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

1. 0:00 – 0:24

   Narcissism as a personality “recipe”: antagonism plus extraversion or neuroticism

   1. WCW. Keith Campbell0:00

      So for narcissism, what you get is a big dollop of antagonism, kind of mean and self-centered, and then you add that extroversion piece to it. So you take, you know, low agreeableness and extroversion, that's a recipe for grandiose narcissism. Take that same low agreeableness or meanness or callousness, add neuroticism, anxiety, depression, and you end up with vulnerable narcissism. (wind blowing)

2. 0:24 – 1:33

   What narcissism actually means (and why people misuse the label)

   1. CWChris Williamson0:24

      We're talking about narcissism today, a word that gets thrown around quite a lot. Like, what is the correct definition of it and, and how does it manifest?

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell0:32

      (inhales deeply) Well, you're right, the term's used a lot. Um, the, the most basic sort of foundational definition is somebody who has a very positive view of him or herself, um, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration. So that's the, like, in a nutshell, when you talk about narcissism, you're usually talking about a positive self-view, you think you're better than other people. You have some challenges with forming close, caring, empathetic relationships with people, and you need people around to kind of boost you up, to bolster you, to admire you, to give you positive attention, et cetera. So that's kind of the general term. Um, when people are using it in the street, they're often using it in a bit of a pejorative way to describe an ex-boyfriend or an ex-boss or whatever. So it's, you know, so people don't really use it technically right. But then when you get into the psychology and the science part, there's really, you can break it down farther into really three different definitions of narcissism.

3. 1:33 – 5:12

   Grandiose vs vulnerable narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

   1. WCW. Keith Campbell1:33

      Um, the one we're probably most familiar with is the personality trait. And when I say trait, I mean that this is something we all vary on. There's a continuum. Some are more narcissistic, some less. Most people around the middle. There's a trait called grandiose narcissism, which is this, um, sort of sense of self-important and a sense of entitlement. But with grandiose narcissism, what you see is some energy and maybe charisma, sometimes charm and drive and ambition. So the, the more grandiose narcissist folks you meet are the ones that end up in, you know, in politics or in leadership because they have this drive and ambition, and they're often very likable people when you first meet them. And you don't see that the darker, more tar- toxic side of narcissism until later on. There's another form of narcissism which is less familiar to most of us, but it's when you see more with counselors and clinicians and, you know, in the mental health world, is what we call vulnerable narcissism. So these are people that have the same sense of entitlement, but rather than being more ambitious and energized, they're a little more nervous, have low self-esteem, a little more introverted, sometimes called covert narcissists or basement narcissists or in-the-closet narcissists, because you have, uh, and so you have a fantasy about being successful, but there's not really energy or drive to make that real. So, so, and so, you, you can imagine if you think you're great and you're not out there engaging with the world, you, you have a tendency for depression and anxiety and loneliness because you're not getting what you need. So the more vulnerable folks end up in the clinical settings more. And then to make it even more confusing, there's a clinical or psychiatric disorder known as narcissistic personality disorder, NPD. And this is an extreme form of narcissism that's grandiose and a little vulnerable. And what happens is your narcissism gets so extreme, it impairs you in life. It either destroys your relationships because you can't have loving relationships with people, or it ruins your work because you take too many risks or you're a terrible boss, so you can't listen to people or whatever. And then it becomes a, a disorder. But that's relatively rare. Where the confusion comes in is people say, "You're a narcissist," and you're like, "What do you mean? Do you mean I'm kind of a cool dude who's got a lot of girlfriends, or do you mean I'm kind of a loser at my mom's home on the internet trolling people trying to get attention? Or do you mean I have some, I'm somebody with a clinical disorder who should see a psychiatrist and be treated?" And so we, that, that's where a lot of confusion comes in is the different, the different definitions that are associated with narcissism.

   2. CWChris Williamson4:11

      It's interesting that you can have one trait, one sort of source code that is underwriting the way that someone is created, and yet when that tree starts to grow up, it can lean to one of a number of different ways and create a variety of shapes.

   3. WCW. Keith Campbell4:27

      That is a very interesting way to, to put it, and I think, um, part of it is that that ego, that's if you think about the source code of like ego, I want attention, I'm better than people. If you, if you pair that with somebody who's got some social skills and whose parents said, "You're awesome, Keith. You're great," and who has some confidence, that person can become a successful sort of grandiose narcissist. But that same characteristics, but the person was maybe abused or traumatized, the parents, you know, not to take incredible trauma, but parents that were more cold and dismissive who didn't have the social skills ends up on this more, um, vulnerable path. So you could see that idea how you could bend these different forms in different ways, but they're both very ego-based.

4. 5:12 – 7:15

   Nature, nurture, and the limits of parenting in explaining narcissism

   1. CWChris Williamson5:12

      I read, uh, Robert Plomin's Blueprint last year, talking about the influence of genetics on everything that we do with regards to behavior.

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell5:21

      Yeah. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson5:21

      And I think that your findings with narcissism match up with what he said. It's around about 50% is nature and 50%-

   4. WCW. Keith Campbell5:29

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson5:29

      ... is nurture.

   6. WCW. Keith Campbell5:31

      Yeah, that's, um, uh, Plomin, it's funny. I remember studying hi- him in graduate school. Um-

   7. CWChris Williamson5:37

      Have you read Blueprint?

   8. WCW. Keith Campbell5:38

      What-

   9. CWChris Williamson5:38

      Have you read his new one?

   10. WCW. Keith Campbell5:40

       I haven't, no. I-

   11. CWChris Williamson5:41

       Oh, well, Keith, you would...

   12. WCW. Keith Campbell5:42

       It's really good.

   13. CWChris Williamson5:43

       Uh, yeah. I mean, being honest, there is a couple of takeaways that you'll already have. And they are, every trait has significant and, um, sizable influence from our genetics. Like, that's the, the big red pill. But as you go into stuff like, um, in adoption studies, weight-... is completely correlated between biological parents and not at all through the adopted parents. Like, which is crazy, especially when we live-

   14. WCW. Keith Campbell6:10

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson6:10

       ... in a world that's a meritocracy. Um, but yeah, so talking about, uh-

   16. WCW. Keith Campbell6:14

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson6:14

       ... genetic, about the genetic influence on narcissism.

   18. WCW. Keith Campbell6:18

       Yeah. So, you find that pattern with narcissism that you, y- and so generally, you're getting about 50%, like you're saying, about 50% is, is inherited. It might be, uh, narcissism in terms of traits seems to be a little bit on the higher side, but it, you know, they're all about 50%. When you look at that other piece, about 10 to 20% is parenting, maybe 10%. So the parenting piece is never as important as people think. You know, the people think parenting is really shaping you. Parenting matters a lot. Your parents have to feed you and love you and do all these things, but they can't really shape you that well to be one kind of person or another. The other piece that, that's really hard to predict, and this is about 30% maybe, is just what they call non-shared environments. Just sort of the culture you grow up with, the friends you have, the weird random stuff that happens. And that seems to be what's going on with narcissism. So there is some genetics, but that's certainly not the whole story. And the other pieces are a bit harder to find.

