USA's Last July 4: Fascism’s Dunce Macabre, Liberalism’s Tyranny (with Ginger Coy)

USA’s Last July 4: Fascism’s Dunce Macabre, Liberalism’s Tyranny (with Ginger Coy)

Summary

So American people, the American people, I mean part a big part of the American people perceive Donald Trump as much more human with all his foibless and all his idiocy, pronounced idiocy and is human and Trump is perceived as human whereas many intellectuals in Harvard or wherever they're perceived as inhuman, not fully human, nonfor unforgiving in many ways. Fascism is definitely about excluding people whereas liberal democracy and so on is about including people and can you say that love is about including people too I mean because really yeah it is in theory inclusion and exclusion is not going to sell books like yeah it is in theory it's in theory about inclusion the the big.

Abuse, Meaning, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Reality, Sam Vaknin, Trauma, Vaknin Summaries

July 5, 2025

Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video.

00:00 No text and we are good to go. Hello, I'm Ginger Koy. I write for
00:06 Concerning Narcissism when I'm not on sbatical. Uh, welcome back viewers and readers alike. Uh, I'm here today with
00:13 Sam Vakin. Um, and you can find me at gingercoy.substack.com where I write about proliferating
00:20 cluster B psychopathology and how it harms civilization. And I think we're in the thrust of it. What do you say, Sam?
00:28 Well, yeah. I've been warning against this for decades now. It's it's come to pass. Yeah.
00:35 Uh well, thank you for being here today. Do you want to introduce yourself more or how are you? I'm I'm Sakin. I'm an
00:42 author. I I write books about many topics and among others, I write books
00:48 about personality disorders and I'm also a professor of psychology in various places, Cambridge, other places.
00:54 So, that's in a nutshell. oil. Well, uh, as you mentioned, um, at the
01:00 No text top, uh, it's Alligator Alcatraz. We've just passed this dreadful billionaire
01:08 bill, BBB, big, beautiful bill, big billionaire
01:14 bill. So, here we are. Um, and yet they expect us to be patriotic on this Fourth of July, this Independence Day in America. Um, somehow someway. So, it's it's just incredible to me that a wide
01:26 swath of humanity will double down on a pernitious policy like BBB um that harms
01:34 them. So, could you comment on this phenomenon? Yes, I think people are far less
01:40 concerned with material well-being. They're far less concerned with having
01:46 jobs, health care, and they're much more concerned nowadays with maintaining their value system. I think we're in the throws of a culture war, a global culture war where people are willing to
01:59 sacrifice anything, their livelihood, their prosperity, their prospects, their
02:05 family, their I mean, you name it. They're willing to sacrifice anything just to come up um on the winning side
02:12 of this culture war just to be able to maintain their value system,
02:18 their beliefs, their faith and pass it on to the next generations. They perceive this as an existential war and
02:26 they're not completely mistaken. I think it is an existential war.
02:33 So people are going to support MAGA in in in the states.
02:40 These are the the very same people who are going to lose Medicaid coverage or Medicare coverage later. They're going
02:47 to lose their jobs. They're going to lose they're going to lose everything basically because the vast majority of
02:54 the of the voters the electoral electoral base of Donald Trump recently
03:00 has become much more uh impoverished than before. Many more poor people vote
03:06 for Donald Trump than they have four years ago. And these are the very people who stand
03:12 to be severely harmed by his by BBB and other legislation. And yet they they're
03:19 fully fully behind him. They they trumpet him. They worship him. They they eulogize him. They they render him a kind of a divine phenomenon because he's
03:31 fighting as far as they're concerned for their soul. So there's a conflict here between body
03:37 and soul. Whereas until very recently, let's say until 20 years ago, till about 20 years
03:43 ago, people were fighting for their bodies. They were fighting for money. They were fighting for food. They were
03:49 fighting, you know, for corporeal things. I think the past 20 in the past 20 years, we've been fighting for our
03:55 souls and the beliefs and values that sustain our souls. In other words, we have transitioned from a materialistic kind of warfare uh to an axiological and doxastic
04:09 warfare. Warfare that is concerned with beliefs and values. used to be known as in German as cultur
04:16 as um you know culture culture wars. So it it it's not the first time in human history. It's not even the first time in the past 100 years you've had massive massive culture come for massive culture
04:29 wars in the 20s and 30s 1920s 1930s and so
04:35 only about 100 years ago. And so people, it's wrong to to assume
04:42 as the Democrats have and that's why they've lost the election. That's why they've lost their foothold in society because the Democrats assume that people are rational. They're self-interested. The Democrats adhered to the rational
04:56 agent theory in economics. Like people are going to make a calculus. What do I stand to gain? What
05:02 do I stand to lose in materialistic terms basically? and then they're going to make the right
05:08 choice. And the right choice is the Democratic Party. But that that was not the calculus. The
05:14 calculus was they're going to impose
05:20 um gender diffusion or gender confusion or gender gender disturbance on my children. They're going to take away my faith in a supreme being. They're going
05:31 to they're going to undermine my my family values and other traditional values. They're they're the enemy.
05:38 They're they're they are endangering risking my soul. So this is a religious
05:44 it's a morality play. It's a religious war. And the Democrats failed to
05:50 understand this. They failed to grasp that we have transitioned to a morality play. They failed to come up with an
05:56 alternative religion. They they insisted on being essentially rational in in many ways. And yet their
06:05 irrationality of the Democratic Party was coupled with totalitarianism.
06:11 Um it was a tyranny, ideological tyranny. It's um as it was a very noxious
06:19 concoction. the imposition of values which were
06:25 alien essentially European on the American people uh on the one hand European values I would even say French values on the American people on the one hand and then
06:37 doing it in a way that has been widely perceived and justly so as as totalitarian or authoritarian or you
06:44 know cultish. That's interesting contrast of the values versus caporeal or bodily No text concerns that you're outlining there. Uh so what do you what do you see next is is happening uh in terms of like how
06:59 political narcissistic abuse was playing out or fascism is playing out in America. How does this end?
07:07 I think it would be to define fascism first and foremost. Fascism. Fascism like narcissism, like love, like these are among the most most molested words
07:18 in the English language. Fascism is a highly complicated phenomenon. Uh it is not for the
07:26 faint-hearted and not for the dimwitted. It's a very profound um political theory. And um anyone who underestimates fascism
07:37 as the religion of the stupid uh they're going to be railroaded by fascism. Fascism going to end end their lives and their their livelihoods and so on. So so fascism I think has five main components. First of all, it's a permanent
07:53 revolution. It's a permanent revolutionary state. The revolution is never ending. It's an organizing
08:00 principle. It's also an explanatory principle like if you want to make sense of the world this ongoing revolution all
08:07 pervasive ubiquitous and everlasting makes sense of the world um divides it
08:15 into camps. So it generates automatically affiliation, belonging, acceptance, an in-roup and an outgroup and so on so forth. It's an organizing principle. The second element in fascism
08:27 is utopian nihilism. The ingrained belief that destroying
08:33 everything imbuss life with meaning. In sense, Pism is focused on destruction.
08:41 Not even creative destruction. Not even you know what Schumpiter the first the
08:48 famous economist called you know not this kind of destruction which is essentially a critical a critical stage
08:55 towards innovation and renovation and renewal. Not this kind of destruction
09:01 but total utter destruction beyond which there's nothing after which there's nothing. So this becomes nihilism that is utopian.
09:13 What people might dis perceive as dystopia is perceived by fascists as
09:19 utopia and so utopian nihilism. The third element I think is um
09:27 the fascism is reactionary. It pretends to be avanguard. There's a facade of avanguard. There's a pretention to avanguard, but it's essentially highly reactionary
09:39 and it is a reaction to the true avanguard. So, it's a clash between the real avanguard and the fake avanguard
09:46 which is reactionary. And then the I think the fourth element of five, worry not, it's about to end. The fourth
09:53 element is elitist populism. Again, you you can immediately see the contradictions, the inbuilt contradictions in fascism because utopian nihilism,
10:05 elitist populism. When I say elitist populism, I mean there's a new elite.
10:11 Fascism always generates a new elite. So for example, in Nazi Germany, there was
10:18 the fewer and the new elite were the SS and so on. in um in um uh Soviet Russia,
10:26 USSR, and yes, communism is a form of fascism. Of course, in the USSR,
10:32 it was dominator. So, there's always an elite, but the
10:39 elite is committed to the collective. The elite becomes an elite by virtue of
10:45 self-sacrifice and dedication to the collective. It's a collectivist elite.
10:53 um not very different to Japan for example where a collectivist society gives rise to elites which are which
11:01 maintain their status as elites by dedicating or sacrificing themselves for the purposes and aims and goals and benefits of the collective. So the greater good still there is a
11:13 welldemarcated group which constitute an elite in fascism always. So in this
11:20 case, the oligarchy in um in the United States is emerging as the new fascist
11:26 elite. The tech brothers, you know, all these people, they're new fascist elites. Yeah. And the last element in
11:33 fascism is that is collective individualism. Fascism
11:39 is is fascism is very very powerful, very resilient precisely because it's
11:46 the biggest of big tents. It's it reconciles and and assimilates
11:53 all possible contradictions. Fascism is not rightwing and not leftwing. It's
12:00 both. It's absolutely both. Nazal socialistic
12:07 deutser that was the official name of the Nazi party socialistic
12:15 and so on. That's why I'm saying that communism is absolutely fascism. If you compare Mussolini's fascism, which is the original brand, mind you, with a knockoff with a knockoff in in Soviet
12:27 Russia, you will find many similarities. For example, um operatism of some kind,
12:33 for example, uh collective ownership of industries and and so on. You find many similarities. So, the last element is collective individualism. Collective individualism
12:45 means you can express your individuality and you're encouraged to express your individuality
12:51 within well-defined collective frameworks. It's like the collective dictates to you how well under which
13:00 conditions and circumstances you can experience individuality or you
13:07 can individuate. Now, it's not the same as an oppressive or suppressive or repressive regime where individuality is prescribed like
13:18 it's forbidden for you're not allowed to be an individual. Fascism allows you to express individuality. Only the number
13:26 of ways is more limited than in a totally open society.
13:32 So, there's something for everyone in fascism. That's that's that's the secret
13:39 source. That's a source of the appeal. There's something for everyone. If you're a collectivist, if you are a
