Tip: click a paragraph to jump to the exact moment in the video. Being Alone is Normal, Socializing is Coercive (Loneliness Industry Podcast)

1. 00:02 Modern technologies such as social media have rendered us self-sufficient.
2. 00:08 We no longer need other people. Not in the flesh anyhow. We can and many of us
3. 00:15 do lead isolated lives in our caves known as apartments with Netflix and in
4. 00:23 the best case to cats. And so this is the postmodern lifestyle.
5. 00:31 And I think we are lucky because when people come together nowadays,
6. 00:37 it’s a union of hatred and envy and rage,
7. 00:43 negative effects have become the new social glue. I would even say the
8. 00:49 exclusive social glue. People don’t come together anymore in order to further any
9. 00:55 causes in any meaningful way. I’m not talking about narcissistic virtue signaling.
10. 01:01 People are not don’t do empathy. They don’t do love. They don’t don’t do bonding and attachment and marriage and committed relationships. They don’t do any of this. They do hatred. They do
11. 01:14 envy. They do rage. They do nihilistic destruction. They
12. 01:20 revel. They cherish. They flourish in the demise of the other. And who is who
13. 01:27 is this other? It’s not the billionaires. The billionaires are a species unto
14. 01:33 their own. There’s nothing you can envy in a billionaire. It’s so way out of the
15. 01:41 reach of most people that billionaires are perceived as living on another planet. An alien. an alien
16. 01:49 extraterrestrial species visiting Earth from time to time. So there’s no envy there. But you as an uneducated, underpaid,
17. 02:00 ridiculed, discriminated against, overlooked
18. 02:06 human being. You would envy your neighbor, your middle-class neighbor,
19. 02:12 who is better educated, is better paid, is esteemed and
20. 02:18 cherished and valued. You would envy that person,
21. 02:24 the underpaid, lower middle classes and working class, they envy the middle
22. 02:30 class. They don’t envy the billionaires. On the very contrary, they weaponize billionaires against the middle class. It is the middle class
23. 02:43 including public intellectuals, professors, the elites, medical doctors, experts, um people who leverage their education
24. 02:55 and knowledge in order to make money and survive and thrive. They are the target. They are the target
25. 03:02 of the mob. They are the target of the emerging olocracy. They are the target
26. 03:08 of the weaponized oligarchs. They are the target of the hatred movement, of the envy movement, of the rage movement, of the nihilistic
27. 03:19 movement which passes for politics nowadays. So, aren’t we better off
28. 03:27 isolated from each other? Aren’t we much safer when we do not collaborate, when
29. 03:33 we do not collude, when we do not conspire to destroy each other? I think we are. Moreover, I believe that being
30. 03:41 alone is the natural state and that having been forced to work with each other in close proximity to collaborate with each other on anything from reproduction to recreation to
31. 03:54 production, manufacturing. Having been forced to do this, it created a lot of pent up resentment and hatred and envy and rage and other negative effects. I
32. 04:06 think our natural state is to be alone. And the abnormal state is having to deal
33. 04:13 with other people, which sucks. It’s honorous. It’s difficult. It’s disgusting. Other people suck.
34. 04:22 And so leaders like Donald Trump and Erdogan and Netanyahu and Putin and Modi
35. 04:29 and Mle and many others, such leaders and Oban of course such leaders leverage
36. 04:37 these negative effects, this hatred, this envy, this rage against the other. The other which is the same like me but has done better in life. Same like me
37. 04:49 but more educated. Same like me, but better paid. Same like me, but you know, goes on vacations constantly. Same like
38. 04:56 me, but has a a functional family. Same like me, not an oligarch, not a
39. 05:02 billionaire, which is way beyond my reach and absolutely not the same like me, but people who are the same like me,
40. 05:09 but have won a hand in the lottery of life. And so
41. 05:16 populist leaders leverage this this aggression and thrive on it and
42. 05:22 construct whole empires and patronage networks and political parties centered around this.
43. 05:28 And so at the current moment in history, we are far better alone than together.
44. 05:35 togetherness nowadays, the intimacy of the masses, the hive mind, the cult
45. 05:41 mind, they are existential threats to the human species.
46. 05:47 We should thank modern technology for pulling us apart, from preventing us from interacting meaningfully with others because when we do, we get MAGA.
47. 05:58 When we do, we get Netanyahu’s party, the liquid, the right wings. When we do,
48. 06:06 we get Putin. And when we do, we get Hitler.
49. 06:12 You’re about to watch a um an interview I um have had and regrettably the interviewer refused
50. 06:23 permission, refused to allow me to upload the raw unedited exchange. So
51. 06:29 what you’re about to watch is a censored edited version which I disavow and do
52. 06:36 not endorse. But still it’s better than nothing.
53. 06:44 Dear listeners, today I have something a little different and I think you’ll find it fascinating. In the last episode, I
54. 06:51 used the theories of Vaknan and Hegel to explore the narcissism embedded in Western spiritualism. And it occurred to
55. 06:57 me afterwards that only one of these theorists is dead. The other is a brilliant, eloquent speaker who could
56. 07:03 present his own ideas far better than a third party interpreting them. This week you’ll hear directly from Professor Sam
57. 07:10 Vakton himself, one of the most recognized and yes controversial voices on narcissism. Now we come at this topic from different angles. Professor Vakn goes deep into
58. 07:21 aspects of his theory that that may not have been laid out before. His view that narcissism arises from the human
59. 07:27 condition itself and that the power structures around us simply reflect this inherent nature. Now, if you’re a
60. 07:33 regular listener, you’ll know that I lean more towards seeing power structures as integral to our atomization and as fostering
61. 07:40 narcissistic traits as coping mechanisms. So, after Sam’s articulation of his theory, we move into a broader
62. 07:46 discussion. And this this isn’t about who’s right or wrong. It’s about exploring different perspectives to
63. 07:52 better understand and hopefully better address the challenges of connection and disconnection in our time. That no
64. 07:59 single lens has the whole truth. And the more angles we bring to loneliness and isolation, the better equipped we are to
65. 08:06 deal with them. So our conversation is a long one. And one thing that Sam and I absolutely agree on is not censoring
66. 08:13 opinion. So I’ll be bringing you this in two parts. Part two will be out next week. And this week, I invite you to
67. 08:20 listen with curiosity and to notice what resonates for you and what doesn’t because the questions we ask about human
68. 08:26 nature shape how we see the roles of culture and power. Now, if this is your first time here, I’m Jordan Rain, a
69. 08:32 philosophy graduate with a severe allergy to self-help gurus, and this is the loneliness industry, a podcast where
70. 08:39 we examine the forces that shape our ability or inability to connect. Now,
71. 08:45 Professor Vaknan, um I suspect you don’t need much of an introduction, especially if anyone has Googled the word
72. 08:51 narcissist after a mindbending breakup. But in case anyone listening opted to go into hiding due to society’s current
73. 08:57 state, Professor Vaknan is the author of malignant self-love. A pioneer in the field of narcissism studies and one of
74. 09:04 the most controversial and most cited voices on pathological narcissism.
