Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Narcissists Who Endanger Their Countries
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to us all Your Fault on True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:23): Hi, everybody. Speaker 1 (00:25): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California, where we focus on training, consultations and educational programs and methods all to do with high conflict. In this episode, we're discussing the recent case of a young man in the US who leaked National Security Secrets, uh, by putting them out on Discord. One article in a longstanding popular publication called The Atlantic, published an article about him titled The Narcissist Who Endanger America. And another article by the same author published a few months ago, uh, is the narcissism of the angry young men. So we're going to look at this from the angle of narcissism and particularly young men. But first, a couple of notes. If you have a question about a high conflict situation, send it to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast. Or you'll also find all the show notes and links. Please give us a rate review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict sit situation. We're really very grateful for all of our listeners, and thank you for listening each time. All right, bill, I know this is a, a topic of particular interest to you. You've, you've, uh, researched and read about it for a long time, and I know you've, you've formulated a lot of thoughts. Why don't you break down for us what happened in this case? Speaker 2 (02:02): Let's, let's start with just the narcissism principle, and that is that narcissist that we're talking about, our narcissists, people who may fit the diagnosis of a narcissistic personality disorder. This isn't just a self-centered person, and a lot of people say, oh, well, you know, my brother's a narcissist, or My boss is a narcissist, and they mean self-centered and insensitive. But when it becomes a disorder, it's really about, about bad role in relationships as a drive to really maybe control other people, dominate other people humiliate, other people look superior. The theme for narcissist is to look superior, and they really have, uh, an inclination to be heroes, but they also see the world with villains that they want to be superior to Speaker 1 (02:59): With villains with A V V I l L A I N S. Is that what you said? Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (03:04): And maybe, maybe that's too strong a word for narcissists, because one thing I'm gonna get at is there's overlap with antisocial personalities, and that also may be a factor in what's happening with all these leak secrets, because antisocial personalities really are comfortable violating laws and rules, whereas narcissists wanna be seen as special and superior. They aren't as driven to violate laws and rules as antisocial personalities are. So in reading this article, I really think that we're talking about people that have at least antisocial traits with their narcissism, but the biggest thing to know is that someone with a narcissistic personality disorder lacks empathy for others and is willing to take actions that really may even hurt other people when they don't care. Anti socials may hurt other people, and they want to hurt other people. At some point in this discussion, and I should talk about why I think these personalities are part of the human gene pool, but for right now, that's kind of some of the dynamics. And in their most extreme form, we're seeing them more and more releasing security secrets. There's other people have done that. We're seeing them. The other article that the, uh, writer Tom Nichols, uh, mentioned the angry young men is about, uh, shootings. And that most of these kind of mass murders we see in the news these days are young men between about 15 and 25. Now, it's not a hundred percent. There's men in their fifties, men in their seventies, but there's more in this 15 to 25 age group. And that's who's been leaking these secrets. Speaker 1 (05:02): And this, the, in this particular case, it was a 21 year old, which, you know, is, is really pretty shocking that , you know, you can't drink legally in many states, I think, until you're 21. And here we've got 21 year olds with our national securities secrets. Speaker 2 (05:16): Absolutely. And I think America, and, well, I shouldn't say America, the whole world is starting to wake up to the fact that the issue's, not the issue, the personalities, the issue that with so many of these things, there wasn't a good reason for this guy to leak those secrets. He leaked those secrets to look big. That was it. That was the reason Speaker 1 (05:41): To look big and important. And, and look at me. I, I, so, so was he, uh, if we go along this narcissistic theme that, uh, somebody with the disorder, so he wanted to be seen as superior. He wanted to be seen as someone with authority and power, and a way to do that is to share secrets that no one else has access to. I mean, that's a, those are, that's a lot of power and superiority. Speaker 2 (06:07): Yes. You know, it's interesting when we go back in time, Eric from in the 1960s wrote about this. He was a psychologist who first wrote about malignant narcissism, and he said, there's two, basically two types of narcissists, the malignant narcissist and the benign narcissist. And he said the benign narcissist, uh, wants to be seen as special and will work really hard to be seen as superior and special, but they do it within the bounds of society. They wanna be a movie star, they wanna be a billionaire. These things that you can earn without having to break the law. And they're driven because they wanna be seen as superior, but it's benign Speaker 1 (06:57): And they're just annoying. . Speaker 2 (06:59): They're annoying. Yes, yes. . But their goal is not to hurt people, and they set limits on themselves. That's one of the big factors. The malignant narcissists has the same drive to be seen as superior, but they don't have the limits, and they're willing to hurt people. And he talked about Hitler and Stalin, uh, the Caesars, the Pharaohs, that these are people that were ruthless and couldn't stop themselves and ended up, they stop, you know, they die from heart attacks or revolutions, but they're dangerous. They're highly dangerous, and they really don't care about the people around them. And that's the thing. Narcissists lack empathy, but, uh, antisocial lack, remorse as well as lacking empathy. So I think what we're seeing isn't, isn't just narcissism, it's the malignant narcissism. But young men want to look superior. I mean, that's part of being a young man, is you want, you're getting your identity. Speaker 2 (08:07): You're figuring out where do I belong in the world? What group am I associated with? What battles do I wanna fight in this world? I'd say young men, since way back when I used to be one of them, I, I wanted to accomplish things. I wanted people to see that I did a good job. That, that I was particularly good at something. And fortunately it was to do good work rather than to just get attention by any means necessary. But I think a lot of young men, it's inborn for a lot of young men to stand out. And the percent, maybe 6% of adults are narc, have narcissistic personality disorder, maybe four have antisocial personality