13:45 revolutionary, if you're a reactionary, if you are um an individualistic person, if you and you're very January 6 type of of person, you know, if you are if
13:57 you're elitist, if you are populist, if you are a revolutionary, if you are traditionalist, if it's all there, it's all there. And so
14:09 that's why fascism I think is far more resilient than democracy, liberal
14:16 democracy. We can discuss it later if you wish, but I think liberal liberal democracy never stand a chance. I I think it's an aberration.
14:27 Yeah. I see fascism as throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Something for everyone as you pointed out. It also squares I think
14:33 readily with postmodernism that you know my truth is just as good as your truth and there's no objective truth so people
14:41 can hear what they want to hear this type of thing. Now, you wrote a paper I'm hoping that we can link to in in the description about fascism, which you just elucidated, and you spelled out
14:52 these tensions, which just to recap for our audience here, was renewal versus destruction, individualism versus
14:59 collectivism, utopianism versus struggle, and organic versus decadent. Maybe we could speak a little bit more to that. And elitism versus populism. No text Yeah. Well, that's what I've just done. Yeah. Okay. organic versus decadent. I was a little
15:14 bit Yeah, organic organic versus decadent is is an interesting uh tension within within fascism because fascism
15:22 always degenerates to decadence. There is not not a single exception in human history. Fascism is not a new invention. Mussolini gave it kind of aura. Mussolini was a communist by the
15:33 way, a prominent communist before he became a fascist, before he discovered fascism. He was a prominent
15:39 communist and he styled fascism. He he designed it uh after communism after the
15:46 tenets and and structures and institutions of communism. It was an extension of communism in a way also a
15:52 socialist movement. All these ironically are socialist movements. And so
15:58 um decad it always ends in decadence but it it starts by claiming to be pure
16:05 authentic organic um blood and soil in in Nazi Germany um
16:13 you know the proletariat the working men in in in so it's always like we are close to nature we and even there is a deification of the human body for
16:24 example in Nazi Germany was There was a worship of the human body very reminiscent of the renaissance
16:31 and it was a renaissance movement. Fascism is a renaissance movement because the two pillars of renaissance
16:39 were the individual and personality cult. The leader machavelli yes the
16:46 leader. So these are renaissance movements. And so you ask me what do I
16:52 think is going to is going to happen next. I think the natural state of human
16:58 societies and the very concept of human society is very new but I think the natural the default state of human societies the equilibrium is is a fascist state. I think liberal democracy
17:10 demands too much of people and I think also
17:16 that in the particular case of the United States there was there has been an imposition of foreign values and
17:22 foreign beliefs and foreign thought systems on the American people. I think
17:29 the intellectuals in the United States, especially in the 60s and 70s, they imported from mainly from France, but not only but mainly from France.
17:41 They imported a variety of of edicts and and thoughts and and and beliefs and
17:48 values and theories and which were ills suited to the average
17:56 American which were utter this was a foreign implant and now we are seeing the immune reaction
18:03 to it and I think Americans are reverting reverting to their roots. In
18:09 this sense, I do believe that Trump's variant of of fascism reflects the the
18:16 real soul of America. This is who Americans are. This is who they've always been. The the aggression, the reactionary
18:27 streak, the in-group versus outgroup xenophobia and
18:35 and hatred. I mean, hatred of immigrants is nothing new. Of course, I don't need to tell you, but there have been several
18:41 cycles in American history of rapid rejection of hatred and demonizing of
18:47 immigrants and demonizing of immigrants. Um, and you see it in other fascist movements. For example, anti-semitism is an anti-immigrant is the first anti-immigrant movement in
18:59 human history because what has happened is the Jews were forced to immigrate. They were forced by the Romans to
19:07 immigrate from Palestine and they were dispersed among other people among other nation I mean other population groups.
19:14 So these populations have have rejected them. They've developed an immune reaction to these new immigrants. And so
19:22 this was the first anti-immigrant movement, anti-semitism. And it's not a surprise that the literally all fascist
19:29 movements are closely identified with anti-semitism. It's not a surprise because Jews are immigrants, the eternal immigrants, the quintessential immigrants. Well, on this 4th of July, No text
19:41 sorry to interrupt. I'm just I'm going to defend Americans for for a moment here that we are aspiring to a high bar
19:47 what being a melting pot. Uh you know, you you've commented on this as well. We're not a nation state with you know,
19:54 cohesive body. And so, yes, tensions are going to flare. I think we've done pretty well by ourselves for 200 250
20:01 years. Even as Bellicos as our orientation is to the world, um we've also done a lot of good for the world,
20:07 too. So, this is a contemplation of what it means to be an American. And it's it's good, bad, and ugly, you know, to
20:14 be fair. But I do appreciate your commentary ongoing on on Americans because I do think it gives us an insight from a European vantage point. Um so in terms of fascism and as we
20:25 round this corner and we really embracing this and this is obviously a huge departure from what our founding fathers envisioned for our country um I've been thinking about the role of and
20:36 this is very as you've commented before American of me and solutionsoriented but as I've taken the sbatical I've taken a
20:43 a beat to reflect on where we stand with political narcissistic abuse as it's being perpetrated by Trump and his
20:49 oligarchs and I'm thinking about the role of love as an antidote to political
20:55 narcissistic abuse in the expression of fascism and empathy being a cornerstone of love. Now, I've taken some time, Sam, to look at your videos on empathy where you've really parsed out a lot of the
21:07 intellectual misgivings you have around this concept. I don't want to dwell too much in that space because I think it
21:13 gets into the weeds a little much and too philosophical for the purposes of this video. Um, but I do see empathy as
21:20 a cornerstone of love. And empathy is I'm just going to take at the face value
21:26 sort of generic definition of love that there is in fact an external person that we're identifying with. Um, so I wanted your kind of comments on this and I also want to weave it into
21:38 these tensions that I think are so helpful for the framing of fascism because if there is a way in which we
21:45 can exploit chinks in the armor of these tensions and fascism and punctuate it and perforate it, whatever we need to do
21:52 to get rid of this fascism so we can get into a more enlightened frame of mind that's more rational like the Democrats
22:00 espouse. So I would beg I I would beg to differ No text with a few points you've made. I will not go into them because I respect your your leadership in this particular conversation. I but I would I would like to point out where we differ. I first of all I I did
22:18 not imply that America was all bad. I did not use any value judgment whatsoever. I didn't say it's bad or good. I just said that current political movements in my opinion are much more
22:30 aligned with the American soul, if you wish, than the foreign imports from
22:36 Europe and and France. What is known as liberal progressivism or this is not
22:43 American. This liberalism, this progressivism, this this is not American. This is French.
22:50 And so um that's my first point. That's all I said. I didn't of course America has
22:56 done a lot of good absolutely a lot of good and has contributed mightily to the world and has shaped the world is Hitler
23:03 and America are the two the two forces that have shaped the world in one breath. Okay. Yeah. In one breath.
23:09 Absolutely. The because everything is nuance. There's always good and evil. you know the evil force that has shaped
23:16 the world that we live in is Hitler and the the good force is is the United States and yes it is the good force the
23:22 force for the good so I didn't imply otherwise absolutely not I also beg to differ with your assertion that the
23:28 current political climate or ambiance is uh in contravention of or contradiction
23:34 to the founding fathers I think the founding fathers were much closer to fascism than to liberal democracy or
23:40 progressivism we can have another program dedicated to this. Sounds like we need one. But I
23:48 strongly actually beg to differ. I I think they regarded participatory democracy as a serious
23:55 threat. Um and that's why they've designed all these institutions which were which were absolutely anti-democratic institutions and they they maintained a philosophy in the
24:06 federalist papers and other elsewhere that that is you know not very much removed from
24:13 fascism but we can discuss this another time but Sam before just we can't just leave our audience hanging like that. So
24:19 just just well I don't want to I'll be kind. Um so
24:28 you're saying it's fascistic to be what sort of authoritarian and outlines sort of you know liberal democracy with our
24:34 founding fathers. I I I just need a a one-s sentence analysis please. I think at the core of fascism is the mistrust
24:40 of people, the distrust of the people, of people in general, of people like individuals and definitely the distrust
24:48 of the mob of the of the of the people. So, and I think the driving force in the
24:56 thinking of the founding fathers was this mistrust of people. Fascism is founded on mistrust. liberal progressivism or liberal democracy or is
25:08 founded on trust. So had it been direct democracy as opposed to participatory No text would that have made the difference and not have been as authoritarian or they they have I don't need to tell you that
25:19 they've designed institutions which which made sure the to kind of amilarate
25:25 and mitigate the power of the people like yeah the electoral college for example.
25:31 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. So I think that's a distinguishing feature which by the way is relevant to our
25:37 conversation. Yeah. Fascistic people don't trust fascist people who are fascists don't trust the people. That's why they use force. That's why they use aggression. That's why they use coercion
25:48 and manipulation and brainwashing and because they do not trust the people. Whereas liberal democrats, the progressives and so on, they come from a
25:59 position of we trust the people. people are good. If we just give them, you
26:05 know, the space and the incentives, they they they would do good. Whereas the fascist says, if you give people
26:11 freedom, they will abuse it. They will dis they, you know, we we can't trust
26:17 them. We need to incarcerate them within institutions which are highly restrictive and rigid and and so on so
26:23 forth. So this is where I said that it's utopian nihilism in the sense that fascism says everything that people have built should be destroyed because people and the
26:36 institutions they gave rise to can never ever be trusted. We cannot trust the the
26:43 Congress. We cannot trust the Supreme Court. We cannot trust democracy. We cannot trust anything. Ironically, not
26:51 even the family, not even this the church. There's a and this is why I keep saying that the founding fathers in this particular sense had the mindset of of fascists, not of there was no concept of
27:05 liberal democracy in the you know there was a French revolution which has degenerated very quickly to fascism. I mean, if there's a prime example of fascism in the 18th century, it's the
