim of poverty, crime, or sickness.
But another is 'sociopathic behavior' ... behavior which is negatively effects society. I think this is an important distinction because some evolutionary biology suggests there are some circumstances in which a morphologically defined psychopath (one incapable of experiencing empathy through normal neural pathways( might prove useful to a group.
In prehistoric times when a tribe was threatened with an external enemy or loss of resources, a fearless 'leader' was often necessary for survival of the group. In the modern era, if I need to have brain surgery, I might prefer a cool, calm, though calculating psychopath to an emotionally invested surgeon when the scalpel begins to enter. But as we'e seen in the likes of Josef Mengele, Unit 731, or Anthony Fauci ... that is normally not the kind of 'researcher' we want.
Still, a good read.
A couple of other salient variables which are touched on in the post ... there may be an optimal number of people for empathetic collaboration (Dunbar's number or less), and a corollary that large populations, along with opportunities, bring dysfunctions of scale — that law of diminishing returns thingy, and what I call a resulting 'Tower of Babel' syndrome.
Closely related to an exponential increase in niches in the layers of bureaucracy behind which dark-triads can claim deniable plausibility, is the granularization and commodification of time. While Jeff Bezos and brother could afford their joy ride into space, those who made it possible were timed to the micro-second for their piss breaks, as are curriculums, schedules, agendas, and careers. I can't count the number of times a morally, or even practically, 'questionable' behavior is brushed aside with 'There's not enough time now. Just do it.'
Yesterday, NHK news pontificated on Prime Minister Kishida's plummeting approval rating, and one of the reasons is in how the ruling LDP used tight tax money to bury one of their own, the recently assassinated Shinzo Abe. In typical passive-aggressive fashion, the ruling LDP had already decided on dipping into the tax coffers and use his funeral to fund an international gathering to strategically reinforce and/or make trade partners and elevate the former Prime Minister to saint hood. As voices of the already economically hard hit working class rose in opposition to this use of their money, the ruling LDP followed the near ritualized strategy of saying they will try harder to make the public understand the wisdom of what has already been decided. And when the voice of the opposition grew stronger still, Kishida responded with an intent on listening to those voices, but without any intention of changing what has already been decided. And as decided, the funeral was held, and funded, by taxpayers. A university professor was trotted out to opine that maybe the world 'listen' should include more than a politically ritualized meaning, but also a communicative and responsive dimension. Duh.
Time is weaponized just as surely as social currency in large, hierarchical populations. In Japan, no matter how corrupt the institution (corporate, educational, government, etc.) the individual has no right to a fair and speedy trial. Institutions can, and do, stonewall individual plaintiffs for decades ... and even in the unlikely case a plaintiff wins, the plaintiff is awarded a token sum ... usually not enough to pay court expenses, and those found guilty pay only a minor penalty ... usually a portion of their salary is reduced for a few months, and in extreme cases, early golden parachute retirement. On the other hand, individuals accused of crimes, can, and do, face the death penalty. Pretty much the same as the U.S.
But we individuals e are not completely 'lone wolves' either. Even though I'm 67, living alone and never married, and have been an ethnic minority in Japan for 40 years but without an ethnic ex-pat community ... I still have my lady friends and fishing buddies. We are social primates, otherwise, we would not even bother writing here.
I guess the trick is how to maintain moral autonomy in large populations gone insane with anomie. Even 'authoritarian-harmonious' Japan has a strong culture of 'prosperity theology'. 'Successful Japanese are every bit as good at self-promotion as an American, and the Japanese language also has an idiomatic phrase which is the equivalence of 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'.
Oops. Gotta run to school to play my part as a textbook stage prop / token foreigner for the local Jr. High.
I've been hearing a lot about "narcissism" these past couple of years, but I remain unconvinced that it is a special pigeonhole in human psychology in the way it is described. The original Narcissus was a pretty-boy who became so infatuated by his own reflection that he took no interest in others or any of the more important things in life. This would certainly be a problem, but it has nothing to do with the social predator personality that our current use of "narcissist" implies.
Is "narcissism" really a personality type, or is it just a term for a range of vices to which we are all more or less susceptible, involving lack of consideration for others, whether due to predatory intent, ego, or simple obtusity?