75. 09:10 This is the man who coined most of the language we have today when it comes to narcissistic types, tactics, and
76. 09:16 behaviors. In the mid ’90s, Professor Vaknan was almost the sole voice on understanding narcissism as pathology. Slightly less wellknown is the fact that he also delves deep into narcissism as a
77. 09:28 more general requirement of being in Western cultures. A professor of psychology, a former economic adviser
78. 09:34 and someone whose work has not only shaped the online understanding of narcissism, but has also ignited intense
79. 09:40 debate across academic and clinical spheres. He’s also, and I say this with great admiration, impossible to reduce to a single label. So instead of trying,
80. 09:51 let’s hear directly from the man himself. Sam, thank you for agreeing to speak on the loneliness industry. It is
81. 09:57 an honor to have you here. Thank you for having me and thank you for the introduction. I barely recognize
82. 10:03 myself in it. I’ve listened to enough of your stuff by now that everything I’m saying is true.
83. 10:10 You are unclassifiable. So I’m going to start with the first question here. Um I’m going to move from the personal to
84. 10:16 the relational. Um with this question, one of the recurring themes in the loneliness industry is how narcissistic
85. 10:22 systems whether indiv individual or institutional create profound loneliness by severing us from real connection. So
86. 10:29 before before we zoom out to the societal patterns, uh let’s begin with the individual in their relational context. How does narcissism create disconnection both internally for the narcissist and
87. 10:40 externally for those in relationship with them? I don’t think that uh that narcissism
88. 10:48 creates loneliness. I think it’s rather the other way around. I think loneliness creates or triggers narcissistic
89. 10:55 defenses. And with your kind permission, if you if you were to suffer me for the next five
90. 11:02 minutes, I I I will try to give an overview of how I see things, what has led to what, the chain of causation and
91. 11:08 so on. And perhaps based on that, we could go on tangents and and explore
92. 11:14 additional territories and so on. Sounds good. Start with the with the foundational,
93. 11:20 indisputable, non-controversial fact that we all need to be seen.
94. 11:26 And this starts in early childhood. This starts when you’re a newborn. The first thing a
95. 11:33 newborn does is attract attention. A newborn who fails at attracting attention is a newborn with a very limited life expectancy. And so the need to be seen is a survival strategy
96. 11:50 experience subjectively as a need. Actually, it’s about survival.
97. 11:57 It is through the gaze of other people that we derive initially sustenance,
98. 12:03 food, shelter, changing of diapers for those of us who are lucky. And then later on in life, it is the gaze of others that define defines us.
99. 12:15 It is through the gaze of others that we acquire the sense of existing. Existence is not a given. Absolutely not. People think that existence just is
100. 12:26 part and parcel of being human or being an organism. That’s not true. It’s not
101. 12:32 part and parcel of sentience. It’s not part and parcel of consciousness. It’s not the sense of uninterrupted
102. 12:39 continuous core that is immutable, always there. The sense of being, the
103. 12:45 sense of what we call the self, the boundaries between you and the world. The world stops here and I start and I
104. 12:51 stop here and the world starts and all the all these are just forms of internalized gaze
105. 12:59 other people’s gaze that’s not some vagnim that’s lan actually and so the
106. 13:06 first instance of a defining gaze is inevitably inelectably the mother’s gaze
107. 13:14 it is through the mother’s gaze that the newborn acquires a sense of selfhood But mind you, it comes at a cost and the cost is trauma.
108. 13:26 It’s very traumatizing to realize that you are not a part of mother and mother is not a part of you. To realize that
109. 13:33 mother is a separate external entity with a mind of of her own, autonomous
110. 13:40 and independent and agentic. It’s it’s terrifying because it means it translates into an
111. 13:47 innate sense of less loss of control. The symbiotic phase where the baby and
112. 13:53 mother are one is very anxolytic. It reduces anxiety. The baby is not anxious because there’s nobody out there. Baby and mother are one. But then suddenly through mother’s
113. 14:04 gaze the baby becomes separate. Bear bear with me. I’m leading somewhere. I am even going to answer your question
114. 14:11 shockingly ultimately but we need we absolutely need this background because the need to be seen
115. 14:18 of course has vast social societal cultural and commercial implication
116. 14:25 and so we start with this fact and then every time we experience someone else’s gaze we also reexperience the original trauma
117. 14:40 Because it is true someone else’s gaze evinces,
118. 14:48 documents our separateness. When we encounter someone else’s gaze,
119. 14:54 it is the moment in time where we feel most alone, most lonely because the gaze
120. 15:01 tells us the main bit of information in the gaze is I am not you. When someone
121. 15:07 is gazing at you, at the very same moment the communication is I am not you
122. 15:13 and you are not me. We are separate to each other. We’re not the same. We are not symbiotic. We are not one organism. Well, and so this separateness creates existential angst. It’s as if the intersubjective space
123. 15:30 is suddenly suddenly becomes unbridgegable, intraversible.