27:16 French Revolution with his with his massive executions, the reign of terror and and so on. And
27:23 then Napoleon, the Donald Trump of that era, of that period.
27:29 So, this was the only example. There was nothing else. Liberal democracy was far was 50 years hence. Um, progressivism was unheard of. The only example you had was okcracy, mob rule, where the mob swarmed Versailles, swarmed the basti
27:48 and killed everyone and then killed itself and it was a bloody mess. That was the only example. The American
27:54 revolution was um an anxiety reaction.
28:01 The when you read when you read the papers including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, these
28:08 are all anxious papers. They're all based on anxiety and catastrophizing and like how we going to prevent this from happening and how we this from happening. These are not utopian documents. These are not hopeful
28:20 documents. These are actually a list of grievances coupled with anxious
28:26 catastrophizing. That's all. That's interesting. So the underpinning being fascistic and being untrusting even if No text it goes into liberal democracy, it's still compromised from the get-go. Is that the bottom line analysis?
28:39 America never had liberal democracy. What do you mean? It's never had many of us believe that we have had it, you
28:45 know, for 250 years. So you have had you have had a system where people had a voice. They were given a voice. But America never had liberal democracy or progressivism or anything. There was an attempt in the 60s and 70s which lasted until a few years ago to superimpose on
29:03 the American experiment liberal democracy and progressivism imported from Europe but it was a foreign implant
29:10 that was rejected by the body politic of the United States. What America had is a
29:16 set of institutions which balance somehow the vox popularly the voice of the people with checks and
29:25 balances uh mainly which were uh geared mainly to
29:32 hold back democracy. The checks and balances in American system are are essentially not intended to maintain
29:39 democracy. They are intended intended to maintain the power structure. so that none of the elements of the power structure becomes overdominant and topples the whole system.
29:51 That's interesting. I've never heard of this sort of inflection point being the 60s in terms of your scheme of things, how you're playing. Think about it. The
29:57 50s, compare the 50s to the 60s. The 50s were a Donald Trump era essentially. The
30:04 Yes. Everyone talks about that. Going back to 50s for MAGA. Yeah. Yeah. While the 60s were a French a 1968 French
30:11 thing. It was like 1968. It's it's was a foreign infection. Was an infection.
30:19 Intellectual infection. Okay. So, going back to my sort of spiel a moment ago, I No text I had mentioned like how do we sort of puncture through like how do we drive wedges uh into this sort of fascistic
30:32 narrative that we're living in. um such that we could uh infuse our culture with
30:38 love, compassion, empathy, something wholesome. There's got to be I fully agree with
30:44 you. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. I fully agree with you. There's no love without empathy. Where I think we differ
30:53 is you are making the assumption that the antithesis the the antonyym of love is fascism. Yes, I am making that assumption. Whereas fascism is founded
31:04 on love and founded on empathy. And I'll try to explain what I mean. What fascism does,
31:11 it humanizes the inroup and dehumanizes the out groupoup and then uses love and
31:18 empathy as the cohesive glue that endows the members of the inroup
31:25 with belonging and affiliation and a sense of acceptance. And you ask any MAGA supporter and they will tell you that Donald Trump loves them. Donald Trump himself keeps saying I love you.
31:37 You love me. I love you. I hate the Democrats. He said yesterday, you know. So love and hate. These are the dominant
31:44 emotions in fascism. The only difference between fascism and other political systems is that fascism is exclusionary.
31:53 Whereas other political systems, most of them are inclusionary. But all political systems are driven by love. It would be mistaken to assume
32:04 that fascism is devoid of love. That's completely untrue. Fascism has a negative connotation for a reason.
32:10 However, right people exclusionary. Yes. Yes. You just tapped into that. That's a good way. If you if you don't belong, if you're not in the inroup, you are not deserving of love or empathy. And it's
32:21 brutal. I mean, ICE is brutal. There's a Gestapo. I mean concentration
32:27 camp in Florida alligator Awitz I'll call it brutal. So
32:33 where's the fascism is fascism externalizes aggression because it's nihilistic. It's about destruction.
32:40 So of course destruction is is and yet from your from I think where you're No text coming from MAGA would view it as this is love for country. We've got to get rid of these immigrants. However, most
32:51 of these things are wildly unpopular. You know, people don't want uh El Salvador gulog, you know, they don't
32:58 want what I've seen. They're very unpopular among Democrats. That's very true. They're very not just among
33:04 Democrats. I think Democrats actually represent the wide swath of America. I think this is an aberration. I think
33:10 MAGA and and what they're about is is peripheral. I mean, they're an extreme group that have metastasized across our
33:17 country because by force, by hook or by crook, they've taken over. So that's why I'm just looking for how do we, you
33:23 know, what are the chinks in the armor here that we can exploit and and and change things around. Yeah. The only
33:29 hope when when you're captured because it's a state capture. When you're captured by fascism, the only hope is
33:36 that fascism is always centered around a personality cult. There's always a
33:42 central figure. You remember the the elitist populism. So there's always an elite and the elite revolves around a
33:50 figure as a a human being an individual. Fascism is never never around an inst
33:57 never never revolves around an institution. It's not institutional. It's charismatic. You talked about Weberism the other. Yes. It's not
34:03 Webarian. It's charismatic. It's charismatic. Even in the USSR there was
34:09 the charismatic figure of Stalin. When Stalin died, the system collapsed. It
34:16 took it it took 30 years to collapse, but it collapsed because the charismatic figure was gone. And prior to Stalin,
34:23 you had Lenin who was also a charismatic figure. So, fascism is a charismatic
34:29 movement. You remove the leader, the the movement dies. It it may take a decade
34:35 to die or may take a year to die or may take three decades to die, but it dies. But what do we do in the meantime to
34:41 remove the leader? I mean that's the chinks in the armor I'm looking for to exploit visa. There are two ways to
34:47 remove the leader. There are two ways to remove the leader. One is to expose the leader. So one way is to expose foibless
34:56 and weaknesses and mistakes and so on of the leader or to provoke the leader to misbehave in public or to expose
35:03 exposure. And the second way is to wait for the leader to die physically. He's 79. No, Donald Trump dies. You can forget about this chapter in American history. It's done. It's over. What
35:15 about the dynasty? You've talked about how America dynasty. Well, he would like to establish a dynasty and so on. And
35:21 there may be other instances of fascism in American history. This is not the first one, of course, but this
35:29 particular MAGA movement is dead because it's not a movement. It's an extension of Donald Trump. Exactly as Nazism has
35:37 collapsed with Hitler and fascism with Mussolini and communism with Lenin and Stalin. They die, the system dies.
35:45 Another way is to expose the leader to to kind of belittle the leader to restore reality testing to somehow uh
35:54 open the eyes of people and so on so forth. That is extremely difficult because first of all it's perceived as adversarial like fascism is constructed around an
36:05 in-group and outgroup. The more you try to expose the leader the more this there's a line of demarcation the more there's a boundary between the in-group and the outroup the ingroup becomes more
36:17 cohesive and more defensive more protective of the leader. So, and
36:23 that is the the great mistake of the Democrats that they keep attacking Donald Trump personally
36:29 and he's trolling them. He's trolling them. He knows how to push the buttons. He knows how to and there is a
36:36 derangement syndrome. I fully agree, but it's provoke. I call it Trump delusional syndrome for those who think he's Yes.
36:43 the bees knees. Yeah. So, he's 79. I think the best strategy is to
36:51 criticize policies, expose the outcomes of policies and and but I think the main
36:57 strategy is to wait. The the most the cleverest thing to do, the smartest thing to do right now is to
37:04 No text wait. Well, and I think Sam, I I took your advice to heart along these lines. The last line of where I left off three
37:10 months ago with my writing is we're put in a position to sit back and watch this, you know, chaos unfold. And so
37:16 here we are went through Doge and ICE and all this, you know, all these hitting Iran the other day. I mean, we
37:22 just never know. The political narcissistic abuse is relentless every single day. It's a horror show. So why
37:29 am I going to hemorrhage my life force energy on covering a narcissist who's creating all this chaos when we can
37:35 count on the chaos? So I just And so now I think we're at a sort of an inflection point and a turning point where it's not just about covering for us journalists the minutia of it. It's about what is a long-term thinking. So that's kind of
37:47 where my headsp space is at the moment. Um I want to something that's in the zeitgeist that's bothersome to me is of
37:53 course Elon Musk and um and that he has pathized empathy as excessive empathy or
38:00 what he calls suicidal empathy. Um, and so he actually, here's a quote. He says,
38:06 "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy," adding that liberals and progressives are exploiting
38:12 a bug in Western civilization, which is empathy response. Um, he says it's weaponized. Can you comment on this, please? Yeah,
38:25 I I have a very dim view of the alleged intelligence of Elon Musk. I think the
38:32 guy is an idiot and I'm talking clinically. I think he's a very stupid man.
38:38 He's very rich precisely because he's very stupid. He's too stupid to evaluate the risks. So he charges ahead
38:44 regardless. And then of course in some of these some of the cases you make money and so on. But he's a stupid
38:50 person. Stupid in the sense that he's not analytical. He not synoptic. He doesn't have profound profoundity. He has no background. is only headline in
39:01 intelligence and so on. So I don't pay much attention to the nonsense that he spews on a daily basis by the way I
39:09 don't pay much attention but Musk is an excellent example to what happens to fascist movements.
39:16 It's a fly by night kind of thing. His gun essentially gone. And uh regarding the thesis that empathy is is
39:27 weaponized, I think there are instances of ostentatious empathy,
39:33 fake empathy, such as Greta Thornberg, for example, which I regard as a creepy,
39:40 nosiating thing and a narcissist, a rank narcissist. So rather than say that empathy per se
39:48 is weaponized by uh bleeding heart um liberals,
39:55 I don't think that's a correct anomnis or diagnosis. I think what what is happening is that narcissists and
40:02 psychopaths are leveraging ostentatious displays of empathy which are deceitful
40:10 and then penetrating levels of power or attaining power through these displays.
40:18 I would be wary not of empathy as such but of ostentatious empathy.
40:25 Um because ostentatious empathy is a great indication of underlying narcissism and psychopathy and the
40:31 problem is not the empathy of course it's the narcissism and psychopathy. Yeah. Okay. So I disagree with him