5. 7:15 – 8:56

   Why narcissism exists at all: short-term payoffs, long-term costs

   1. CWChris Williamson7:15

      Why does it exist? Like, the trait must have had an adaptive use.

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell7:18

      (exhales)

   3. CWChris Williamson7:18

      Why is it here?

   4. WCW. Keith Campbell7:19

      Yeah. (swallows) Well, um, uh, e- y- you can think about... Th- that's a hard question to answer. So there are a few ways to think about it. One is you can go, "Well, what are the benefits of narcissism? Where does it really benefit you?" And when we think about evolutionary terms, we usually think about sort of resource gathering or mating, those are kind of the big evolutionary questions. Narcissism is linked to short term mating success. So people who are narcissistic are good at finding mates. Um, they're good at becoming leaders very quickly. So it has some maybe very short term advantages. The challenge, and this is where it gets complicated with, with the evolutionary models is, if, if you're, if you evolved in a small group at tri- you know, we're talking 50,000 years ago, you got your group of 50, 100 people, and you're the narcissistic jerk who's sti- who's, who's hooking up with everyone else's spouses, they're gonna kill you. I mean, that's just what happened if you look at the hunter-gatherer tribes. They, they'd have somebody in your family take you on a walk and you just wouldn't come back. There'd be a hunting accident. You know, there'd be... So these more psychopathic individuals were weeded out in those smaller cultures often. But you imagine when a culture gets bigger, you, you live in a big city, a big urban center, there's no check on ego, there's no check on narcissism. It, it thrives better. But I think that, that narcissism is really beneficial in the sort of new situations in the short term. Where you don't see the benefit is in these long-term established relationships. It, it's just not as useful.

6. 8:56 – 11:06

   Narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism: the shared core of the Dark Triad

   1. CWChris Williamson8:56

      Yeah. So in a society or a, a community where you are held to account over longer periods of time, the narcissist is going to lose, but in shorter interactions... That sounds a lot like the way that psychopaths work, that they can never stay in a town for one, for too long, because they screw over people and they realize who they are. Are all psychopaths narcissistic? And how does-

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell9:21

      It-

   3. CWChris Williamson9:21

      ... narcissism and psychopathy relate?

   4. WCW. Keith Campbell9:23

      Yeah. They're, um, they, they're cousin traits in a way. What psychopathy and narcissism share is this inner person we call antagonism or interpersonal callousness, the willingness to take advantage of people and put yourself first, looking out for number one. So that's something that's very common with psychopathy and narcissism. Really the difference is with narcissism, you get more of that interest and, and attention or positive feedback from other people. So often, narcissists aren't as dangerous because they s- they still want to be loved.

   5. CWChris Williamson9:55

      Mm.

   6. WCW. Keith Campbell9:55

      Um, so-

   7. CWChris Williamson9:57

      Yeah. Okay. Whereas-

   8. WCW. Keith Campbell9:58

      So... (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson9:58

      ... whereas the psychopath, the psychopath is simply out to get whatever they want at any cost. Whereas perhaps there's a little bit more, somewhere in the background, there's an echo of a, um, virtue or in- integrity. Even if that's only outcome-based for the-

   10. WCW. Keith Campbell10:14

       Exactly.

   11. CWChris Williamson10:15

       ... for the narcissist.

   12. WCW. Keith Campbell10:17

       Yeah. So, so the psychopaths I think of as more predatory. Like, I mean, and again, these, these things will c- like, if I gave, uh, a group of psychopathy measures and narcissism measures to people in a lab, they're gonna correlate very, I mean, they're gonna correlate strongly. They're, they're cousin traits. And sometimes we talk about a dark triad of traits that include psychopathy, narcissism, and this other one which is Machiavellianism, um, which is named after Machiavelli wrote the book The Prince. It's a, it's a characteristic of people who are really manipulative. So they're not necessarily attention seeking, they're not necessarily, they d- they don't necessarily wanna just steal stuff or get stuff. They're more manipulative. But they all share this core of antagonism or callousness or a willingness to exploit other people for your own ends.

7. 11:06 – 20:01

   Red pill culture, ‘assholes get the girls,’ and the confusion between confidence and cruelty

   1. CWChris Williamson11:06

      I wanted to dig into the dark triad. Reason being, the first time that I got introduced to it, I was reading a meninism blog, so part of this red pill movement, the pro-men. So it's essentially a men's rights movement on this particular blog, and I found it fascinating. Some of the stuff that they put out was really interesting. And then there's an entire, th- there's reams and reams dedicated to cultivating dark triad traits. So they basically say that having those dark tri- triad traits will allow you to be more resilient. Um, a lot of these people in these realms are perhaps divorced, perhaps, um, involuntarily celibate, um, someone who maybe doesn't succeed socially so well.

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell11:53

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson11:54

      Um, first off, what is, can you dig into the dark triad? And then secondly-

   4. WCW. Keith Campbell11:57

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson11:57

      ... can you imagine why someone in that situation would need it or, or even think about trying to develop it?

   6. WCW. Keith Campbell12:02

      That's really interesting. Um, and I'm kinda, it's kinda clicking when you say it. So I'm not, I haven't really thought this through obviously. But-... when we talk about these dark triad traits, these are traits that sure, uh, that share a core of darkness. And darkness in psychology what we call low agreeableness, or callousness, or maybe trait antagonism. Maybe the easiest way is meanness. People are mean. So dark people are mean people. That's probably an easy way to say it, say it. And there are different kinds of mean. Um, the challenge with men in relationships sometimes is you hear men say, "Well, assholes always get the girls."

   7. CWChris Williamson12:42

      Yeah.