124. 15:37 The the extreme existential loneliness
125. 15:43 comes about only when you compare yourself to other people. You know that you’re lonely because you are aware of
126. 15:50 the existence of other people. It is May I ask you a question for clarification? Are you are you talking about a failure in um in the mirror stage to bridge the mirror stage where
127. 16:01 one separates from the mother because you’re talking about Lan here. So is this a failure? Is this a failure in individual individuation as young would possibly refer to it where um because
128. 16:12 you failed at the mirror stage to say you know I am separate in a comfortable fashion. This is not this is not a part of this
129. 16:19 is not a failure. This is the common human condition. Okay. I’m talking about every human being.
130. 16:26 Every human being goes through the mother’s the experience of the mother’s gaze. The alienating mother’s gaze.
131. 16:33 Every human being consequently realizes his or her separateness from mother. Every human being is traumatized by this realization. And every future gaze to the day you die
132. 16:46 provokes or triggers this initial trauma with a with a primordial gaze. Why?
133. 16:52 Because when you are the subject of someone else’s gaze, it is clear that your separateness
134. 17:00 becomes incontestable. It is through somewhere else someone else’s gaze that you realize how alone
135. 17:08 you are. It your loneliness or your aloneeness is in contradistinction to
136. 17:14 the existence of other people. Is this an impossibility of of being truly seen? Because it sounds like even
137. 17:20 if I were to attempt to understand you to the best of my capacity that I would ultimately fail and that my failure despite maybe I get it I don’t know 70% right whatever is the highest percentage
138. 17:31 you would still feel completely alienated even by my attempts which is precisely why I said a bit
139. 17:38 earlier that it evinces the fail or the unbridgeidgeability or
140. 17:44 the in the of the interubjective space. Okay. So because the inter subjective space can never be traversed, can never be crossed.
141. 17:56 The other is never accessible. Never accessible. Never comprehensible.
142. 18:03 Never never meaningful. Never fully graspable. Yes. Never fully graspable. Yes.
143. 18:09 And you’re right. The various philos of a kind. But it is the existence of
144. 18:15 that untouchable, impermeable, unbridgeidgeable, inaccessible entity that allows you to realize your own
145. 18:27 separate existence. And the separateness is so solistic, so
146. 18:33 total that it triggers the initial the primordial trauma of your aloneeness.
147. 18:41 It it provokes anxiety. Existential angst according to S is the outcome of
148. 18:49 the need to choose, the need to make choices. Whereas I think it’s much more profound.
149. 18:56 I think ex in my in my in my work existential angst is about realizing how
150. 19:03 um alone you are and there’s little you can do about it. Sounds like you you mean it’s an inherent aspect of the human condition. It’s an inherent aspect of of of being human. Yes. Of of grasping the outside
151. 19:16 world. The minute you you’ve preempted a question I want to ask later on, but it fits here. Um
152. 19:22 because you do talk in previous interviews about about um the process of atomization and um it was quite it was quite a long
153. 19:30 time ago. I think it’s about seven years ago the interview I was watching. And you referred to the atomization of people in modern capitalist society
154. 19:37 saying that we’re not as reflected as we used to be and therefore we seek it elsewhere. But it sounds like that your
155. 19:43 theories developed further along since that interview because it sounds now like it’s inherent. You can’t be atomized if you’re inherently isolated. Your your questions are excellent and and don’t misunderstand my responses as
156. 19:55 as implying some kind of criticism or anything. No, I want explanations. Yeah. I want expansion would be good.
157. 20:01 Yeah. difficult to wrap your mind around it. Yeah. Um while the gaze while the while the bridge to another person is impossible,
158. 20:12 the inter subjective space is a myth. It’s nonsense. You could never ever in principle access
159. 20:19 another person’s mind. Another person’s mind is a domain that is out of access,
160. 20:25 out of reach in principle. So this u this um invention or this
161. 20:35 convention of the inter subjective space is is nonsense I’m sorry to say and with it with it of course equally nonsensical is the concept of empathy. Okayining
162. 20:48 in German like you feel like one. How can you feel like one? You’re never one. Yeah. Except when you are six months old.
163. 20:54 Yeah. Empathy was invented shockingly by a German. The very shocking yes the original world was Einfield. So the inter subjective space is is a a
164. 21:05 convention or a myth that we have concocted in order to reduce our level of anxiety.
165. 21:12 If we were to confront the truth that other people are forever outside our
166. 21:18 reach and that their gaze is traumatizing and alienating because it
167. 21:24 informs us of our own essential existential aloneeness,
168. 21:30 soypistic aloneeness. Yes. So if we were to accept this, we would go mad. All of us would go mad. And this is where I
169. 21:37 revert to your question. Part of this mythology is the gaze. The
170. 21:44 gaze is perceived counterfactually as some kind of bridge. The ga the defining
171. 21:50 gaze makes you come alive. The defining gaze imbuss you with a sense of
172. 21:56 existence with a sense of selfhood and with boundaries. It is a defining gaze that
173. 22:04 gives rise to you. And yet it’s a figment of mythology. It’s not real.
174. 22:11 What is a defining gaze? It’s a story we are telling ourselves. It’s a narrative
175. 22:17 that we invent. But still in this particular restricted sense, it does
176. 22:24 exist. Even narratives and myths and fiction have power. They have they they
177. 22:31 exist. I mean narratives exist. they they have an existence of their own and
178. 22:37 and so the defining case is crucial albe it counterfactual it’s crucial the
179. 22:44 same way for example that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is counterfactual but pretty crucial so
180. 22:55 and we are willing to pay a price in order to secure a defining gaze and the
181. 23:02 price is socializing with other people. Yeah, I think we socialize with other people
182. 23:09 because we consume indefinitely the def their defining gaze. We need the
183. 23:15 defining gates. We depend on it. We disappear in the absence of these defining gaze or at least we experience
184. 23:21 ourselves as dissipating as if we were dissipating or disappearing. We need the gaze. The gaze is like fuel. We like food. It maintains us, keeps us alive.
185. 23:32 And the price we pay is that we have to spend time with other people because other people have a monopoly on the
186. 23:39 defining gaze. You cannot obtain the defining gaze from an animal. Cannot obtain defining gaze from a bacterium or
187. 23:45 from the government. Defining gaze comes from other people. You have to socialize with I’m saying you have to socialize
188. 23:51 with them because I think the normal state is to be alone.