When I was young my empathy was so strong it was debilitating. It wasn't until I was in my early thirties that I learned some tools to separate other people's emotions from my own, and put up boundaries I can remove at will. I am something of a lone wolf too, but I like people and I am better talking with them than I was.
Your prose is unsparing. I feel much the same about what Covid revealed.
Before the age of "selfies" a dear friend and I would often be discussing the world and society in general. He would always say, "Rob, it all comes down to vanity." And, when one looks around... it really does. Great post.
I agree with the heart of your post but not with the box-sorting and I disagree with the idea of sociopaths being made and not born.
Elsewhere I've said that I think much of the shit we're in comes from the relentless celebration and elevation of "neurodivergence" as a wonderful, wonderful thing, and the use of them as fronts, so to speak, by the actually sociopathic and those who aren't necessarily miswired but merely evil and with the power to be so, successfully.
Rather than "sigma empaths," maybe it's plain essential animal instincts. Look how relentlessly they're trying to get the littlest kids now to ignore their own natural unease with the trespassing of boundaries. Everyone everywhere is being told to ignore anything and everything that just feels off and instead to just "trust the experts."
We got an oversupply of psych grads and they gotta make money and devising fancy ways of naming things is a great way to sell books.
1) I fucking hate that commercial, and I hate that our state tax dollars paid for it (not to mention all the propaganda billboards that are still up).
2) At least when I learned about them, the "classical grandiose narcissist" and the "malignant narcissist" weren't understood as "this one is just a worse version of the other." The difference was the presence or absence of misanthropy. Grandiose narcissists weren't misanthropic; they were too self-centered. Malignant narcissists feel their superiority entitles them to immorality, like Rich Sanchez. Grandiose narcissists are capable of behaving at least as badly; in fact, they're more likely to behave explosively. "Covert narcissists" were compared to people like incels or school shooters; they behave explosively because they quietly foster more and more resentment at being treated unfairly, but the core pathology is the same (I deserve better, unequal treatment than I receive). Communal narcissism was the only truly new concept I saw there.
3) I don't think many of the things being described as communal narcissism are rooted in pathology. I think they're fairly typical social characteristics being hijacked and exploited, and I don't think it requires (but it certainly doesn't exclude) the presence of psychopaths. End-stage capitalism is about manipulating such a tiny remaining delta of motivation that ALL of it reads as psychopathic manipulation, because there's really no other ground left but the fundamental distortion of our emotional landscape and free will. People said this about marketing 50 years ago; they were hypersensitive to processes that have, in the intervening time and with the benefit of better data technology, achieved the "meat machines" that Harari loves calling us.
Hi BHerr
Big fan of Dr. Ramani here, especially her MedCircle Master Class interviews. Excellent read, and I've come to agree.
One thing I might parse a bit is the word 'sociopath'. I agree it is correct to specify 'psychopath' as different in that there is a strong morphological difference in the way their brain is wired. I have years of productive chatting with self-proclaimed (and I believe rightly so) Athena Walker on Quora because I think the lack of capacity for normal empathetic neural processes has some implications for the moral development of A.I. But 'sociopathic' seems to have at least two distinct conversational meanings:
One is as you brought up, those 'dark-triad' / cluster B personality traits that appear to be more influenced by 'nurture' (or lack of) rather than temperamental nature — such as dysfunctions arising from the trauma of bad parenting, poor education practice, or extreme circumstances such as war or a victim of poverty, crime, or sickness.
But another is 'sociopathic behavior' ... behavior which is negatively effects society. I think this is an important distinction because some evolutionary biology suggests there are some circumstances in which a morphologically defined psychopath (one incapable of experiencing empathy through normal neural pathways( might prove useful to a group.
In prehistoric times when a tribe was threatened with an external enemy or loss of resources, a fearless 'leader' was often necessary for survival of the group. In the modern era, if I need to have brain surgery, I might prefer a cool, calm, though calculating psychopath to an emotionally invested surgeon when the scalpel begins to enter. But as we'e seen in the likes of Josef Mengele, Unit 731, or Anthony Fauci ... that is normally not the kind of 'researcher' we want.
Still, a good read.
A couple of other salient variables which are touched on in the post ... there may be an optimal number of people for empathetic collaboration (Dunbar's number or less), and a corollary that large populations, along with opportunities, bring dysfunctions of scale — that law of diminishing returns thingy, and what I call a resulting 'Tower of Babel' syndrome.