   8. WCW. Keith Campbell12:42

      Okay, so I'll be an asshole. Now, if you study what an asshole is, an asshole is somebody who is callous, low in agreeableness, and has dark traits. Basically, an asshole is right at the sendle, center of the dark triad. That's kind of what an asshole means, is somebody who's a jerk, is antagonistic and mean, self-centered. Um, so people think that's what people want. That's not what people want. I mean, there's no research I've ever seen that says, "You know what I really want is somebody who's just an asshole. That's really what I want in my life." When you look at the narcissism research in dating, people aren't, and I'll say women, but it goes both ways obviously, but women aren't dating narcissists 'cause they're jerks. They're dating narcissists because they seem confident and charismatic and attractive and exciting to be with, at first. The problem is over time when you're dating somebody who's charismatic and exciting to be with, you go, "Okay, now is the point in the relationship where we're gonna get to know each other and be more emotional and talk about having kids." And the guy's like, "Nah, I don't really wanna do that part in the relationship. Where'd you get that idea? I'm really kind of into me and into having fun, and it's cool to have you with me, but I d- I didn't want to settle down." And then she goes, "Well, you're an asshole." "Well, yeah, but I'm also kind of fun and charismatic and you like that part of me. You like the part that makes me fun and charis- you don't like the asshole part, that's what you don't like about me." So the people, so guys watch this and go, "Oh my goodness, that woman's with an asshole. I'll be an asshole." (laughs) No. You should be charismatic and engaging and have a sense of humor, take care of yourself, and have some confidence. Don't be an asshole.

   9. CWChris Williamson14:28

      Yeah.

   10. WCW. Keith Campbell14:28

       But that message gets really distorted. But this isn't my area, Chris. So, what do you think?

   11. CWChris Williamson14:31

       No, no, man, you've, you've h- I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's putting the cart before the horse. It's presuming that the emergent property of the narcissism, which is effective, needs to go ... Actually, in fact, it's baby and bathwater. It's, "I need-"

   12. WCW. Keith Campbell14:45

       (laughs) Yes.

   13. CWChris Williamson14:45

       ... "to be a narcissist in order to have the charisma." So, there's a few things that you said at th- the beginning of that little passage. Um, there's a quote from the red pill movement, "Alpha fucks and beta cooks," so it's that the alpha male will get it and she'll make rules for the beta that she breaks for the alpha. And all of this is built around this sort of cult of alpha maleness, right? And a lot of this, you would be fascinated t- to, by some of the red pill movement and meninism blogs that are out there, r/mensrights on, uh, Reddit has a lot of this stuff on there. And, um, yeah, it's, it's interesting, especially upon reading your work, how the narcissism side of it has been utilized by people, it's been, uh, glorified by people as a tool-

   14. WCW. Keith Campbell15:34

       (laughs) Yes.

   15. CWChris Williamson15:34

       ... that should be used, that should be cultivated because it's going to cause ... Especially a lot of these people, I think, have been hurt by women perhaps in the past, or never had success with women, which has also caused them to be hurt.

   16. WCW. Keith Campbell15:44

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson15:45

       Um, so by, by increasing that narc- narcissism, they're increasing the distance between them emotionally, between them and the other people. And that's where the-

   18. WCW. Keith Campbell15:56

       (sighs)

   19. CWChris Williamson15:56

       ... this blend you said before of, of vulnerable and s-

   20. WCW. Keith Campbell16:00

       Grandiose.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:01

       ... grandiose narcissism. So, it's outwardly being grandiose because of inward vulnerability. "I'm trying to protect myself from being hurt by seeming like I don't give a shit and never fully investing in people."

   22. WCW. Keith Campbell16:13

       That's interesting. So, so f- uh, it makes me think of four things and I'll probably forget the second.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:20

       (laughs)

   24. WCW. Keith Campbell16:21

       But s- uh, first, when we talk about callousness, you know, you think about a callous, a callous works both ways, which I never think about, because I think about callousness as, "I treat people callously," but also it means I can't feel as much. And what you're saying is these people are wounded and so they develop a callous, like, "I'm not gonna let myself be wounded." Now, the reason we call vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism both narcissism is back in the psychodynamic days, the Freudian days, you know, you go back 50, 100 years, people thought that what was on the outside of you was almost the opposite of the inside, just th- they thought that's the way the mind worked. So that, gee, if you seem really confident, underneath you're probably weak. It doesn't really work like that in general life. There are people who are confident, there are people who are weak, and there are some people who are both. But most confident people are just kind of confident. But what you're describing is a very Freudian process almost, where people are, they feel weak, they feel they can't succeed with women, they see other people who are and they go, "You know what I'm gonna be? I'm gonna toughen up and grow a shell and then, uh, and act in sort of an aggressive and confident way maybe, and that will convince women to like me, and I can't get hurt because I've got this big shell around me."

   25. CWChris Williamson17:36

       Yeah. It's that memetic quality that we have, right? We're trying to-

   26. WCW. Keith Campbell17:40

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson17:41

       ... reflect what we see with, with people. Yeah, I'll send you some, I'll send you some article links once we're done. I think you'd be really interested in looking at it.

   28. WCW. Keith Campbell17:47

       Very. So, my, my cha- with a lot of these when I think about it ... So the other thing is alpha males. Now I, um, I, I, I don't get the alpha male thing so much. I remember I was in Africa and I looked at a, I was looking at this group of gazelles. And I was with this guy and he goes, "Well, here's the alpha." What does the alpha do? Well, the alpha spends a year guarding every woman in his harem from guys until he gets exhausted and dies in a year or two. 'Cause it's being an alpha male, it kills you.

   29. CWChris Williamson18:18

       Hard work.

   30. WCW. Keith Campbell18:18

       I mean, that, th-... alpha males in nature, they, they just kinda die out. And the fact is, humans, we're much more balanced than that. We don't really work with these really strong alpha hierarchies like a lot of other creatures do. And so, the idea of wanting to be an alpha male, I'm like, "Dude, that's a lot to carry."
8. 20:01 – 23:45

   Status, ‘sex-status-stuff,’ and why narcissism doesn’t scale across a lifetime

   1. WCW. Keith Campbell20:01

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

   2. CWChris Williamson20:34

      (laughs)

   3. WCW. Keith Campbell20:35

      Um, but that's that... Um, but, but it, but when you regulate extrinsically, uh, it, it... Look, I'm not telling anyone not to go for it in life. Please go for it. Please be (laughs) as much as you can. I've tried, you know. But know that when you start competing to be the best at sex, status, and stuff, one, you're always competing. You're never gonna win because as soon as you get to the top, someone, you're gonna be knocked off, and someone else will be. So, that's just the nature of it. You've been in entertainment, you know, I've been in d- you know, you just, this is the nature of it. You can't be on the top forever unless you're a country music star in the '50s in America. Um, and, and you're gonna get knocked off and you're gonna die alone. And that's the worst part. You can't have love. And so what happens is you see guys that are getting... you know, they're my age and th- and they're kind of like going, "Where's the love? I don't have any love in my life." Yeah, 'cause you're, you're an arrogant dick and you got all this great stuff and you got a million dollar watch, but you don't have any love.

   4. CWChris Williamson21:32

      Yeah.

   5. WCW. Keith Campbell21:32

      And you c- can't buy that. You can't buy a happy family. You can pretend you have one. You can't pay... So there's this, you get this really foundational loss in terms of emotional connection.

   6. CWChris Williamson21:43

      You know what's the-

   7. WCW. Keith Campbell21:44

      And that's the cost.