189. 23:57 I think society socializing are the abnormal states.
190. 24:03 I wanted to ask you that. So under your theory, so correct me if I’m wrong here too. Those that experience deep
191. 24:10 deep-seated loneliness really I guess we’re going to put a Canian lens on it would are as close as we can come to
192. 24:16 encountering the horror of the real because this is an inherent part of the human condition. So loneliness in that
193. 24:22 sense and in in in terms of your theory and Lanian theory is perhaps not a
194. 24:28 pandemic or something like this. It is actually people slowly coming to terms with the inherent isolation of existence
195. 24:34 and as like I said as close as you can come to the horror of the real. Yes. I I would attribute it to a failure
196. 24:40 of fantasy. Yeah. We’ll come to it. We’ll come to it in in a minute or two. I I beg the pardon for
197. 24:46 drawing it out for but but it is No, please please talk. Please don’t. Yeah, I have sometimes to repeat myself so that I to penetrate, you know, other the
198. 24:57 viewers. I do that too. I call it a process of iterative refinement. It’s fine.
199. 25:03 Yes. And there are defenses here. There’s there are resistances. Yeah. People are not willing to to hear this message. I’m not I’m not pretending that the truth value of my message is established, but at least it’s an
200. 25:14 interesting proposition to be considered. And people are not not willing to do even this. So to summarize
201. 25:20 the first part of my introductory comments, we all need a defining gaze
202. 25:26 and we are paying the price by having to socialize with other people. Other people spending time with other people sucks. Other people consume energy. Other
203. 25:38 people are difficult. Most people are abrasive. The friction is unpleasant. To spend time with other people is a horrific experience. That’s very satan. And and yet we Yes. Hell hell is the other person. Although it’s taken out of
204. 25:54 context, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s a joke. And um so we’re willing to pay this price because they have a monopoly on the defining gaze. They have a monopoly on the food. Let’s see. Yeah.
205. 26:05 And suddenly the biggest revolution in human history has occurred 20 years ago.
206. 26:11 We have succeeded to generate a machine gaze. We succeeded to generate a virtual gaze
207. 26:18 or an artificial gaze that is indistinguishable from the human defining gaze.
208. 26:24 So we succeeded not only to generate uh technologies that provide people with
209. 26:30 with a gaze but we succeeded to convince the consumers of this gaze that this
210. 26:37 gaze is as good as a human gaze. And I’m talking about social media. I’m talking about artificial intelligence. And I’m talking about the the oncoming um um metaverse. This trio of technologies,
211. 26:53 they they provide an artificial gaze which is indistinguishable from a human
212. 26:59 gaze or perceived subjectively as a human gaze and is costfree in the sense that you do not have to socialize with people in order to consume these gaze.
213. 27:11 And the inevitable outcome of this is that people gave up on other people with elacrity and cheer. Lovingly they
214. 27:20 gave up on other people. I can prove it to you. During the pandemic, people were
215. 27:26 were told to work from home. Pandemic has ended and people were asked to return to the office. More than 40% of them resigned rather than return to the
216. 27:37 office. When we asked them in various studies, why did you give up on your job rather than return to the office? They
217. 27:44 said because I can’t stand my colleagues anymore. I don’t want to spend time with them. That’s one example. And of course,
218. 27:51 the atomization that you mentioned the fact that 40 40 plus% of adults in
219. 27:58 western industrialized countries are choosing to be lifelong singles.
220. 28:04 The fact that a much larger percentage among people under the age of 25 have have haven’t had they haven’t had sex in the previous year or any romantic
221. 28:15 encounter with the opposite sex or with with the same sex and and the fact that 52% of adults now
222. 28:24 live with their parents rather than establish an independent life and so on and so forth. All the indications are
223. 28:32 that given the choice between a machine generated gaze and a human generated gaze, people are opting in droves. People are choosing
224. 28:43 um the machine generated gaze. My question though is is that done with joy joy and elacrity or because what I see
225. 28:50 from from the people that listen to the podcast this happens with a lot of despair for some people and I do think
226. 28:56 there’s a distinction to be drawn between the kind of context and the kind of gaze that exists in the workplace and the kind of context and gaze that say exists with a group of your friends when you’re at a festival drinking. These
227. 29:07 contexts are they have a different level of stress and a different level of performativity that is required. So I’m
228. 29:14 not sure I I agree with you that people seem statistically they’re choosing the machine gaze in droves, but I would
229. 29:20 argue that it’s not necessarily out of joy and elacrity. I think that some of it is out of out of despair and and the
230. 29:26 failure and the ability to connect through through the increased desire the increased requirement for performativity
231. 29:33 in many many contexts which is just exhausting as you elaborated on earlier all of these expectations from human
232. 29:40 beings. I make I make a bit of a different distinction. I don’t see the despair at all. It is a choice. It is a choice and it’s
233. 29:46 extremely easy to socialize. Socializing is the smoothest, easiest
234. 29:53 there uh type of activity. There are no barriers to entry and you can do it within within a split second in a supermarket on your way to work, on your way back from work, whatever.
235. 30:05 I’m glad you find it that easy. I don’t. Yeah. Well, I think that there is a more fundamental problem. I don’t see I don’t see despair. I see a
236. 30:16 choice. Okay. However, I see I see a choice that could lead to the perception of dysfunctionality. In other words, I divide humanity now to two types, two
237. 30:27 groups. One who are adept at manipulating fantasy or or existing in
238. 30:34 fantasy within fantasy and one who are not. One group comprises of people who are not. People who are good with fantasy and people who are not good with fantasy. When you are not good
239. 30:45 with fantasy, this is when this is what we call loneliness. And this is what we call
240. 30:51 despair. It’s the failure. It’s a fantasy failure. Failure to leverage fantasy. um in a way which will be conducive not only to functioning but to well-being.