40:39 completely. Empathy is the glue that holds human societies, human collectives, families, even nuclear families. Empathy is a glue that holds absolutely everything together.
40:53 take away empathy and we're doomed as a as a species. I disagree as to the definition of empathy or the perception of empathy in many minds. But this very
41:05 uh creation of an imaginary intersubjective space, an imaginary space which is shared by more than one individual. This is the the thing that is holding us
41:18 together. So to say that empathy is a bug or it's not a bug, it's a feature
41:24 and it's a a critical feature. It's the operating system actually psychologically speaking. It's
41:30 absolutely the operating system and anyone who who mispersceives this has my
41:36 pity and my derision and contempt. Um however he is he may be right that
41:44 displays of empathy or centious empathy is being weaponized by unscrupulous callous ruthless psychopaths and narcissists in order to attain power and two examples are Elon Musk and Donald Trump of course perhaps the prime
42:00 examples of this. Mhm. I I share your dim view of Elon No text Musk, especially what with on the heels of doing our country and the collateral damage is extensive. Uh so and deaths
42:14 that he's perpetrated um as a result of US aid being shuttered. Uh, at any rate,
42:21 so I think it's pretty rich for Elon Musk to decry empathy across the board
42:27 when in my estimation he is cluster B and therefore he has cold empathy if nothing else himself. So I thought you could comment on cold empathy since we're headed up by so many cluster B
42:40 folks these days um leading the charge versus warm empathy.
42:46 Well, I'm the guy who coined the phrase called empathy and I I deeply regret it
42:52 because cold empathy of course has nothing to do with empathy. When we use the word empathy in colloquial speech,
42:58 we we mean effective empathy, emotional empathy, the ability to resonate emotionally with the with the imputed
43:05 state of mind of another person. Mind you imputed. It's a theory. We call it a theory of mind. The whole process
43:12 involves what we call mentalizing. So what's go what goes on with real empathy is you make deductions. You create a a theory on the fly regarding the state of
43:23 mind of another person based on cues, behavioral cues, body language, facial
43:29 expressions, micro expressions and so on. But the theory is yours. You are the one who is creating the theory and you're creating it as I said on the fly. It's instantaneous. It's an
43:40 improvisation. And based on this theory, you attribute to the other person a
43:47 state of mind, psychological state. And based on this attribution, you experience this psychological state in yourself. You emotionally resonate with the other person. It's actually a
43:59 reaction to your own theory, to the attribution, not to the other person. Because we can't have any access to another person's mind. So you are
44:10 reacting to your own theory and to your own attribution and and so on. And there's a reason why you're doing this. I will not go into it right now. Still, it's very powerful. And in the vast
44:22 majority of cases, your theory is probably right. For example, if you see someone crying and you generate a theory
44:29 that they're sad and then you feel sad for them, probably 99% of of the time your theory is right. Okay? We call this the intersubjective space. Okay, that's the core issue. Cold
44:42 empathy has nothing has no effective or emotional component. It has no inner
44:49 resonance of any kind. And in this sense, it is not fully internalized.
44:56 It's more like a theory in physics. You don't when you have when you create a theory about the sun, you don't
45:03 internalize the sun. You don't react emotionally to the sun. It has no it's not really internal. It's a computer can
45:10 generate a theory. Artificial intelligence can generate a theory about the sun. So cold empathy is observation
45:19 which yields a theory. And because it is founded merely on observation and theory
45:26 and that's where it stops. It can I can easily believe that artificial
45:33 intelligence would develop cold empathy in due time which is a major threat by the way
45:39 because these theories are usually highly correct. It's it gives it gives you power. You
45:46 can weaponize this which is what narcissists and psychopaths do. They create a theory about other people,
45:52 theories about other people and then they weaponize these theories. They use them. They leverage them. They penetrate
46:00 defenses. They exploit vulnerabilities. They So nothing is in common with effective or emotional empathy. Not the aftermath and not the anticidence. Nothing is there's nothing in common. It shouldn't be called actually called empathy. I think
46:17 it should be. Well, you've defined it as cognitive and reflexive as well. Cognitive and reflexive along the lines
46:23 of AI. Yes. Yeah. Because it's not human. It's not necessarily human. I
46:30 could conceive of many other systems who could develop and will in due time I believe develop cold empathy. There's no
46:37 there's no um demand or precondition that you should be human. Whereas effective or emotional empathy, I don't
46:44 believe artificial intelligence would ever have this. Never mind. What it's worth Sam, I like the term cold empathy. No text I think it's a good distinction. So broad. Yes. Okay. So I want to turn to
46:56 Jung. I know he went off the rails later in life and I've watched your videos kind of your take on but I wanted to
47:03 explore this notion has and I know this is a value judgment so bear with me. Okay. Has America failed to integrate
47:10 its shadow and its shadow taken over in much the same way that narcissists project their shadow onto others,
47:16 creating a toxic societal stew? Well, I'm I'm all for the concept of
47:22 shadow, which by the way is the repository of what Jung called the complexes, the rejected parts in you. The parts you
47:30 reject are there if you fail to project them. This is something which not many people realize.
47:37 When there are parts of you which you intensely dislike, there are three ways open to you.
47:43 Basically, the first way is projection. You can say it's not me, it's the other guy. Like, I'm not the one who is envious, he's envious of me. I'm not the one who's aggressive, he's aggressive
47:54 and so on. So, this is projection. Yeah. The second way open to you is reaction formation. completely denying
48:02 the parts in you that you hate, that you despise, that you reject, that you loathe, and then acting in ways
48:09 confirm to you and to others that you are not in possession of these parts. So the most perfect example is someone who
48:16 is a latent homosexual and becomes homophobic. So by ostentatiously and conspicuously
48:24 hating on homosexual people, he proves to himself and to others that he is not homosexual. So this is reaction
48:31 formation. And the third solution is the shadow is to rep to bury somehow somehow
48:38 bury or repress these parts of you which you find utterly unacceptable which you reject which you are ashamed of where the parts in you which cause you
48:49 egoiston. In other words, parts in you which makes you make you highly uncomfortable. And so what you do with these parts you bury them. there is this
48:56 swamp or these these alcatras alligator alcatras where you put all these parts
49:02 and you never ever get in touch with them. This is the shadow and these parts are known as complexes
49:08 and I'm I'm fully I fully agree with you on on this and I think
49:14 um in the United States the flirtation with the shadow
49:20 is an integral part of the ethos of the United States.
49:26 forever like from its very inception there was a flirtation with the shadow. The shadow has sometimes been embraced as an engine of growth as a force
49:38 forward as a motivational attitudinal source of energy.
49:44 Whereas other civilizations and c cultures have repressed the shadow, deplored the
49:51 shadow, ignored the shadow, projected it onto others or whatever. In the United
49:57 States, the shadow often rears its head, ugly or not, and is perceived as not
50:05 only legitimate but beneficial, a bene benefactor force, a force for the
50:11 good. And so you can find it in literature, you can find it in I mean Abdikeke
50:18 Fgerald, you can find it in in in the arts, but you can definitely also find it in politics and even I would say in political thinking and political science and so on so forth. Many American schools in psychology and sociology and
50:33 so on so forth seek to integrate the shadow by partly legitimizing it by by
50:41 trying to see the positive aspects of having a shadow, leveraging the shadow, using the shadow and and so on. This is unique to the United States. I personally am not aware of any other
50:54 civilization who has done this as a foundational principle with one exception and that would be Nazi Germany. I'm not aware of
51:05 it but Nazi Germany was an aberration and it was taken to extreme where the shadow became the dominant force. It was all defined by it's not the case in America. Of course, I'm not saying that America is a shadow civilization, shadowbased civilization like Nazi
51:22 Germany, but in America, the shadow is not totally rejected. And you can see it
51:28 in Donald Trump's speeches and so on so forth where he is sometimes embracing
51:34 what we would call the shadow and other people, the millions who are watching him are reactive positively to this.
51:42 Yesterday I I saw I saw for example Donald Trump saying uh Democrats hate me and I hate them too and I hate them because they hate America and they
51:54 essentially he he implied that they should die or should be expelled from America. And there was this crowd,
52:01 pretty big crowd and they were all cheering on. This is a shadow statement if any. They
52:09 were all cheering on. But it's not limited to Donald Trump. I think I can point to many many instances in American
52:15 history where the shadow was embraced as um as um integral part of appropriate
52:23 thinking of of the correct way forward of the right way forward of of
52:30 engendering the kind of energy which would induce change which essentially
52:36 would prove to be beneficial. And one instance, for example, is the deliberations
52:42 between Truman and his advisers and between Truman and himself on whether to
52:48 drop the atomic the nuclear bomb, the atomic bomb or not. It's a perfect example of wrestling with the shadow and
52:56 finally accepting the shadow as the the right solution, the the right thing, the right motivation. Uh it's it's fascinating by the way all the moral struggle. It's like uh like uh
53:11 Israel Israel and the angel fight between Israel and the angel in the Bible. The moral struggle inside
53:17 Truman's own psyche and with his advisers and and so on on whether to drop the bomb or not. Today we know of course that it was far from necessary. At least the second one was far from necessary. But at the time you see this
53:34 clash between small town provincial moral morality where he came from you
53:40 know and suddenly having to grapple with with
53:46 what you know Openheimer when he when he created the atomic bomb he said you know we have the famous saying from the rig
53:53 va he said that we have unleashed death so they've all unleashed the shadow The
54:00 whole Manhattan project and the use of the atomic bomb is a perfect example of what I'm saying of the usage of the shadow as a driving force which essentially is for the greater good and this is unique unique to America. I
54:12 don't know of any other civilization that has this. Okay. So to recap here we No text Americans we've been flirting with the shadow. So in that respect we acknowledge it and and not projecting
54:26 it. So uh so we can't we can't say that we failed to integrate our shadow and
54:32 that's what fells us. You don't see the need. You don't see the need to integrate. You you regard it as an integral part of yourself. Anyhow, part of your identity is this. I didn't know if it was projecting or if it was