   8. CWChris Williamson21:44

      You know what else it is as well? Thinking further into this. A lot of the people who are proselytizing about the, the virtues of being an alpha male are guys in their 40s or in their 50s or in their late 50s who are almost acting like these savant sages of masculinity, who are t- talking about how it should be done, but they're playing a game that someone 20 years their junior should be playing. And by the time that you get to 50, you can't get in the mix with 21-year-olds in a nightclub anymore. You need a family-

   9. WCW. Keith Campbell22:18

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson22:18

       ... around you. You need people that, uh, it, it doesn't scale. That's a perfect way to look at it. Narcissism doesn't scale across a lifetime. And all of the things that you do should compound as, uh, appreciating assets, not depreciating ones. Um, the equivalent for guys choosing girls is choose a girl that is beautiful. It doesn't matter how hot she is. Hotness wanes with age. Beauty increases with age.

   11. WCW. Keith Campbell22:43

       I, I like that way of, um, framing it. And what you see with, uh, these sort of the more dominant narcissist folks is they'll start one family and then they'll wait 10 years, and when they're 50, they'll just redo it. And then they'll wait 10 years and do it again. And so, um, like I, my dissertation was on trophy spouses. I was kinda interested in how you can-

   12. CWChris Williamson23:02

       (laughs) Do you know what my, my Instagram bio is?

   13. WCW. Keith Campbell23:05

       No.

   14. CWChris Williamson23:06

       Aspiring trophy husband. (laughs)

   15. WCW. Keith Campbell23:08

       (laughs) That's perfect, right? You got... Who...

   16. CWChris Williamson23:13

       (laughs)

   17. WCW. Keith Campbell23:16

       I... Not a bad plan, you know? It works. Um, (laughs) but, but the idea is that you kind of replicate this pattern over and over, but, you know, by the time you're 60 and you got a one-year-old with a new wife, it just look, I'm like, "Oh my God, that just sounds exhausting."

   18. CWChris Williamson23:31

       Yeah.

   19. WCW. Keith Campbell23:32

       I mean, so I, um, I, I just, uh, like I said, I love success. I'm g- I love masculinity. I'm saying go for it, do what you're gonna do. But this alpha thing is just, I think it's a bit misguided.

9. 23:45 – 27:14

   Narcissism and mass shootings: ego threat, dominance, and the manifesto pattern

   1. CWChris Williamson23:45

      I agree. Um, what does narcissism have to do with mass shootings? You looked at Elliot Rodger as an example. Can you talk about how manifest, uh, narcissism manifested through him?

   2. WCW. Keith Campbell23:56

      Yeah. So, um, I, I, I'm gonna, I'll step it back a, a second to, to Columbine if that's okay 'cause that's really, um, where we started with this in the narcissism world. So if, um, so when I, I was doing research, this is back in the '90s, and I was a- uh, doing a postdoc with a friend named Jean Twenge. We were in our basement lab. And there was the shooting at Columbine, which in the US was a big deal. This is these two boys went and shot up a school in Colorado.And then afterwards, they said, you know, "I can't s- Spielberg's gonna make a movie about me, or Tarantino, and I can make anybody re- think anything I want." And we read this stuff and we're like, "Oh, my God. These guys are using words straight off the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. That's weird." So we started, like, "Why are people doing these shootings? What's the point?" So we started looking at it and what you see, and, and this is part of the story in these shootings, is you find people who were threatened. You get ego threat, they call it, or self-esteem threat, or je- generally feel that they're not up to s- they're not alpha males, like in the case of Elliot Rodgers. You know, this is a case in Santa Barbara with a guy who asked a woman on a date, she rejected him. He's like, "No one," you know, "everyone's rejecting me. I'm gonna show them who the real alpha male is." And then he went and killed some of his friends. And, um, so what happens is you see these, these young guys, it's often guy, usually guys, uh, that get ego threats. And then to establish dominance, what they do is go commit a mass shooting. They'll maybe write a manifesto with it. So I've read a lot of these. They're very dark, but often the manifesto is about how I should be in charge of the world and it should work for me. Um, i- i- anyway, you see this pattern in a lot of those shootings. In the case of Elliot Rodgers, I thought it was very interesting as well, because he was a, a kid who had a lot of m- money and power. His parents were very successful. He was a good-looking dude. I think he had a BMW. He should've been able to date. He should've been able to function in the world. He couldn't. And his, his way of, of dealing with that was to literally resort to mass shooting. He worked it out in his head that the best way for him to reestablish dominance in a world that didn't accept him was to go kill people. So that's where you, you get that, um, where you get that, uh, narcissism in school shootings is the shootings themselves are a way to sh- to reestablish dominance. And often, if there's a manifesto, it's, or something, it's a way of becoming a great figure. I mean, these peop- like a lot of serial killers, they're high-status, successful people. I hate to say successful, but they're famous, um, because you can use murder to get successful.

   3. CWChris Williamson26:43

      I wonder whether the alpha male cult that we've got at the moment is using sex, weaponizing sex in the same way. "Well, I haven't won the world in the way that I think it should be, should be won." Perhaps they don't have the compulsion to go shoot up a school, but they have the compulsion to use and abuse, uh, the, the opposite sex, or the same sex, depending on ... I'm gonna guess there must be, there must be narcissistic alpha males in the gay world as well. I'd be really interested, to any of the gay guys that are listening, uh, I'd be really fascinated to know if there's more there. You mentioned something just during that passage.

10. 27:14 – 28:55

    Gender differences and how narcissism is measured in research and clinics

    1. CWChris Williamson27:14

       Does narcissism skew male?

    2. WCW. Keith Campbell27:16

       Yes. Yeah, it does. Grandiose narcissism, uh, skews male. Vulnerable narcissism's about 50/50. And the pers- and a personality disorder is about three quarters male.

    3. CWChris Williamson27:28

       Wow.

    4. WCW. Keith Campbell27:29

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson27:29

       So that really is a, a male-dominated trait then.

    6. WCW. Keith Campbell27:32

       Yeah. It's the, but, but some of this is, you know, you, you think about clinical diagnosis and they, they tend to gender some diagnoses. So, you know, if the two people come in, in a man, they'll say, "Well, you're narcissistic and a little vulnerable." In a woman, they'll say, "Well, you're borderline and a little self-centered." So sometimes they, they will, they will place people a little bit ... I mean, there could be some gender, but, but generally narcissism is a more masculine trait.

    7. CWChris Williamson27:57

       How, how do you measure it?