241. 31:03 Whereas a growing percentage of a population and in the future that the entire population
242. 31:09 um are becoming more and more adept at manip constructing fantasies, inhabiting
243. 31:15 them, manipulating them, sustaining them and subsisting in them. Fantasy is the
244. 31:22 new organizing principle. Reality is out. If you’re not good at fantasy, you
245. 31:30 would feel of course lonely and you would be desperate. The desperation I claim is not because you fail to connect and not because you don’t have other people in your life. That is a relief.
246. 31:41 The desperation is that you can’t find a substitute for this. You can’t you need
247. 31:47 you need a defining gaze. And if you’re not good in fantasy, you’re unlikely to obtain a defining gaze, even a machine gaze. This is really interesting, Sam. So, to
248. 31:58 me, from what what I know about your um your theories of narcissism, those that are good at constructing, believing in, and manipulating to maintain a fantasy, you’ve drawn the distinction between essentially those with uh narcissistic
249. 32:10 tactics that work and those who either don’t have them or who are not narcissistic.
250. 32:16 The issue I have with it is that um the maintaining of a fantasy, well, well, perhaps it actually fits with your
251. 32:22 theory to be honest. um to maintain the fantasy is quite a lot easier when there no people involved to contradict your
252. 32:28 fantasy and opinion. You can do it far more easily with machines, let’s say. So then we’ve got two groups of people. One of which is, you know, good at at creating fantasy but would choose machines cuz it’s a lot easier and those who don’t who still potentially seek
253. 32:43 social connection and potentially don’t clarify. To my mind, no one
254. 32:50 seeks social connection if they can avoid it. The problem is some people can’t avoid it. They cannot avoid it
255. 32:56 because they cannot secure an alternative source of a defining gaze. That’s my theory. Yeah. I think if you’re successful at securing if you’re successful in interacting with
256. 33:08 the with artificial gaze or virtual gaze generators, yeah, you become a solistic narcissist.
257. 33:15 Narcissism or narcissistic soypism consists of two elements. One, a great capacity for fantasy. Um I I I would call it fantasy
258. 33:28 eloquence. Okay. And and a second element is a capacity for introjection, a capacity of
259. 33:34 converting other people into internal objects and then manipulating these internal objects to great effect.
260. 33:41 And you could look at it another way and say that the solstitic narcissism is about creating fantasies and then
261. 33:48 immediately internalizing them, internalizing the fantastic space. And then within the fantastic space, you have internal objects that represent other people. So people who are good at these two
262. 33:59 things, they’re good at converting other people to internal objects and they’re good at constructing fantastic spaces
263. 34:05 and populate these fantastic spaces with these internal objects. These people are narcissistices
264. 34:11 and they’re well adapted to the system that’s developing right now. Yes. And these people are happy. They don’t need or want other people. It’s a burden. However, not everyone
265. 34:24 normally not everyone is as adept and as capable of accomplishing this. And so these are the people who are left dangling and hanging
266. 34:36 and to their great detriment and and despair. And this is my point. Yes. That there
267. 34:42 are is not because they’re failing to connect. Okay. The despair is because they need to
268. 34:48 connect. They are coerced into connecting. I I beg to differ. I don’t
269. 34:54 think the locus explain explain the coercion part to me please. I don’t I don’t I don’t feel that the locus of despair is because they fail to connect with other people.
270. 35:05 Okay. I think the locus of despair is because they have no other alternative but to
271. 35:11 connect to other people. I think the locus of despair is because they are failures.
272. 35:18 A a condition we call narcissistic collapse. I think they’re in a collapse state.
273. 35:24 So then we’ve come through groups where there’s a narcissist succeeding at using the tools and then there’s just other narcissists that are failing at using the tools and no one who isn’t one. I mean I know this fits with your broader theory of society actually but these are
274. 35:36 the two groups that you’re defining here. I think everyone would like to be
275. 35:42 everyone would like to be independent of other people. I think that’s the driving force that has been the driving force in
276. 35:50 hunter gatherer societies. And that’s how humanity started. Not
277. 35:56 with collaboration. Not with cooperation. This is nonsense. Collaboration. And cooperation started
278. 36:03 with the agricultural revolution and with urbanization. Not before. Before that there were tiny
279. 36:11 isolated groups of people. they worked together ad hoc but they didn’t form any social um kind of social networks or whatever
280. 36:23 they were ad hoc teams so urbanization and agriculture started it all
281. 36:30 the now today I think technology allows us to go back to revert to our natural state and our natural state is to be all
282. 36:41 alone only Some people are not good yet are not skilled enough to accomplish this blessed state and this is this is a theory of of the human condition. So essentially Paul you’re saying the human condition
283. 36:57 has a drive to to to be independent to be alone. The issue I do have with that is just that historically speaking it’s
284. 37:04 it is it is pretty much impossible to put ourselves into the mental headsp space of people that lived hundreds of
285. 37:10 thousands of years or thousands of years ago. um we actually don’t have access to what they were valuing, how their life
286. 37:16 uh how they had meaning, what what sort of values they’d internalized, and whether for them it felt like, yeah, you
287. 37:23 know what, I’d rather be alone. Jack’s really pissing me off. Um or whether they just thought this is this is uh a
288. 37:29 wider a wider part of me, which is what some cultures to this day report. uh some cultures don’t have a word for I
289. 37:36 because there’s this sort of a wider you’d possibly call it a wider circle of this elliptistic world. However, I think
290. 37:43 if you base all of this on the premise that the the human condition at its core
291. 37:49 has a drive to be completely independent, you encounter problems with that and not everyone’s going to agree with you at all. When you expand your definition of yourself and you say there’s no I but there’s only the
292. 38:01 collective, that’s a fantasy. And that is when you internalize other people as internal objects. What would be the if that’s fantasy, what how do you define reality?
293. 38:12 Reality is that people are external and separate to you. Okay. If you consider everyone to be part of
294. 38:18 the same organism or meta or mega organism, then that’s a shared fantasy.
295. 38:24 And other people are figments of your mind. They’re figments of your imagination. They’re internal objects.