54:43 shadow. And to me, maybe I haven't studied Jung enough to know how do you delineate, you know, how do you demarcate, you know, how do you know that Trump and as you just mentioned in the speech is not just projecting his
54:54 own damage onto us, you know, or is he acknowledging the shadow in the room? I No text think Americans are very grounded, very realistic. I think the project of of uh
55:06 getting rid of the shadow, reframing the shadow, I I think it's a highly idealistic and and counterfactual and
55:13 nonsensical project, honestly. So, in this respect, it's healthy that we're acknowledging nothing. Yes. I I'm I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. No, I
55:19 just I'm for audiences. I think absolutely. Yes. I think the American psyche in this sense is much healthier than the European psyche. Definitely.
55:27 The Europeans are what Freud would have called neurotic. Whereas Americans sometimes are
55:33 psychotic but all I mean by and large Americans are much healthier mentally
55:39 speaking than than Europeans in this sense collectively speaking of course. Uh and that's why for example you have
55:46 the gun the gun culture the gun culture which is unthinkable in in Europe.
55:52 That's why here. Yeah. Go ahead. So that's why you have so many things which in in Europe and other civilizations would have been considered indications of evil
56:03 of evil pure unmmitigated evil but you don't regard it as pure unmmitigated evil. You regard it as a manifestation
56:11 and express expression of human nature. You're much more realistic about human nature which is a secret for your success if you ask me. Why America has succeeded ultimately beyond anyone's
56:22 wildest imagination is that America has always remained grounded in reality. I mean we are evil, we're good, we're nuance, we're gray whenever, as I said earlier, good, bad, and ugly. It's all the above. Mhm. Europe has a splitting defense.
56:38 that one of the main reasons that the importation of European values and and beliefs onto
56:47 American soil, one of the main reasons this import has failed spectacularly
56:53 is because European value, especially French values and beliefs are founded on
56:59 splitting. There is if you're not for it, you're all evil. It's if you're not for a set of beliefs or a set of values. So that's the tyranny. That's the ideological tyranny. And it's alien to American nature. Americans are are highly
57:16 realistic about people. They know that people are sometimes good and sometimes evil. They know that in this sense,
57:24 Americans in in some ways are more forgiving of human nature and in some ways less forgiving of human nature
57:31 because Americans realize that people are much stronger than they appear to be. And so they have the choice. They make choices on the one hand and on the other hand,
57:43 Americans accept that some of these choices are going to be evil and wrong and so on.
57:50 There is an acceptance of of humanity of what makes us human in
57:56 America whereas there is a rejection of what makes us human in Europe. And when
58:02 you tried the American intellectuals when they tried to impose this rejection
58:09 of elements of humanity on the American people the result is Donald Trump.
58:16 So American people, the American people, I mean part a big part of the American people perceive Donald Trump as much
58:23 more human with all his foibless and all his idiocy, pronounced idiocy and is human and Trump is perceived as human whereas
58:36 many intellectuals in Harvard or wherever they're perceived as inhuman, not fully human, nonfor unforgiving in many ways. is tyrannical, the walk
58:47 movements, the victimhood movements. These are these are movements that idealize people and people are never
58:54 ever ideal. If you if you ask people to conform to an ideal, you're setting them
59:00 up for failure and they resent you for this. They hate you for this, which is
59:06 what American intellectuals have been doing in the past 40, 50 years. They've been setting up few people for failure
59:12 and then holding them in contempt for having failed. You know, I expect you to
59:18 never lie and then if you lie, you are a failure and I hold you in contempt for
59:24 lying. But people lie all the time according to many studies. Most of the time actually they lie. That's it.
59:31 That's what people do. And that's what Donald Trump symbolizes an acceptance.
59:37 That's what people do. He's going to be evil. He's going to be he's going to hate on you. That's because that's what
59:43 people do. So getting back to my framing and I hear you that fascism is not necess speaking
59:49 of splitting defense not necessar you know it's kind of the natural order of things. So we can't necessarily say it's bad categorically right however it is
59:57 kind of good uh pneumonic or like sort of contrast right. So love versus fascism. So I I wanted to talk to you
60:04 also because I know you've spoken at length about the role of aeros and libido in a functioning society and and
60:10 do they have a part to play in the scheme of things? First of all, I would advise you and of course you're at liberty to reject my advice. I will cry
60:17 and and you know cut my wrist and do horrible things to myself but still you're at liberty to cause me pain. But
60:26 seriously, I my advice is perhaps to consider um contradiction between inclusion or inclusionary and exclusionary.
60:37 Not so much love because there's a lot of love in fascism but it's exclusionary love. So the contradiction is a bit in my view it doesn't sound right. I think it's more about including people and excluding people. Fascism is definitely
60:55 about excluding people whereas liberal democracy and so on is about including people and can you say that love is about including people too I mean because really yeah it is in theory
61:06 inclusion and exclusion is not going to sell books like yeah it is in theory it's in theory about inclusion the the big problem with liberal democracy and so is that it is degenerated into
61:17 ideological tyranny and became in many ways fascistic
61:23 many ways is but okay well what we'll keep to to your language um
61:29 you're talking about and liido yeah so liido is is a component of aeros
61:37 libido is the is essentially the sex drive and aeros is the life force the what the French call called elam vital
61:44 like in the work of burgson and so on he called it elam vital the force of life
61:51 so it is a belief that sexuality drives the wish to to survive and because of
61:58 reproduction and so on so forth and therefore it is a critical component in in the force of life that has been
62:04 negated almost instantaneously by most of his disciples like Yung and Adler and I completely disagreed with him they
62:11 wanted sexuality gone and but Freud's big contribution was to to
62:19 suggest that we are confronted with a choice whether to embrace the force of
62:25 life or to deny it. At the time initially he did not come up with the
62:31 idea of the force of death, Thanos, theatic force. That was a much later development. He plagiarized it from
62:37 others as usual. But he did he did suggest that the source of all mental
62:44 illness is a rejection of life of the force of life. Later on um
62:52 thinkers like Harvey Kleley who was a clinician in a so Kley wrote about psychopathy he wrote the mask of sanity
62:58 which is a foundational seinal text and Kley also said it all comes comes down
63:05 boils down to a rejection of life. When you reject life aos means that you embrace life. Aeros means that you make life the affirming
63:16 energy the the the motivational attitudinal landscape within which you operate. It means that you reject all the alternatives to life and there's not
63:27 a single alternative to life. Death is one alternative but there are many others. For example, you could constrict
63:35 yourself. You could lock yourself in a room never ever to leave. That's a rejection of life.
63:42 Today uh majority of people according to Pew Center at least 42% but probably much
63:50 more. That's exactly what they're doing. They lock themselves in small tiny cubicles. They watch Netflix and have
63:56 two pets. And so this is a constriction of life. It's a rejection of life. Of course our automized civilization is a
64:03 death count, not a life cult. So there are many ways to reject life.
64:09 Not unnecessarily by committing suicide or dying dying. I mean many ways. Getting into a narcissistically abusive
64:16 relationship is a rejection. Yes. It's a it's self it's a form of self harming. Trauma bonding is a form of self harming. Um fascism is a rejection of of the totality of life. Fascism reserves life to its adherence but rejects life for everyone else. Ultimately it decays.
64:32 It it becomes decadent and then it's a rejection of life period. So there are many ways to reject life. What I think
64:38 what Freud was trying to say is that if we affirm and celebrate life repeatedly,
64:45 we are likely to guarantee positive outcomes both individually and collectively. And if we in any way
64:53 reject life, constrict it, um restrict it, suppress it, deny it, fight it,
65:00 reframe it or whatever, then we are definitely we would definitely have we
65:06 guaranteed negative outcomes in individually and collectively. And that's that's an amazing uh amazingly
65:15 perspeacious insight. I think he he was very right. I think we we are embedded in a death
65:22 cult. One of the manifestations of this death cult is consumerism where we value inanimate objects over
65:31 people. We sacrifice people sometimes physically uh in order to maintain material benefits or material goods. We so we are
65:43 we have we are transitioning from an in from an animate civilization a civilization of animated
65:50 objects to a civilization of inanimate objects and we are rendering ourselves inanimate
65:58 we are objectifying ourselves we are um and so fascism is ideally suited to this
66:07 because as I mentioned it's about nihilism And uh it's also ideally suited because
66:13 the collective gaze objectifies you the collective gaze. Whereas in other
66:19 systems it is the individual's gaze that gives rise to your sensation of being
66:26 seen. You're being seen through the individual another individual's gaze which is also a great definition of
66:32 empathy by the way. So in in fascism the only way you feel seen
66:39 is via the collective. The individual gaze loses its power in fascism.
66:46 Only the collective gaze uh gives rise to a sense of becoming to a sense of being. So fascism is about collective being collective
66:58 existence. You can exist only via the collective. If you are divorced from the
67:04 collective, if you are cast out of the collective, if you betray the collective, or if the collective changes in ways which you cannot accept, cannot conform with, at that moment your
67:16 existence is denied externally and but also internally. You also feel that you do not exist anymore. And so if you ask me what is the
67:27 greatest damage of fascism, it's not the Avitzes and it's not the people survive
67:33 everything. Ask Victor Franco. People survive the unless they die in the Holocaust, but okay. Yes. Go. Well,
67:39 okay. Not individuals, but people individuals don't survive, but people survive. You know nothing is is but uh
67:49 the greatest damage of fascism is the denial of the individual gaze is
67:55 ultimately disempowering the individual. uh is the insistence
68:02 on the only source of legitimacy on on the collective as the only source of legitimacy and not just any collective
68:10 but a highly specific exclusionary collective. That is a catastrophic
68:17 development on the individual level on the and on the species level or collective level. Catastrophic
68:23 development because the gaze is hijacked. There's a hijacking of the gays and it is hijacked usually by a
68:31 single individual. Hitler, Donald Trump, this single individual becomes the
68:37 source of the gaze. That's why the Republican party in Congress, they become animated through Donald Trump's gaze. If he doesn't gaze on them, they
68:48 are inert. They're dead. Not a single piece of legislation has
68:54 passed this Congress. Do you realize this? except the BBB. Do you think this is a compensatory the collectivism of fascism uh as a counterpoint to the atomization? Because