    8. WCW. Keith Campbell27:59

       Well, if you're measuring it as, uh, in a personality form, like if you wanna take your own narcissism, or if I were doing a study, there's a bunch of scales. The, the most common one is called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. You could Google it, and it's not, you know, it's 40 questions, the most common form. Um, there's, there are other vulnerable narcissism scales, like the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale. There's a bunch of them. For clinical, uh, so when you do normal personality testing, it's called low stakes, meaning people will tell the truth 'cause what do they care? They're just taking an anonymous survey. If you're doing clinical work, it's harder. Or if you're working in a h- in a foren- like, if you're working in a h- in a, uh, a prison system, a forensic system, it's harder, because people don't wanna tell you the truth. So if you're going to a clinical setting and you're getting diagnosed, they might do a structured interview. Where they'll sit down and ask you questions and, and kind of go through it that way to, to do a more formal diagnosis.

11. 28:55 – 33:30

    Big Five “Rosetta Stone,” narcissistic motives, and the selfie example

    1. CWChris Williamson28:55

       Mm. What's the narcissism recipe?

    2. WCW. Keith Campbell28:57

       (laughs) So, when I think about personality traits, this is a bigger answer, but it, there's ... Personality traits are kind of captured in language as adjectives. So whenever you use adjectives to describe somebody, you're often talking about personality. They're quick-witted and hot-tempered, and a little zany. So those are all kind of personality traits. And when you, when personality psychologists over the last decade, you know, starting with, um, you know, Galton in, in your country, um, started trying to chunk these traits up, they said, "Well, let's start move- saying together, well, somebody who's creative and curious and zany, those are probably similar. Somebody who's nice and kind and caring, those are similar. Let's start chunking them up." When you do that, you end up with five traits. They're called the Big Five. And so, those Big Five traits, which are, I'm gonna just tell you. I know it d- openness to experience, conscientiousness or which is dutifulness, extraversion or energy, agreeableness or niceness, and neuroticism or instability. You know, so the- they spell OCEAN, if you ever wanna remember, or CANOE. Um, what you can do with those basic traits is you can combine them. I always think of like, you know, Mexican food. You go to a Mexican place, you're like, "Yeah, I want a taco or a burrito." It's the same ingredients, you just kinda organize them differently. And it's the same with personality. You take these basic ingredients.... and you organize them. So for narcissism, what you get is a big dollop of antagonism, kind of mean and self-centered, and then you add that extroversion piece to it, so you take, you know, low agreeableness and extroversion, that's a recipe for grandiose narcissism. Take that same ex- uh, low agreeableness or meanness or callousness, add neuroticism, anxiety, depression, and you end up with vulnerable narcissism. Does that make sense?

    3. CWChris Williamson30:55

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    4. WCW. Keith Campbell30:56

       So that's the idea that you can use these basic traits to make more complicated traits we talk about. A trait like psychopathy is really primarily just antagonism. It, it's really, in the Big Five, it's just a big piece of that antagonism that's sort of carved up in a certain way.

    5. CWChris Williamson31:13

       Yeah.

    6. WCW. Keith Campbell31:15

       So what this allows us to do as personality psychologists is whatever the trait is, we can take that trait, put it into Big Five terms, and then translate it into whatever trait we want. It's a bit of a Rosetta Stone for our traits. I mean, this is getting a little nerdy, but that's kinda how we do it.

    7. CWChris Williamson31:31

       I get it. What's the goals and motives for a narcissist?

    8. WCW. Keith Campbell31:35

       Well, you know, it's really, it really comes down in terms of the broader goals to sex status and stuff, that's where a lot of it can be framed, into getting leadership positions, getting power, getting money, getting access to sexual partners-

    9. CWChris Williamson31:49

       Even for the vulnerable one?

    10. WCW. Keith Campbell31:51

        Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just they're just scared to do it.

    11. CWChris Williamson31:54

        Mmm.

    12. WCW. Keith Campbell31:55

        The motivational structure is the same, but they're, but they don't have the dri- see, so in the, in the old, you know, in the old psychoanalytical literature, they'd say, you know, to be really narcissistic, you have to be really talented or really attractive. Because if you're really attractive or really talented, people will let you get away with it. So people who are vulnerable have the, they have the goals, they wanna be successful, but they, they, it's scary for them and pa- So let me give you a specific example. Selfies.

    13. CWChris Williamson32:25

        (laughs)

    14. WCW. Keith Campbell32:25

        So selfies, you know, we started studying selfies when this, you know, five, 10 years ago, when this, I guess it's been about, yeah, it's be- almost 10 years since people started taking selfies. It's been awhile. Um, and what we found with selfies are people who are grandiose narcissists, they take selfies very easily 'cause they like themselves, they're happy to show their abs, they're more full-body and they're more alone, and they, and they don't have any problem sharing selfies. It's just kinda what they do. People who are vulnerable wanna take selfies too, but when they do it, they don't really like what they see, they get anxious, it's not as much fun for them. So it's very challenging. So if you talk to influencers who have more vulnerability, and maybe you do, I don't, I haven't talked to that many influencers, um, but when you talk to people, it's very painful. They're like, "I had to put this picture out of myself on Instagram. I wasn't sure if I was hot enough. It's, I wanna be hot, but it's a real struggle for me." So that's the problem with the vulnerability is, is like you, you wanna be out there, but you've got all this concern and neuroticism that's kinda keeping you back.

12. 33:30 – 39:18

    Social media and narcissism: reinforcement loops, comparison harms, and ‘attention mining’

    1. CWChris Williamson33:30

       Yeah. Let's, let's talk about social media. I've got, I've got some thoughts in my mind about that that I really want to dig into, but I wanna kinda close the loop to the social media world at the moment. Have you guys been tracking narcissism through the advent of social media? Has there been a statistically significant increase? Can we say that social media is feeding narcissism?

    2. WCW. Keith Campbell33:50

       Uh-

    3. CWChris Williamson33:50

       Or is just, is it just enabling narcissism?

    4. WCW. Keith Campbell33:53

       So it's a little bit more complicated than that, I think, historically, because when we first started looking at this, and, and Jean Twenge and I wrote a book called The Narcissism Epidemic, like, a decade ago, end of two thous- end of the Great Recession, so this was probably 12... And at that point, we saw narcissism really spiking up with college students and social media. And I really thought that there was this dynamic feedback loop going on where the social media was really encouraging narcissism. And maybe it was. But then what we started noticing is we started seeing these very negative s- sort of side effects of social media, especially in girls, where they'd report a lot of social comparison processes, so like, "I am online and I look at my friend and she's so happy and looks so attractive and I'm not, so I feel bad," or fear of missing out, like FOMO. So people get on social media, they're like, "God, these people are so happy and I'm not at the party." And so it's almost like social media started making people depressed in a way. And we saw a change of, uh, people go from Instagram to fins- to fake Instagram, to Snapchat, to TikTok, so they're kind of moving away from the social pressure. Um, at the same time, when you look at the research on narcissism and social media, it seems to be self-reinforcing, which is kind of what you hinted at, that people who are narcissistic use it and it reinforces their narcissism. So I put out my Insta post, everybody likes me, I go, "God, I'm pretty hot. I'm gonna do it again." That's reinforcing, but it's not turning you into a narcissist. It sort of reinforces what's there. So my guess is there's a lot going on here. It's individually reinforcing, but at the cultural level, it's having these, these side effects that aren't necessarily predicted, or aren't a- always feeding the direction of narcissism.