296. 38:30 It’s in effect a kind of narcissistic state. I was going to say this does sound a lot like projection of the narcissistic
297. 38:37 state onto it is a narcissistic state. Yeah. So the human condition is inherently
298. 38:43 narcissistic and projective. Yes. I I think the natural state of human beings is to be all alone to pay the minimal price of in
299. 38:54 interacting with other people because they need food or shelter or defining gaze or whatever that they need
300. 39:00 something and the the the path of least resistance is to minimize these
301. 39:06 interactions. Not to increase them, not to enhance them, but to minimize them. And we have been constructing
302. 39:13 technologies. We’ve been on a technological binge for hundreds if not thousands of of hundreds of years. Definitely technological binge that sought to
303. 39:25 render us more and more self-sufficient and self-contained and it culminated with the emergence of
304. 39:32 computing, social social media, artificial intelligence and so on. We
305. 39:39 now really don’t need other people and many of us are choosing exactly this.
306. 39:45 It’s a choice. Make no mistake about it. I I disagree completely that it is out of your hands. It’s absolute choice to be automized to be alone with your two cats and Netflix. That’s a choice.
307. 39:58 That’s an absolute choice. And Pew Center for example agree with me. But I I um I think when we when we mention
308. 40:07 societies collectivist societies where the individual is subsumed in the
309. 40:13 collective and assumes the collective’s identity that is the ultimate
310. 40:19 narcissistic condition because that is a shared fantasy shared fantastic space
311. 40:25 where everyone is someone else’s internal object. Everyone is there’s a
312. 40:31 single organism or single self and everyone is just a figments in this mind in this collective mind in this. So it’s
313. 40:38 a colony it’s a colony approach kind of what what happens if we substitute the
314. 40:45 word um fantasy for connectedness because you know these people are other people are facts. They do actually objectively exist out there. You know they go and pay their taxes. If they
315. 40:56 punch you in the face you know how factual they are. And of course our memories of them you could argue are you know the internalized objects. However the if I think that it’s a very loaded
316. 41:07 term to say that this is all fantasy. My idea that I’m connected whether other people is fantasy. And I do come back to
317. 41:13 the point that we can’t actually occupy the mental space of people whether or not they had a word for I me just one
318. 41:21 human being or it was a broader definition. We still are unaware of whether they were thinking, as I said,
319. 41:27 you know, it’s it’d be way better if I could just hang out on my own. Unfortunately, right now, you know, we don’t have the technology to do that.
320. 41:33 So, I’m going to have to help Bob with his hunting. We have ultimately to rely on on
321. 41:39 observations of of of behaviors of uh of social structures and so on and derive
322. 41:46 from them speculatively the state of mind of the people who have constructed them. So if we see people who for
323. 41:53 example spend time in within a a cell a social cell of of five other people Yeah. have the opportunity to form a much
324. 42:04 bigger cell and decline it and even become violent when they’re confronted with the
325. 42:10 possibility which is the history of the clash between hunter gatherers and farmers.
326. 42:17 farming agriculture exist coexisted with hunter gatherer societies for about 1,000 perhaps up to 3,000 years. There’s a debate. Hunter
327. 42:29 gatherers chose not to become farmers and even try to exterminate farming
328. 42:36 farming or destroy agriculture. There was a famous the famous battle between nomads and hunter gatherers and
329. 42:43 agriculture. um cities were consistently being attacked and molested by by hunter
330. 42:50 gatherer societies, nomads and and so on so forth. So it’s not as if um there was
331. 42:56 a linear transition from tiny social groups to much bigger social groups
332. 43:02 indicating clearly a preference for much bigger social groups. Exactly. Actually exactly the opposite. So
333. 43:09 I do think it’s hard to extrapolate though simply from Yeah. And there’s a lot of debate in archaeology too, how we
334. 43:15 do project from our current temporal location our our own values onto past.
335. 43:21 That’s endless. I mean this kind of it’s endless kind of argument is endless. Yeah. Exactly. So I if it’s okay with
336. 43:28 you because I I do really appreciate the development of your theories and I haven’t heard it to this level of depth before. So thank you Sam. But there is
337. 43:35 Yeah. Just because sticking to my podcast theme, I would actually like to um because uh last episode I used your
338. 43:43 theories as I said to to um talk about western spiritualism and the narcissism and celypism within that. So um in your
339. 43:51 work you describe narcissism not as a fixed state but as a kind of a psychological cycle. And I’m especially interested in how the covert narcissist often longs to become overt and how the
340. 44:02 overt narcissist might collapse back into a covert state um especially after some kind of failure to maintain power
341. 44:09 or or the fantasy or control. So would you be able to take us through that internal cycle how these two states
342. 44:15 relate and what drives the shift between them? I mean it sounds very dialectic to me a dialectic tension going on. I
343. 44:21 promise to answer your question but I think we have left a corner of our previous uh topic uncovered. Okay. I
344. 44:28 think it’s a very important corner. Y because when I said that technologies
345. 44:34 now render people self-sufficient and and people are delighted with this and they’re making a choice to be alone.
346. 44:42 One way of of uh one way of butressing this argument is looking at the features of the technology whether the whether
347. 44:49 this is an inadvertent byproduct or side effect of the technology or whether it’s a built-in feature. In other words, is it the issue which causes which? Yes. A feature or a bug.
348. 45:00 And I I I claim that modern technologies
349. 45:07 have the the aloneeness feature. They al have aloneeness or loneliness as a feature not as a bug. Yes. Oh, and I will give four I will give four examples and then I I’ll I’ll cover your question. Number one, intimacy challenges the
350. 45:23 business models of these technologies. Yeah. If you spend time with with people, you’re not spending time on the screen. Your eyeballs cannot be monetized. It
351. 45:34 detracts it reduces the profits of these companies. So they want you to be alone. They don’t want you to be with other people. Ironically, social media is completely
352. 45:45 asocial. They Yeah, we call it asocial media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For for for Zuckerberg to make
353. 45:51 more money, he needs you to be single, not have children, not have a spouse, not have a boyfriend, not spend time
354. 45:57 with other people. Yes. He needs you to spend all this time with on Facebook. Number two, um
355. 46:03 can I interject there though because that is about power structures and not necessarily some emergent you know something that we
356. 46:10 have all desired and then given up to other people to allow to put into action.