69:06 it's quite paradoxical to me. We could find ourselves in this sort of techdriven fascist state of things. No,
69:14 I think I think automization is a major source of power for modern fascism.
69:21 Okay. And Hitler understood this. Hitler introduced modern technology like divide
69:27 and conquer um and what it's creating the most power
69:33 powerful collectives imaginable. Hitler could only dream of this power. You could now use technology or leverage technology to create um protein collectives which are amorphous, ethereal, ephemeral and yet always there omnipresent.
69:54 And these collectives um can be communicated to individuals
70:01 via modern technology and there is no need for physical proximity or physical interaction whatsoever. On the very contrary, the individual feels empowered via the collective gaze of the technology. So it is a technology that
70:17 becomes the repository of the leader gaze. The leader's gaze is now a a
70:24 distributed network, a distributed system. Whereas Adolf Hitler, poor Adolf Hitler had to be there physically, you
70:31 know, screaming use of technology though he was pioneering. I said I said that he introduced modern technology, introduced
70:37 the microphone, introduced the airplane, introduced television here, right? Among the first to introduce television, but it wasn't enough. We what we have done
70:45 now is we have rendered the gaze distributed. We now have a distributed
70:52 gaze via technological means and the gaze reaches each and every individual on a highly specific channel and yet it is still the gaze of the leader.
71:04 So the empowerment the power that the technology affords technology gives to fascism nowadays is unprecedented in human history unprecedented. And the only remote parallel I can think of remote
71:20 is the use that Martin Luther has made of the printing press.
71:26 It's the only remote parallel I can think of is Martin Luther uh used the
71:32 printing press to create a a gaze create a framework that he then distributed to millions of people all over Northern Europe and that's the only parallel I
71:43 can think of. Mhm. But it's nothing printing press is nothing compared to Twitter or to you know nothing. I mean
71:50 Twitter is like I'm going to get back to love. Um, and so you you've talked about how
71:56 narcissistic abuse can be ruinous for one's health and what about the absence of love along these same lines. Isn't
72:02 that ruinous? I mean again it's like a study of contrast, right? You got narcissistic abuse on one hand and the absence of love so or love and and so I wanted you to comment on that and also your article which I hope we can link to
72:14 as well in the description about pathology of love that it's an addiction.
72:20 Yeah. Again um I don't think there's an absence of love. I think there is a reallocation or redistribution of love
72:27 in fascism. Love is monopolized in fascism. Love is no longer a public
72:33 good. It's a private good. Love is ordered. Love is stored in repositories
72:41 and then dispensed or distributed. The same way food is distributed in Gaza, you know, the same way.
72:48 Mhm. So fascism is about the monopolizing of of love and the
72:54 distribution of love to highly specific eligible adherence,
73:02 denying it to everyone outside the ingroup. And technology
73:08 allows love to be replicated and amplified. Nowadays modern technologies like social
73:14 media and so on allow love to be amplified and and so on and there is a sense of one one-on-one
73:22 and and so but I wouldn't say that love is denied or I would say that it is um
73:29 expropriated in a way everyone in the out group not only is
73:37 denied love but experiences hate
73:43 See, so fascism is not about, okay, we're going to love the in-group and we're going to ignore the out group. Fascism is about we're going to love the inroup and we're going to exterminate, eliminate, annihilate, repress the out group. We hate the out group. In many
74:00 ways, fascism is what we call negative identity formation. Who are you as a
74:06 supporter of Trump? You are not a liberal. You are not a progressive. You
74:12 It's because fascism is nihilistic. It has no agenda. It's nihilistic. It has negative. It creates negative identity formation. But then for negative identity formation to
74:24 exist, you must have a contrast between total love and total hate.
74:31 Total love and total hate. And but fascism is exclusionary.
74:38 and at the same time it's missionary. So fascism tells you all you have to do
74:44 is support and love Donald Trump ostentatiously and you're one of us and you will experience all the love that
74:50 you need. So it's not like you know this is it and
74:56 entrance denied the doors are wide open and in this sense fascism of course is
75:02 reminiscent of religion. you just convert and you will enjoy the kingdom of heaven. I think in my question I was
75:10 putting um narcissistic abuse in for fascism per se. Uh because if you're a
75:17 narcissist you're incapable of love and so then we live in a narcissistic or borderline narcissistic psychopy culture, right? So where does that leave
75:28 the rest of us? Is this antiquated this notion of love? Are we completely outdated because they set the tone at the top? Again, I repeat, fascism is not about absence of love. But what I agree
75:39 with you is that fascism is a shared fantasy. Mhm. That's where I agree with you. Fascism is highly reminiscent of
75:46 the Nazarist shared fantasy. Fascism is founded on on hagography.
75:53 So in this sense, it's religious. But it's also founded on a kingdom of heaven. It's, as I said, utopian. the
76:00 nihilism itself, the destruction itself is the utopia. And so there's a fantasy there. There
76:06 are founding texts. There are there are um renditions of crucial figures
76:14 especially the leader which are completely devotional reality. So there's an impaired reality testing. The
76:20 shared fantasy is about aggrandisement not only of the leader but agrandisement of anyone and everyone who belong.
76:27 So there's aggandisement and so on. So where I would agree with you that there is narcissistic abuse in this sense is
76:35 that fascism imposes a shared fantasy on its followers. And when you enter this shared fantasy, you have to suspend your reality testing. You're being gaslit. So there's
76:47 a lot of gaslighting. you have to accept the tenants of the fantasy as real and you um you're under some kind of oppression.
76:59 You you're afraid to to be you to be you suspend yourself. There's self-denial, a lot of self-denial involved. In this
77:06 sense, it's highly abusive. Fascism is abusive. I agree. But any ideological tyranny is abusive. For example, I consider the cancel culture to be highly abusive.
77:18 So whenever you deteriorate, whenever you degenerate into ideological tyranny,
77:24 left or right, it's fascism. Fascism. Yes. And you know, I agree with
77:30 you along these lines. I'm I don't like the authoritarianism of the woke movement, which seems by and large dead
77:36 at this point. But it's interesting to me as we kind of parse this that we're talking about narcissistic abuse being a
77:44 fantasy and then love could be is real. So even the love that you're espousing
77:50 within fascism is that it's not real. So I didn't say it's real. Yeah. I said
77:57 there is experience of love. The people embedded in the shirt fantasy experience
78:03 love. So but it's delusional. It's not real. Fascism, fascism
78:09 um is founded on on love for the members of the inroup. However, because fascism is divorced from reality, everything in fascism is a simulacum.
78:20 Is a simulation. Fascism is a simulation. It's not real. That's why fascism keeps failing all the time.
78:26 There hasn't been a single instance of fascism which ended up successfully with the exception maybe of Franco in Spain.
78:34 And even this is debatable and I don't think he was a fascist at all. He was more of a monarchist though. But leave that aside except except Franco I cannot think of a single instance and uh so and
78:46 that's because fascism is devoted from reality. Everything inside fascism is unreal. The the love is unreal. The the
78:52 only thing I think is that is pretty real is the hate. The hate for others, the hate for the out group is real. So
79:00 you could say that fascism that's consistent with narcissism. I mean I guess yes you could say that fascism is a hate fantasy. It's a hate fantasy and in order to maintain co the cohision of
79:10 the fantasy and the cohision of the adherence to the fantasy there is an a simulation a simulation of love a sim
79:17 lacroom of love directed internally inwardly and that is in order to maintain the energy of hate.
79:25 Fascism without hate dies. Fascism requires external enemies all the time,
79:31 generates them, invents them, creates them. I mean, it's a perpetual mobility
79:37 of of enemies and and so on. So, uh the if you were to ask me what's the
79:44 dominant authentic emotion in fascism, it's hate, of course. And what's the dominant structure in fascism? It's
79:50 fantasy. And what about other emotions within fascism? Like everything else within
79:57 fascism, it's a simulation. It's a similar. You know, the leader is a simulation. Is Donald Trump a leader?
80:03 It's a caricature. It's a caricature of a leader. People project onto him all kinds of things.
80:10 He's a blank screen. Project onto him. And so he becomes a fantasy figure and fantasy action figure. No, it's all
80:18 fantasy. Is the Republican party in Congress a real party?
80:24 It's not. It's a death cult. They're all about death and money. That's the two. It's a fantasy. And it's also a fantasy because a real party is active. It's pushes back against other branches of
80:36 government. It introduces legislation. It's but it's a simulation of a party. Everything degenerated in the Republican camp. Everything is degenerated into a fantasy because they found reality
80:48 unpalatable. They couldn't cope with reality anymore. These people, they couldn't. They just
80:54 couldn't. Some of them felt that they have they are being held in contempt. Some of them felt subjugated by some
81:00 kind of ideological tyranny. Some of them felt threatened. Some of them they all felt bad. They couldn't cope with
81:08 with the reality of what they called the left, the reality of the left. So they they deserted. They abandoned the field.
81:15 They abandoned not they didn't abandon the left. They didn't abandon walk movements. They didn't abandon
81:21 victimhood movements. They didn't abandon any of this. They abandoned reality. The big story of the Trump movement, the
81:28 big story of MAGA is that it has been an abandonment, a movement for abandoning
81:34 reality because reality was no longer tolerable and bearable. So they created a fantasy land, fantasy space where reality, the
81:45 reality of that fantasy space, which was of course fantastic, was acceptable to
81:51 them. they could survive there survivable in this reality within this imaginary space within this simulacum. They felt loved. They felt seen. They
82:02 felt they felt safe. They felt catered to and so on. And in order to experience
82:10 this sense of safety, this sense of belonging, this sense of certainty, they
82:16 were willing and unwilling to sacrifice anything. their healthcare insurance goes back to
82:22 BBB. Exactly. Yes. Their their welfare that you name it, they would sacrifice anything because there is nothing that
82:30 terrifies people more than feeling than the feeling that you're unsafe. That uncertainty is gives rise to anxiety and anxiety is the major
82:41 destabilizing force in the human psyche. People would do anything to avoid anxiety. I would generalize and say that
82:48 Trump's genius is that he created an anxolytic movement. A movement that reduces anxiety, takes care of anxiety. Seems counterfactual somehow. For some people, it works. Mhm. Yes. So, just to round out our conversation today, I know you've had a
83:05 lot of uh videos about gender dynamics and how the kids aren't having sex these days. And so lack of aeros you know like what's going on with this lack of love is sort of the societal glue or empathy