Closely related to an exponential increase in niches in the layers of bureaucracy behind which dark-triads can claim deniable plausibility, is the granularization and commodification of time. While Jeff Bezos and brother could afford their joy ride into space, those who made it possible were timed to the micro-second for their piss breaks, as are curriculums, schedules, agendas, and careers. I can't count the number of times a morally, or even practically, 'questionable' behavior is brushed aside with 'There's not enough time now. Just do it.'
Yesterday, NHK news pontificated on Prime Minister Kishida's plummeting approval rating, and one of the reasons is in how the ruling LDP used tight tax money to bury one of their own, the recently assassinated Shinzo Abe. In typical passive-aggressive fashion, the ruling LDP had already decided on dipping into the tax coffers and use his funeral to fund an international gathering to strategically reinforce and/or make trade partners and elevate the former Prime Minister to saint hood. As voices of the already economically hard hit working class rose in opposition to this use of their money, the ruling LDP followed the near ritualized strategy of saying they will try harder to make the public understand the wisdom of what has already been decided. And when the voice of the opposition grew stronger still, Kishida responded with an intent on listening to those voices, but without any intention of changing what has already been decided. And as decided, the funeral was held, and funded, by taxpayers. A university professor was trotted out to opine that maybe the world 'listen' should include more than a politically ritualized meaning, but also a communicative and responsive dimension. Duh.
Time is weaponized just as surely as social currency in large, hierarchical populations. In Japan, no matter how corrupt the institution (corporate, educational, government, etc.) the individual has no right to a fair and speedy trial. Institutions can, and do, stonewall individual plaintiffs for decades ... and even in the unlikely case a plaintiff wins, the plaintiff is awarded a token sum ... usually not enough to pay court expenses, and those found guilty pay only a minor penalty ... usually a portion of their salary is reduced for a few months, and in extreme cases, early golden parachute retirement. On the other hand, individuals accused of crimes, can, and do, face the death penalty. Pretty much the same as the U.S.
But we individuals e are not completely 'lone wolves' either. Even though I'm 67, living alone and never married, and have been an ethnic minority in Japan for 40 years but without an ethnic ex-pat community ... I still have my lady friends and fishing buddies. We are social primates, otherwise, we would not even bother writing here.
I guess the trick is how to maintain moral autonomy in large populations gone insane with anomie. Even 'authoritarian-harmonious' Japan has a strong culture of 'prosperity theology'. 'Successful Japanese are every bit as good at self-promotion as an American, and the Japanese language also has an idiomatic phrase which is the equivalence of 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'.
Oops. Gotta run to school to play my part as a textbook stage prop / token foreigner for the local Jr. High.
Cheers BHerr
— steve
I've been hearing a lot about "narcissism" these past couple of years, but I remain unconvinced that it is a special pigeonhole in human psychology in the way it is described. The original Narcissus was a pretty-boy who became so infatuated by his own reflection that he took no interest in others or any of the more important things in life. This would certainly be a problem, but it has nothing to do with the social predator personality that our current use of "narcissist" implies.
Is "narcissism" really a personality type, or is it just a term for a range of vices to which we are all more or less susceptible, involving lack of consideration for others, whether due to predatory intent, ego, or simple obtusity?
When I was young my empathy was so strong it was debilitating. It wasn't until I was in my early thirties that I learned some tools to separate other people's emotions from my own, and put up boundaries I can remove at will. I am something of a lone wolf too, but I like people and I am better talking with them than I was.
Your prose is unsparing. I feel much the same about what Covid revealed.
Before the age of "selfies" a dear friend and I would often be discussing the world and society in general. He would always say, "Rob, it all comes down to vanity." And, when one looks around... it really does. Great post.
So is Pedo Pete a Classical or Malignant narcissist?
I'm going with Malignant.
Luckily, the old soiled diaper tyrant, can't have long left, given the frequency of his verbal bullshit announcements.
Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww-woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Also a lone wolf.
What would it say if I posted on my Social Media accounts that I'm a Sigma Empath. Is there flag I can use? 😊
Excellent, thank you. Satan is the ultimate and original narcissist. He is quite mad so I call him Loopy Luci.