    5. CWChris Williamson35:43

       Jonathan Haidt's work on that in The Coddling of the American Mind was so scary. There's, for the people that haven't seen it, there's essentially a graph that talks about, is it anxiety disorder and depressive sort of episodes amongst teenage girls?

    6. WCW. Keith Campbell35:57

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson35:57

       Like, precisely the ones that you want to give sympathy to. You know, like, a 13-year-old girl that feels anxious and depressed, it's just, you know, you just wanna make them feel better.

    8. WCW. Keith Campbell36:05

       Yeah. Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson36:06

       Um, and it's the advent of Instagram, 2012, I think.

    10. WCW. Keith Campbell36:10

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson36:10

        And you just see, it's l-

    12. WCW. Keith Campbell36:13

        Yeah. Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson36:13

        ... like a line in the graph, like Tesla's stock price last year. There's just this line in the graph.

    14. WCW. Keith Campbell36:17

        Just kind of arcs, right? Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson36:18

        Yeah, exactly. And it just lifts off. One of the interesting takeaways from that was to do with the fact that girls...... use words and more social backstabbing techniques in order to deal with disputes. And the r- hypothesis that Jonathan suggested for why that wasn't happening with guys is that guys will just throw hands and then, uh, l- pick themselves up off the floor and so, then you're best friends with the guy that you just had a fight with five minutes later. But because girls don't necessarily have that physical outlet naturally, that has caused the increase in depression and anxiety.

    16. WCW. Keith Campbell36:55

        I, I think there's that, uh, you know, sometimes people talk about, like, cyberbullying or whatever, that you can get those indirect negative s- uh, effects. And the other thing to add to what you're saying that makes it even worse is in the old days if everyone hated you, you could move to the next town and change your name and start school again and no one would know who you were. But now, you know, your social identity follows you. So these kids, it's very hard to escape some of the bullying and stuff if it gets bad. So, it, it can be dark, yeah. And, and, yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson37:25

        Think about, let's think about the three S's, the sex, status and stuff, which I love to remember what narcissism hap- uh, what narcissism's there for. Social media has permitted everybody to ubiquitously communicate their sex, their status, and their stuff. Here's a photo of me with my girlfriend wearing my brand new watch and I've got an extra 100 followers than I did yesterday, which is 10,000 more than you've got.

    18. WCW. Keith Campbell37:50

        Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I, um, I've described it this way and I don't know if it makes sense, but I'll try it with you, is Bitcoin and those kind of n- crypto networks work on mining. So you have people that are actually, you know, using computer power to solve algorithms and that what keeps the network going. With something like Instagram, what you need are influencers. Those are people who are out there getting, you know, who are attractive people who are getting attention. 'Cause-

    19. CWChris Williamson38:17

        Mining attention, yeah.

    20. WCW. Keith Campbell38:18

        ... mining, you need attention miners. And they're the ones keeping the network going. If it weren't for people out there attention, uh, uh, seeking attention, the networks would drop. But Facebook, rather than paying those people directly in Bitcoin like, like, you know, cryptos do, they, they kinda (laughs) , they do it indirectly, they pay you in, in, uh-

    21. CWChris Williamson38:36

        Dopamine.

    22. WCW. Keith Campbell38:37

        Dopamine. (laughs)

    23. CWChris Williamson38:38

        (laughs)

    24. WCW. Keith Campbell38:38

        Right. They pay you in dopamine sort of like being paid in cocaine, you know?

    25. CWChris Williamson38:42

        Yeah. Yeah.

    26. WCW. Keith Campbell38:42

        When it stops, it's really bad.

    27. CWChris Williamson38:44

        Yeah.

    28. WCW. Keith Campbell38:45

        And so, that's, so that's how I look at these systems, that they're, they're, that narcissism is kind of integral to the function. It's not the whole thing, because rage is really an important thing. But if you look at what's shared, it's, it's rage, humor, ego. And, uh, and that's how these networks are built. So they need ... (laughs) I mean, Instagram, you need influencers for the network to work. And they're the miners of the network. So they're kind of like ego networks in a way.

    29. CWChris Williamson39:15

        Mm-hmm.

    30. WCW. Keith Campbell39:15

        Did that make sense?
13. 39:18 – 53:59

    Talent vs narcissism, reality TV fame, and how to change narcissistic patterns

    1. CWChris Williamson39:18

       So, what I want to try and talk about is the relationship between talent and narcissism. So, what I find particularly interesting is that narcissism with talent comes across as justified charisma. Conor McGregor is a good example of this, right? You know, for all that he lost a couple of fights recently, one against the greatest boxer of all time and one against arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all time, he's a guy that is just brimming with extroversion and charisma. Is there some narc- I don't know whether many people would call him narcissistic. However, let's do a thought experiment, and in another world, Conor McGregor has all of the same extroversion and charisma that he has, but has lost every single fight that he's ever had. His charisma and extroversion haven't changed at all, the things he's saying are the same, it's the justification based on talent which has.

    2. WCW. Keith Campbell40:13

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson40:13

       And yet far more people would accuse that version of him of being a narcissist. What's going on there?

    4. WCW. Keith Campbell40:18

       Right. I- it, because I think if you're, if you're successful enough, people think you deserve it. So, Conor McGregor is a great fighter, so he can be an arrogant jerk. Um, I'm not saying that's true, but that's, you know, that would make sense. Like, yeah, you know, you're a king, you can be an arrogant jerk, you, you, you just, you got the status to do it. But if you don't have the status, then you're just a poser. "You're worse than me and you're acting like you're Conor McGregor. You're, I mean, you're not him. You're worse than I am. I hate you." (laughs) So I, there is that, that piece of status, but the other thing that I think is important is that you can be really successful in athletics or, and, and you don't have to be an arrogant jerk. And in fact, um, people will like you even more if you're not an arrogant jerk and your career's gonna be better in the long term because you're gonna build relationships on the way. And then when you t- you know, when he transitions from being a fighter into something else, if he had relationships, and maybe he does, I don't-

    5. CWChris Williamson41:21

       He's got two, he's got two kids now. Yeah, yeah, he's got a family-

    6. WCW. Keith Campbell41:24

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson41:24

       ... wi- married, two kids.