83:17 if you could comment on that. We said we both agreed that there is a rejection of life sex where and this is
83:25 where I agree actually with Freud and not with his detractors. I think sex is a major symptom of life. Like if life is
83:33 a disease sex is the symptom. So I think when people reject sex they're rejecting life and if you reject sex and by implication life you're incapable of love and you see no need for empathy
83:49 and then the natural order the natural organization organizational principle would be to isolate yourself because if
83:55 you reject life and sex and why do you need other people? Other people become a liability.
84:01 There's an investment in other people which which gives no fruits and yields nothing. the return on investment is
84:07 negative. So why would you seek other people? So this leads to automization and and so on so forth. I think this is
84:13 an inexurable process. The minute we reject life, no it starts with reality.
84:19 The minute you reject reality by definition you reject life. The minute you reject life you reject all the symptoms and manifestations and
84:25 expressions of life like love, like sex, like empathy and so on. And then having
84:31 rejected all these, you reject the social structure itself, society itself,
84:38 because it's no longer beneficial. It it doesn't make sense. It's not rational. It's irrational to to it's much better
84:46 to isolate yourself and become self-contained and self-sufficient. And that's it. Why do you need any of these?
84:53 Yeah. Back to your article on fascism I referenced earlier, you closed it out by saying, I'm going to quote you here, that we no longer accept our common fate
85:04 and the need to collaborate to improve our lot is nothing short of suicidal.
85:10 Is this need to collaborate predicated on empathy and love or is it just practical? No, I think it's practical.
85:17 But I think where the debate is, some people believe, including the tech brothers,
85:23 tech bros, yeah, believe that technology has truly rendered us um self-sufficient
85:30 and self-contained and therefore society has become either superfluous or we need
85:37 to redesign society in in fundamental profound ways for it to make sense. Like
85:44 society as it is now does not make sense. Why it doesn't make sense? Because we don't need it anymore.
85:50 Technology has rendered us gods. We're godlike. So now we need a new type of society if at all. Maybe not. Maybe not.
85:58 So this is one part of the debate, one camp. In the other camp, it says
86:04 um this this belief that we no longer need to collaborate and work with each
86:10 other because technology has made it unnecessary is wrong and therefore suicidal in the
86:17 long run. Um because if we don't collaborate with each other, if we
86:24 automize our ourselves, if we immerse ourselves in totally imaginary spaces
86:30 like the metaverse or like the MAGA movement, the metaverse and the MAGA movement are flip sides of the same
86:36 coin. If we do this, we will lose the capacity to collaborate and we will not
86:43 be ready to to deal with contingencies. No one can guarantee a smooth
86:49 functioning uh smooth arc of history. No one. We need to preserve this capacity to work together just in case. And if you give up on this major asset sooner or later, for example, COVID 19,
87:05 you're going to find out that you gave up on the existence of the human species. I belong to the second camp.
87:11 Firmly belong to the second camp. I think the tech bros and all these uh
87:17 Peter Tails and Elon Musks and so on, I think they are narcissists and
87:23 inevitably they're spinning shared fantasies. I think these fantasies have nothing to do with reality. They're not
87:29 grounded. They're totally insane and and veritably stupid in majority of cases.
87:35 And I think regrettably there's a confluence between one type of fantasy which is the
87:41 political fantasy and another type of fantasy which is the technological fantasy. And these two feed on each
87:48 other. They are mutually reinforcing. And they render the very idea of fantasy
87:54 as a great substitute for reality. They render this idea which would have been laughable 20 years ago. Suddenly it becomes respectable and legitimate. Like
88:05 people say actually why do we need to be in reality? Why do we need reality? Like
88:11 what if we are in in the metaverse? We can work in the metaverse. We can have sex in the metaverse. We can why do we
88:17 need reality? Or why do we need to uh take into account other people's
88:24 preferences and priorities and emotions and condition and we don't need we we can be fascists or we can be MAGA
88:33 members of the MAGA movement or we we can destroy everything. Why do we need institutions? Actually we can destroy
88:39 everything. The minute you divorce reality, nothing in reality makes sense and nothing in
88:45 reality is immune to nihilism. Nothing.
88:51 So this is a nihilistic thing. Fantasies are always nihilistic.
88:57 One of the great mistakes of the 18th century, great huge mistake. I trace, you know very well that I trace many of
89:04 these issues to the enlightenment and to to the renaissance. I think the Enlightenment and the Renaissance got it
89:11 disastrously wrong in many ways. But one of the huge mistakes of the Enlightenment
89:17 was the belief that fantasies could supplant reality
89:23 and succeed even more than reality. That reality sucks, reality is somehow flawed
89:29 and defective. And that we could fix it. Like we could fix it. It was a fix it movement. You know, the Enlightenment was a fix it movement. Using our reasoning and the gift, the god-gifted
89:41 rationale that we have, ratio that we have, we can now fix reality. How do we fix reality? We superimpose on it an
89:48 artificial environment, a fantasy. They called it utopia. But what is utopia?
89:55 Utopia, a place that does not exist. It was doomed to failure. This whole
90:02 experiment with fantasy. And then we started to spin fantasies. We had communism. We had fascism, we had
90:08 Nazism, we had liberalism, we had these all fantasies. They're all fantastic spaces. This a giant mistake. The
90:15 enlightenment made two mistakes. Demanding of people what they could not deliver, creating resentment and hatred.
90:22 And the belief that reality is utterly dispensable and that using our brain,
90:30 this enormous machinery, we can somehow uh geoengineer or terraform reality into
90:38 a new planet of our own making. HG Wells of course in the time machine described this and the inevitable consequences. So this this these were the mistakes of the enlightenment. Fascism is an
90:51 extension of the Enlightenment. Make no mistake about it. Fascism is the marriage of the Enlightenment with the
90:57 Renaissance. Make no mistake about it. Somewhere in the 15th century, 16th century, we've
91:03 gone wrong. We took the wrong folk in the road and we are still walking. There's this belief that we are now much
91:09 more advanced, postmodern, I don't know, and other We are still there walking.
91:17 We like to think that, you know, progress is linear, but it's, you know, you talked about in the Renaissance in one of our our video interviews about how it's cyclical that things burn out under the weight of corruption. I I feel
91:29 that these days. Do you think we're going through societal collapse? Is this is this what the dark ages looks like? Because you've also prognosticated that, you know, Ross, you know. Yes. I think
91:40 uh we're in a period of transition definitely between reality and fantasy. Mhm. Reality is organizing principle and
91:47 fantasy is organizing principle. And now we face a choice. We seem to be choosing fantasy which would doom us to a period of of
91:58 the darkest of dark ages and possibly worse. I cannot rule out extinction or
92:04 massive extinction. So we seem to be choosing fantasy. If we wake up and we revert to reality, then maybe things will be okay. But I'm not optimistic because fantasy is fantasy is a bait. It's very alluring.
92:21 It dispenses. Fantasy dispenses with with all the sharp edges of reality with all the painful moments and aspects of
92:29 reality. It's fantasy is is designer. It's a designer. You know, finally
92:35 there's a designer universe, you know, like a drug. Mhm. So, and Peter Thiel
92:41 doesn't really believe that humans should exist. I mean, you're talking about like a neurochip or neurolink chip in our brain with Elon Musk. And so, these tech bros, they're conceiving a future where humans with all their
92:52 frailties and foibless are just irrelevant in the face of this awesome technology we've developed. So, to the
92:59 point where we could just eradicate. I mean, I think that's what this systematized eugenics is about. I'm a
93:05 specist. I'm a specist. I support my species. Yes. I am you're a humanist too, right? I mean humanist. Yes. I firmly support my species. And I think
93:17 also I think that's another fantasy. The belief that for example artificial intelligence at one point would be able
93:23 to supplant or replace humanity or substitute for it. There is of course the assumption that artificial intelligence would have no trace of humanity in it. Whereas we keep forgetting humans designed it. So of
93:36 course it would have traces of humanity more than traces like shall we say 90%. So yes it will be silicon based or something else titanium I don't know what but it will be human there's no way
93:48 to avoid this whatever technology we create is human and will always be human even if all of us die yourself and myself included. Well, maybe that's a good way to close this out because the
94:00 embrace of life aeros is a counterpoint to these tech bros who are nihilistic and pedalling fantasy. Yeah, I think uh I I am hoping for a
94:13 counterculture or counter movement or that will somehow re reclaim life
94:21 somehow reclaim life. We need to get rid of many technology or of the exaggerated usage of many technologies. We need to reframe the political arena.
94:32 We need to avoid extremism left and right ideological tyranny.
94:38 We need to finally see other people. That's why I agree with you that empathy is the key. You see, if the Democrats
94:45 saw other people, there would have been no MAGA and not I think if Voke didn't exist, there would be no MAGA. Yeah. that 10% or so of this of the far left has skewed things such the Democrats
94:56 didn't see people like my father who was a construction worker and so on. They didn't see these kind of people. They
95:02 were invisible to them. They were the party of the working class but not really because anymore
95:08 party of of the intellectuals. So I think if we begin to see other people uh
95:14 most of these things will vanish. the fascism, MAGA, tech bros, I mean all these things. If we finally see each
95:21 other, we need to be seen. I keep saying in my lectures that this the basic primordial survival strategy is to be seen. If a baby is not seen, it's a dead baby sooner or later. The first thing we
95:34 do age six six days is we cry. We want to attract attention. We need to be seen. And so if you hold people in contempt, if you look down at them, if you ignore them, if you pretend that
95:46 they are nothing but numbers or statistics and so on, they don't feel seen. And they don't feel seen. This
95:53 alienates them. They atomize, they isolate themselves and they give in, they give up their power to a leader.
96:01 And the leader's gaze defines them. They feel seen. They're calling him daddy now, which is what you had been saying
96:07 all along. Daddy is good. I mean they call it they are calling him second second coming. I mean I'm kidding you not. I've seen I mean he's a second coming. This is my wish us well this
96:18 Independence Day weekend. Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation
96:24 Sam. It's always enlightening and I really appreciate all your intellect and everything you bring to the table. It's just awesome. So thank you. It's really
96:30 good to see you. Thank you for your patience. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Happy Independence Day. Yours at least. Okay. Thank you. Bye.