357. 46:17 These technologies is documented have been designed with the help of psychologists and sociologists and even
358. 46:24 anthropologists. That that doesn’t stop them being part of power structures. However, I don’t know what is a power structure. I know that if there is a technology that discourages certain human behavior
359. 46:35 or a certain human state of mind, then you know it stands to reason. I don’t I don’t need to be very
360. 46:42 convoluted about it. You tend to reason that the people who created the technology wanted it. That’s that’s the safest parimonious or comes razor assumption or wanted to profit from it as a fairly
361. 46:54 simple drive as well. Yes, absolutely. They wanted it either either they wanted to profit from it or
362. 47:00 they but they would not have introduced it had they thought that they could not profit from it. In other words, they
363. 47:06 would not have introduced this feature. Yeah. Had they believed that this feature would not resonate with people,
364. 47:14 they introduced an anti-intimacy feature or this intimacy feature because they thought exactly like me that people would love it. That’s that’s what my argument. This
365. 47:25 reminds me of Zik actually and I don’t know if he addresses this uh directly but how things do contain their own
366. 47:31 contradiction. So you know the dating apps like to your point uh if you sign up to a dating app they basically want
367. 47:37 you to not meet someone that you’re going to match with so that you keep coming back and keep paying the fees but it’s only a contradiction because it professes to have one goal the salailable goal and then actually does
368. 47:48 the opposite. And this opposite thing isn’t the, “Oh yeah, we thought you would resonate with the fact that, you
369. 47:54 know, you’re paying to meet the love of your life and you don’t meet them. We thought that would resonate with you.” No, that’s that’s part of the whole
370. 48:02 using it. I’m not talking about the overt I’m not talking about the overt text. I’m talking about the technological choices. Yeah. They made technological choices that they knew would resonate with human psychology.
371. 48:13 Yes. Like like meet the love of your life. That’s the reason that’s the overtex. These are not the features of the technology. The feature of the technology is this intimacy.
372. 48:24 Yes. The overt text is propaganda. The overt text is uh is uh
373. 48:30 interpolation. I agree with you completely. But the overt text is what provides the resonance. The resonance isn’t in I will
374. 48:37 never I will never I disagree completely. The overt text is not what provides the resonance. What provides the resonance is what the
375. 48:43 technology does for you. Okay. And what the technology does for you, it empowers you. It empowers you by
376. 48:50 rendering yourself sufficient, not dependent on other people and able to disengage
377. 48:56 and in control actually and in control and so on. So yeah,
378. 49:02 interpolation is about creating a state of mind as alpha is a yeah alpha is that was described.
379. 49:08 Yeah. And of course it creates a state of mind but the state of mind is the consumption state of mind. So the interpolation or
380. 49:15 the the overt text or whatever you want to call it the the various thinkers and so on is about is motivational
381. 49:23 and what does it motivate you to do to consume the technology. Yes. That’s why Aluza’s main work was about
382. 49:30 had to do with advertising. Yeah. Yeah. Altuza dealt with advertising and he
383. 49:36 didn’t say that the message was about truth or reality. He said that the interpolation the advertisers interpolation was meant to generate consumption and similarly Devour in his work on
384. 49:49 spectacle said basically the same. The spectacle was not about reality. It was
385. 49:55 not about truth was not about the spectacle was a gateway intended to attract you into Yes. Do you know what this sounds like to me? exactly what you talked about before, the creation of a fantasy where
386. 50:08 it offers something that isn’t actually the thing that you’re going to get, but where we as the purchases of say dating
387. 50:14 apps, you know, because we’ve been on that one. um we’re we’re buying into the fantasy with the hopes of obtaining the
388. 50:20 lie that we’re sold. And in that sense, I don’t think that we it’s fair to say
389. 50:27 we’re choosing our own isolation because we’ve actually been we’ve been pulled into a a um this fantasy that we have
390. 50:33 but you’re choosing but you’re choosing to not opt out. I think that people do opt out of online
391. 50:40 dating. I hear increasingly that online dating social media about social media. I I do think that people are increasingly doing so. Um it was just hilarious for me to say things like
392. 50:54 on on the very contrary you have an explosion on Tik Tok and so so we’re not going to we’re not going to be seen by people who’ve given it up. That’s for sure. We’re going to be seeing the stay with it. It’s true that you’ve been lured and
393. 51:06 baited and lied to and deceived. But once you’ve been exposed to the technology
394. 51:12 and to the impacts the technology had on your life, you have chosen to stay
395. 51:18 this choice is indicative of your state of mind. The people who designed these technologies constructed them so that they become addictive in that sense. Yeah. Addiction is it
396. 51:30 renders this is the issue I have with Zartra too. We don’t have a smorgus board of all choices. And I mean to put
397. 51:36 it very colloquially uh often you have the choice you know in a very sort you know life is nasty, brutal and and far
398. 51:42 too long for some people. We have the choice between kind of and a bit We don’t have like a toz
399. 51:49 wonderful this would be great this would too. Oh god where am I going to find the time? It’s like this will definitely kill me. This might kill me slowly. Um and I’m actually unsure what this will
400. 52:00 do at all. We have those kind of choices in everyday life and it’s not I’m down to earth. It’s not like we’re going A to Z. I I am for this thing. It’s kind of like, no, I
401. 52:10 just can’t do that one cuz I’m pretty sure it will kill me. I’m a down I’m a down to earth kind of guy. Yeah. If billions of people are using a
402. 52:17 technology that isolates them, atomizes, prevents human contact, and they’re still doing doing it 25 years 20 to 25 years later. That’s how addiction works. That mean that means they want it. Yeah. addiction in a way that like like you can want
403. 52:32 cocaine. It means they want it period. I I don’t like to hyperintellectualize. They want
404. 52:38 it. If people are using something for 25 years by that by now they know the impacts of this technology and they they’re still using it. Yeah. You could call it addiction. I
405. 52:48 don’t care about the label. The fact is I think you called it addiction actually. Yeah. Similarly, if people are choosing pornography over real sex, it means they want pornography. Yeah. Period. M
406. 52:59 you seem undebatable. This is a choice. You can’t ignore that. That is fact. A fact. Yeah, I I agree with you that it’s a choice to do it or not do it. Right. But this I think when we talk about choice,
407. 53:09 it does sometimes it does sometimes mislead. Uh and it is a very it’s part of the capitalist narrative too that we
408. 53:16 have this freedom of choice of of everything for everyone. Everyone has access to all of these things too, which is also not the case, you know, structural violence. It prevents access to certain things. the choices aren’t as
409. 53:27 um you know, oh, I’m doing this with with joy and elacrity as you said before. It’s like sometimes, oh, this is
410. 53:33 the only thing I haven’t tried. I’ll give it a go. Uh it’s still a choice. You’re dead right, but it’s not that
411. 53:40 sort of a um this is wonderful and therefore this is therefore a reflection of what I genuinely want. So you’re saying people are using these technologies for 20 or 25 years and they’re actually very
412. 53:51 unhappy with these technologies and they’re still using I would say that’s poss certainly I can speak here from yeah the anecdotal
413. 53:57 evidence of of someone who’s gone through a long career of music right having to use social media and hating it
414. 54:04 and every time I’ve had a pause in that career that’s the first thing that goes it’s become uh someone described it to me the other day a friend of mine
415. 54:10 actually it’s become the monster that is present in our lives that you have to feed like if you have a small I can’t say that it is very it is very selfexal excalpating. It’s a
416. 54:21 victimhood narrative. I understand that. That’s natural in the west today. Yeah. Um but I can’t buy that. The designers
417. 54:28 of this technology designed it to destroy intimacy. They knew it well.