    8. WCW. Keith Campbell41:25

       Yeah, I, I, I should, I don't know the guy, but I mean, it's, it's just, if you're that arrogant, it's hard, it's gonna be harder to transition when you're no longer the celebrity. And celebrity is very short.

    9. CWChris Williamson41:35

       So there must be, there must be a way to weaponize or to utilize and have charisma, extroversion, uh, self-belief outwardly focused without it being narcissism. Where does that line lie?

    10. WCW. Keith Campbell41:50

        Yeah, I, I, I, I think it's really the interpersonal piece. So you can be confident and extroverted, but you walk into the gym, and instead of like your, instead of saying like, "I can do better than you," you're like, you go to the weak guy and you go, "Hey, let me help you out." Like, "Dude, McGregor helped me out at the gym. Yeah, he's a good guy. He kinda took the time to help me out." And all of a sudden everyone's talking about what a legend you are. So you can be nice. You don't have to be (laughs) , you know, you don't ha- uh, you're the best, like, everyone knows, you don't have to prove yourself.

    11. CWChris Williamson42:20

        Mm-hmm.

    12. WCW. Keith Campbell42:21

        So I think that, I mean, uh, being at the University of Georgia, which is, I mean, you wouldn't know in England, but we have a lot of world-class athletes, just nature of the college, big football program. I just, I'm not an athlete guy, I'm not into it, but I know a lot of great athletes, a lot of really nice people that are athletes, that are world famous. They're good people.You can be competitive on the court and not off the court. You know what I mean? So you can turn it on and off, but the challenge is that people can't do it. Um, anyway.

    13. CWChris Williamson42:52

        There's a spectrum-

    14. WCW. Keith Campbell42:53

        There's a risk.

    15. CWChris Williamson42:53

        ... uh, uh, there's a paradigm that I learned about last year, uh, from Kyle Eschenroeder wrote this wonderful blog piece and he talks about four things people think they want to want in life. And he talks about how that's something that you don't actually want. And one of them, he talks about to do with fame. And he says, "Most people want to be someone, what you should strive to do is to do something." You don't wanna be someone, you want to do something. And it seems like a lot of, uh, upon reading your book, a lot of the, um, pain which is felt by narcissists is to do with unlived potential, a gap between what they feel like the world should be giving them and what they're getting. But obviously part of that is down to what are you giving the world a reason to give you? Like your actual output should be reflected back with the adoration and all of the rest of it. Um, but what we see, you know, coming from a reality TV background, which I've been in, that is the epitome of instantly becoming someone without having done anything.

    16. WCW. Keith Campbell43:53

        Yes.

    17. CWChris Williamson43:54

        So people are given this inflated sense of self, and I think you, you talk about it, it's, uh, ego inflation.

    18. WCW. Keith Campbell43:59

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson43:59

        They're given this inflated sense of self, but I think that it's incredibly hollow. Uh, you know, I've, I've seen behind the curtain with this stuff. I get to look at the world, the inner world and the outer world of what a lot of these people talk about. And there is a, a big imposter syndrome that goes around because they know it was given to them so easily, this fame, the millions of followers, it was given to them essentially, and this is the big lie about reality TV, like they don't deserve it. No one deserves it. Like Elon Musk deserves it.

    20. WCW. Keith Campbell44:30

        (inhales deeply) Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson44:31

        Connor McGregor deserves it. You know, they deserve tens of millions of followers because they've done something.

    22. WCW. Keith Campbell44:37

        Yeah. Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson44:37

        They've become someone, their fame is a byproduct of their success, not the reason for it. Cart before horse again.

    24. WCW. Keith Campbell44:47

        Uh, this is so interesting and, um, so when we, when we... You know, this is going back in time and I forget how old I'm getting, but I first noticed this with Paris Hilton, where I'm like, "My goodness, she's one of the first people I've seen since some of these '70s people who's famous for being famous." Just a celebrity, just like, uh, just like a queen used to be. And then the Kardashians and then reality television. And there was research done by Dr. Drew Pinsky, who's an American, like CNN psychologist guy, and a guy Mark Young who's a professor at Southern Cal, where they gave the narcissistic personality inventory to 150 or so celebrities on the show. Great study. And what I loved about it is at the end they sort of said, "Well, here are the scores," and celebrities are h- you know, relatively high, but the highest scores were reality, reality television. And what's interesting and what at the time was like, "Well, these are people who are famous, but they're famous for not doing anything. They're just famous for being famous." And so then the question is, who's lining up for this? Like what's the, what are you lining up for? I mean, I have, what are you, what are people lining up for with reality television? Is it the fame or is that fame a launchpad for-

    25. CWChris Williamson46:03

        Sadly, I-

    26. WCW. Keith Campbell46:03

        ... something else?

    27. CWChris Williamson46:04

        ... I, I wondered about this. Um, when I went into Love Island, which was the second reality TV show I did, there was only two people out of the entire cast when I went on who weren't either unemployed or self-employed. They didn't want reality TV to be a springboard for their career, they wanted it to be their career. This is my opportunity to be special. I've always felt like, because everybody I think in their heart of hearts feels like they're unique, right? Because we only get to see-

    28. WCW. Keith Campbell46:36

        Oh, sure. Yeah, that deeper... Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson46:37

        ... our own, uh, motivations. We view the nuance of our phenomenological experience from a front row seat. And I only get to see the outward things that you say and I'm like, "Well, look at how deep and meaningful and the unique thoughts I have."

    30. WCW. Keith Campbell46:51

        (laughs)
14. 53:59 – 1:14:39

    The future: atomization, meaning crises, new ‘religions,’ and counterculture moves toward depth

    1. CWChris Williamson53:59

       It's interesting how, especially in this world, and you know, this is going out on YouTube, thousands of people are gonna be watching this on YouTube plus, you know, even more on audio, listening on audio. And one thing that I've realized over the last couple of years, especially as video has become frictionless for communicating with people, and especially the audio platforms have kicked off, precision of speech and confidence in your own words is used as a proxy for truthfulness and capacity. So, the more able that you are to articulate the things that you're saying, the more truthful people presume the things that you're saying are. And that, it's not prec- eh- quite narcissism, but I think it's the same sort of model or shape in that there is this outward display, and someone is making an inference that goes deeper from that.