Summary Link:

https://vakninsummaries.com/ (Full summaries of Sam Vaknin’s videos)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/mediakit.html (My work in psychology: Media Kit and Press Room)

Bonus Consultations with Sam Vaknin or Lidija Rangelovska (or both) http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/ctcounsel.html

http://www.youtube.com/samvaknin (Narcissists, Psychopaths, Abuse)

http://www.youtube.com/vakninmusings (World in Conflict and Transition)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com (Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited)

http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/cv.html (Biography and Resume)

Summary

Abuse, Meaning, narcissism, narcissist, Personality, Psychology, Reality, Sam Vaknin, Trauma, Vaknin Summaries

If you enjoyed this article, you might like the following:

Are All Gamblers Narcissists? (+Sports Betting) (Gambling Disorder with Brian Pempus)

The discussion explored the complex psychological dynamics of gambling disorder, distinguishing it from professional gambling and emphasizing its nature as a process addiction linked to reward systems rather than impulse control or compulsion. The conversation highlighted strong associations between gambling disorder and personality disorders like narcissistic, antisocial, and borderline personality

August 16, 2025

Narcissist Accuses YOU of Lacking Empathy, Compassion! (Entitled Alloplastic Defense)

The speaker confronted two unrelated individuals about their disrespectful behavior, who both responded with apologies followed by offensive attacks, accusing the speaker of lacking compassion. This reaction is described as an example of aloplastic defenses, where individuals shift blame onto others to avoid personal responsibility and exhibit a strong sense

August 15, 2025

From Drama, Recklessness to Risk Aversion (in Psychopathic Personalities)

The discussion focused on the behavioral evolution of individuals with psychopathic and narcissistic traits, highlighting how their reckless, thrill-seeking behaviors tend to diminish with age, often transforming into more pro-social, risk-averse tendencies. This transition is theorized to involve neurobiological changes and the psychological process of sublimation, where aggressive impulses are

August 14, 2025

Intoxicated in Narcissist’s Shared Fantasy (EXCERPTS with NATV)

The discussion focused on the isolating and manipulative nature of narcissism, describing how narcissists create a detached, idealized reality that traps their victims, cutting them off from meaningful connections and reality checks. It was highlighted that narcissism is a global, pervasive phenomenon exacerbated by societal shifts such as technological isolation,

August 13, 2025

Young Politician? BEWARE of This! (Political Academy)

The speaker addressed young aspiring politicians, warning them about the harsh realities of politics, emphasizing the importance of staying true to oneself despite temptations of corruption and power. He outlined the different types of politicians and political strategies, while stressing that youth is a liability in politics, with limited pathways

August 12, 2025

10 Ways Narcissist Corrupts How You See the World, Others – Part 1 (EXCERPT Skopje Seminar, 2025)

The speaker discussed how narcissistic abuse profoundly alters a victim’s perception of reality by destroying their internal theories of mind and relationships, leading to an epistemic crisis. This abuse causes victims to develop distrust, see the world as hostile and meaningless, and lose the ability to find meaning in life.

August 11, 2025

Is Healthy Narcissism Real? Is There Such a Thing? (with Marcia Maia, Clinical Psychologist)

Exploration of healthy narcissism as essential to mental health:
Foundation for self-concept, self-esteem, self-confidence, and internal-external world differentiation.
Narcissism is a universal, hereditary trait vital for identity and continuity of self.
Established mental health criteria:
Ego-syntonic: feeling content with oneself.
Functionality: ability to perform across

August 11, 2025

How Technologies Profit from Your Loneliness, Encourage It

The discussion emphasized the critical role of healthy narcissism as a foundational element of mental health, distinguishing it from pathological narcissism and highlighting its genetic basis. It was proposed that mental health should be measured not only by ego-syntonic happiness and functionality but also by a third criterion: reality testing,

August 10, 2025

Can YOU Be an Innovator? Not So Fast!

In this meeting, San Batin emphasized that innovation requires a unique combination of psychological traits, including humility, lifelong curiosity, open-mindedness, and the ability to form novel connections between concepts. Innovators are characterized by their deep respect for existing knowledge and their persistent wonder at the mysteries of reality, which drives

August 9, 2025

Narcissist’s Words: Problematic, Assertoric – Not Apodictic

The speaker explored the philosophical distinctions in types of speech—assertoric, problematic, and apodictic—drawing on Aristotle and Kant to analyze how narcissists employ language. Narcissists predominantly use assertoric speech, making uncompromising, unverifiable claims to support their grandiose self-image, while often presenting apodictic speech that appears revolutionary but merely redefines established concepts.

August 7, 2025

Vaknin Transcripts