418. 54:34 And then people exposed to this technology under false pretenses. There I agree with you. exposed to this
419. 54:40 technology, discovered its its impact on their intimacy or in the intimate lives
420. 54:46 and are still using it 25 years later. Yes, I would say that’s a choice. In my book, that’s a choice. And what are they
421. 54:52 choosing? They’re choosing the technology, but they’re also choosing the impacts of this technology. I do agree with you. And certainly
422. 54:58 people do that, but digital detox is something that many people do or try. No, no, many is a misrepresentation. I’m
423. 55:05 sorry. That’s a tiny fringe movement. Yeah. Neither of us have done a survey here. So you could be right. Actually there are public figures as to growth. Yeah. On digital detox.
424. 55:16 Not digital detox. But the growth in social networks they’re public company. Yeah. They they have to file with the
425. 55:22 securities and exchange commission and so on. Interesting. Yeah. That would be interesting to see.
426. 55:28 Social network. Some social networks are exploding actually. That includes Facebook and Tik Tok. Yes. Instagram. They’re exploding. Uh any I do want to get back to this question Sam if that’s
427. 55:39 all right. Um if you could walk I would I would I I would make one one last point and I will get to your question of overt cycle. Yeah. The last point is that all these platforms encourage negative
428. 55:51 effects. They encourage anger and fear and hatred and
429. 55:57 that encourage negative effects and we should realize that negative effects help us to avoid other people. I mean, if we love other people, we want to be
430. 56:08 with them. But if we hate them, we don’t want to be with them. If we’re angry at them, we don’t want to be with them. If we’re afraid of them, we don’t want to be with them. So, here’s a technology that destroys your intimacy,
431. 56:19 triggers your negative emotions and negative effects. And this
432. 56:25 makes you hate people. Yes. Makes you feel good with yourself as well because you’re saying you’re self-righteous. You’re saying, I see what you mean. Yeah. I’m I hate people and I I hold them in contempt and
433. 56:36 I’m angry at them and so on, but all this is because I’m a good person. All this is because I’m a perfect person or
434. 56:43 whatever. So, and yet the emergent property is is atomization again. Yes. So, it’s not it’s not a side effect. It’s not a byproduct. It’s not accidental unfortunate.
435. 56:54 It is the system. I agree with you. Yes. I agree. I agree. M and and majority of humanity
436. 57:01 by now 2.1 billion as latest statistics majority of human I mean adult humanity
437. 57:07 have made their choice they reside on social media and increasingly more so on artificial intelligence and they avoid
438. 57:14 other people even if we disagree as to the underlying dynamics and we clearly disagree.
439. 57:21 Yeah we do not disagree we cannot disagree when it comes to the facts. Oh absolutely
440. 57:27 atomized. Yeah, it atomizes. Absolutely. And it is the system, not some byproduct. I agree with you there. I do.
441. 57:34 It’s systematic. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. It’s it is systematic. Yeah. Systemat aloneess. Aloneess. Aloneess is an industry. Absolutely. That’s why I called it the loneliness industry. It is an industry.
442. 57:47 It’s not only an industry. It’s performative. It’s a spectacle. Yeah. I agree there too. I do. Yeah. Now, this is where I want to ask your perspective on something. Psychology does point to the fact that we tend to
443. 57:59 project our own reasons for doing things onto others. And it would probably be fair to say that both Sam and I do that
444. 58:05 in this interview. I’d love to hear it from you because phenomenological arguments do count. How does it feel
445. 58:13 inside from your perspective? Do you personally turn away from others gladly,
446. 58:19 preferring the reflection of a machine? Do you turn away with another emotion? Maybe frustration, resignation, grief,
447. 58:25 or something else. Or do you not turn away at all with some particular emotion associated with that? Hope also frustration. Um, what emotions do you associate around not giving up on human
448. 58:37 connection if you haven’t given up? Now, there’s no one right answer here, right? These are the kinds of questions that
449. 58:43 help us uncover what’s really happening in our lives and in broader society and our culture. So, I’d really appreciate
450. 58:50 hearing your personal experience of these things. Now, in part two next week, Sam and I converge a lot more in
451. 58:56 our perspectives. We talk western spiritualism, psychology, and more on the systems that shape us. Um, until
452. 59:03 then, the usual stuff. You can support us on Patreon. You can join the community on YouTube. Um, there’s going to be some videos that are just available for the community on YouTube. So, please do join there. It helps keep the podcast going. Thanks for listening
453. 59:15 and I look forward to reading your experiences around searching or not the human connection. See you then. Bye.