    2. WCW. Keith Campbell54:57

       Yes. And, um, I mean, that's not unusual. This is what you see with a lot of, you know, atti- in the old attitudes research is we trust people who are attractive and seem like they're competent, even if it's another area and also people whose arguments look competent. So there's, you can dress up things now and make them appear to be, to be, uh, like you said, substantial, but they don't, aren't necessarily substantial, but people aren't reading philosophy deeply anymore. Like when I was a kid, I mean, I, I shouldn't, I sound like an old guy. I'm an old guy, but like, I remember reading Plato's Republic 'cause I was like on vacation. I'm like, "What else am I gonna do?" You know? Just got Plato in two days. Eh, eh, I don't s- get the sense people are doing all that deep philosophical reading because there's too much other things to do. I'm not doing it because I'd rather turn on a YouTube show and check my email in the morning and drink coffee. So our, our whole way of conversing has gone from sort of books to these, to YouTubes. I love YouTube podca- or podcasting on YouTube, and I think it's a great way to, to have discussions, and I really lo- that's why I'm doing it. I love the format, but yeah, it's very hard for people to know the truth y- y- because you're just looking at what's on the surface. And, and people aren't reading the science and they're not reading the philosophy and I'm like, "Please do that." You can go to Google Scholar and find everything. You know, everything's out there now. Read.

    3. CWChris Williamson56:22

       I wonder what is gonna happen long-term with this. It really does feel like the structure of narcissism, this, um ... Have you heard of the term fronting? Do you know what fronting is?

    4. WCW. Keith Campbell56:33

       What, people like opposers kind of? Is that-

    5. CWChris Williamson56:35

       Yeah, kind of. It's, it's basically narcissism. It, it would be narcissism that was unjustified. So it would be all show, no grow basically.

    6. WCW. Keith Campbell56:43

       Okay. Okay.

    7. CWChris Williamson56:45

       Uh, and, um, it does really feel like ... I don't know whether it's peaked. I think the pandemic's definitely put a dampener on it. You know, there's-

    8. WCW. Keith Campbell56:53

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson56:53

       ... there's only so much that you can flex when you're locked down in your house or gotta wear a mask when you're outside. But it definitely felt for a long time throughout the backend of sort of the 2010s that this was really picking up speed, that it was more about the transactional, transient nature of how flash and how quick-witted you could be. Even when you think about public intellectuals now. So let's think about Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro, two sort of popular public intellectuals.

    10. WCW. Keith Campbell57:23

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson57:23

        Um, both of those guys, them highest levels of popularity are reached when they dunk on someone on TV because of them being quick-witted and Ben Shapiro saying, "Well, why aren't you 60?" Or Jordan Peterson like-

    12. WCW. Keith Campbell57:38

        (laughs) Yes.

    13. CWChris Williamson57:38

        ... "Ha, gotcha ring." Like, the, those guys have done ... Shapiro slightly less 'cause he's not an academic, but he's, you know, he's a lawyer. He's a, got a doctorate of law. Uh, and John Peterson has been lecturing in psychology for years. He's this clinical-

    14. WCW. Keith Campbell57:50

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson57:50

        ... uh, psychiatrist, right? He didn't get famous for doing that. He got famous for like the flashy, charismatic ca- gotcha moment. Um ...

    16. WCW. Keith Campbell57:59

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson58:00

        And because of that race to the bottom, I wonder, I wonder what is gonna happen long term. I, I'm f- I'm so fascinated for the, the next decade. I think-

    18. WCW. Keith Campbell58:10

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson58:10

        ... technology's going to be interesting to see what direction that goes in. Automation, loss of meaning, this anomi, normlessness, loss of traditions. Let's bundle all of this together, right? Increasingly secular society, uh, people getting married later, fewer people having children, fewer people getting married, women having careers right through and not having children. Like, man, this next ten years is gonna be ... I think it's gonna be like nothing else.

    20. WCW. Keith Campbell58:37

        I, um, I follow all those, the data on marriage and childlessness and I see a huge amount of atomization, like just people isolated and living alone and trying to find meaning on their own. And ch- and we've been writing about this a long time, but this sort of, this rampant individualism, but we got rid of religion, so there's no more religion. And so what happens is you have this space, so what comes in? Well, there's been this huge interest in spirituality that's come in. Huge. I mean, it just, it, like the psychedelic work, I mean that is, that is enormous now because they got rid of religion (laughs) . You know? So people are jumping on all sorts of stuff to fill it up. And the other thing I, I guess is where I wonder is where the hell are people gonna find meaning? Like, if you have a world that's all just networks and atoms, where do you find meaning? If you get rid of religion, you get rid of tradition, uh, and you don't have kids. When you have kids, you have to redo everything. So when you have kids you're like, "Oh, I gotta take my kids to church. I haven't been to church in 20 years, but I'm gonna go back. Oh man, I gotta go to the local school." And then you're walking your kid down the street and you're talking... You know, so having kids resocializes people to engage in society, but if you have half or a third, you know, a third or half or more of the people not even chil- children, they never engage. It's just, they're just gone. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's ... It ... And, and I would throw out two other things just to, to, um, um ... The other thing that I think is an issue is we're all, all on social media and we feel like we're talking to each other on social media, like I'm having a discussion with you, but really what we're doing is we're making networks in a giant super brain, a giant super association network. Like Twitter's a giant super association network. Association networks are like dumb brains. They're like the dumb stereotyping part of your brain you have that makes quick decisions and, and stereotypes and heuristics, but it doesn't think clearly. And we've created like a massive dumb brain and, and we think we're engaging with people, but we're not. I, and that's how I take it. Like, I think I'm with Twitter and having a conversation, but I'm really just a network in a giant meta node and it's, and I'm creating something bigger than me. Whereas this feels like an actual discussion.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:00:54

        What was the second thing?

    22. WCW. Keith Campbell1:00:54

        If that ... Does that ... Pardon?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:00:56

        What was the second thing? You said you had two things.

    24. WCW. Keith Campbell1:00:59

        I probably just totally lost it, I'm sorry. (laughs)

    25. CWChris Williamson1:01:01

        No, that's, that's, that's absolutely fine.

    26. WCW. Keith Campbell1:01:03

        If that's okay. Yeah, I'm just really, like, I just feel like everybody's drifting off, and I don't know the forces that are going to bring people together. And it scares me a little bit because there's so much room for forces to come in and start doing that job.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:01:15

        Man, we could ... This is a whole other podcast episode, but let's think about, um, how politically affiliated people are, how vehement they are, patriotic about their different political affiliations, uh, movements like BLM, ANTIFA, how much people support sports teams now. You have people who have a religious fervor around their sports team. They do ... Think about what it used to be. You would go to the same place, the same day of the week, every single week. That would be church on a Sunday, well, it's the stadium on a Saturday.

    28. WCW. Keith Campbell1:01:44

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:01:44

        Now, you don't even ... When you can't go see live sport, you can still have your Reddit thread or your WhatsApp or Telegram or Signal group chat with the other fans that are season ticket holders while you watch the game on TV. Other things that people are, are, are sort of bowing themselves a- at the church of and I think is a, a good thing is the church of Marcus Aurelius. Copies of Meditations sold out at the beginning of 2020. Sold out. Couldn't get them on Amazon.

    30. WCW. Keith Campbell1:02:10

        That's-

Episode duration: 1:14:39