disorder, and there's overlap there. They say maybe 2%, uh, or, or 1% of adults have both antisocial and narcissistic. And that's why you don't hear about this every week with people releasing state secrets. Speaker 2 (09:16): But you do hear about this seems like every five years something like this happens. So it's a small group, but the concern that Tom Nichols, the writer of these two articles says is it's all, and it's a growing group. And I think that's because of the culture paying so much attention to them, it's actually rewarding them. And so you're gonna have more people doing all of this stuff. That's why we're seeing more shootings. I think it's because we're paying so much attention. I think that any, any mass shooting should be reported on the back page of the newspaper and not even mentioned on television. And then we won't have as many of them. Speaker 1 (09:58): Right. And it's always going to be front and center and breaking news, breaking news. Um, I also did want to mention here and, and maybe get your thoughts on this too, that this leaker was very, I, I think can be differentiated from the, let's say the Edward Snowden case, where Snowden, I, I, I don't think he suffered narcissism and was trying to show himself as superior. I, I think we can differentiate it from, from this case. Would you agree? Speaker 2 (10:27): Well, I've been thinking a lot about that and what are the differences? And what's interesting is Tom Nichols in his article, talks about what he sees as differences and similarities. I think in a way that Dak Teera, that he really was pure narcissism Speaker 1 (10:45): This 21 year old recently occurred. Mm-hmm. , Speaker 2 (10:49): I don't know. He's anti, he really wanted to show off and he had access to information and couldn't restrain his impulses. Edward Snowden was much more, I dunno if I wanna use the word thoughtful in a good way and a bad way, depending on how you look at it. This is, I'm gonna quote, uh, Nichols here. He says, narcissism, as I've written elsewhere, is on the rise in the United States around the world, destroying many of the social and political norms that sustain a democratic nation, and especially those that guide public service people consume by concerns over their social status. Astera seem to be, or who will mortgage national security for companionship and approval as Manning did. That was, uh, Chelsea Manning now, or who as in the cases of Snowden and a man named winner, think of themselves as the ultimate orbiters of the social good are all menaces to national security, no matter what their reasons. Speaker 2 (11:55): So he sees them as maybe different forms, but possibly all of them as narcissists, putting themselves above everybody else above the country. I don't think Snowden was necessarily trying to impress people like Takhzyro seems to have been. But I think he believed that he had information that the world needed or that the United States needed. The problem with that coming from me as a lawyer is that could be true, but you have to do that within the rules of society. If you think on your own, you know what society needs, and you honestly sincerely believe that you still have to follow the rules because society's thought through a lot of this stuff, that's my problem with all of these folks, including him. Speaker 1 (12:52): Ah, that's really fascinating. Yeah. It's just, it's just such a dilemma because, um, yeah, people should stay in, in, you know, within the bounds of the law. But if there is something that needs to come out, how do you do it? I guess that's the question. And, and maybe with snowed in there, was it another way that it could have been done? Kind Speaker 2 (13:10): Of what you're getting at, I think makes me think of Martin Luther King, and he did break the law and he led people in breaking the rules. And looking back, you know, 50 years later, we can see that was a good thing, that there were laws that by breaking those laws, we could look at them more closely. And that's the argument for Snowden, is that he disclosed a bunch of stuff that a lot of people said, if we knew this, we would do something about it. And so there's, there's an argument for Snowden's case that what he did may have benefited society and may have been a rule that needed breaking. That's still up for debate. I don't even know what I think about that. Speaker 1 (13:56): Yeah, that's the, it's, it's a tough one. And I follow Snowden on Twitter and, uh, I, I, I like what he has to say the majority of the time. Um, and I, I kind of enjoy reading his, his thoughts, um, on world events and how, you know, and journalism and freedom of speech and press and, and those kind of things. So it, it is an interesting dilemma. But if we kind of bring it back around to the narcissism, you know, you could have a Snowden who's not, uh, someone who, uh, has narcissistic personality disorder, let's say, and still can someone without NPDS or A S P D still break that law without having a personality disorder. Speaker 2 (14:38): I think if it's calculated, and that's someone that has remorse and has empathy, like I like the Dr. Martin Luther King example, is that he realized he was gonna be punished and he took that risk and he made those decisions. Now, of course, somebody might say he was a narcissist, and I would suggest that s a a degree of narcissism maybe a healthy thing because it helps some people really push forward against the odds against the social constraints to do good things. And so, in my mind, uh, a person without a personality disorder that balances all the things and says, I've gotta do this for the good of society, and I realize I'm gonna be punished for it, but I'm still gonna do it, that a little bit of narcissism may help the world. And in many ways, a lot of our political changes over the last few thousand years have come from narcissists as leaders. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. So I think in my mind, this is an inevitable part of humanity, but what humanity has to learn is how to restrain people so they don't go too far. And that's the legal system. I really think the best solution to these extreme personalities and behaviors is laws and rules and weighing things. Cuz that's the collective wisdom. You know, the constitution and state and federal laws are the collective wisdom, and I think humans put together are smarter than any one individual. Speaker 1 (16:28): Yes. Maybe not smarter than chat, G p t, though the new, uh, ai . Well, I wonder what would happen if we asked chat g p t to, to put together a constitution that gives all of the, the grants, all the freedoms and, and rights that we all want. . That'd be an interesting exercise. Speaker 2 (16:45): We'll have to watch out for chat. G p t be being, having a narcissistic personality. There's a great movie, I'm trying to remember. It came out about six or eight years ago, I think it was Ex Machina, and it was about someone created a human, but the, that the human they created was anti-social Oh, Speaker 1 (17:07): No. And Speaker 2 (17:08): and became a murderer because they didn't have the advanced human traits of empathy and remorse. Society won't operate if we're all narcissists or all antisocial, but it seems like we have a few to keep us on our toes, and maybe that makes human progress. People push us. My theory is high conflict personalities are a necessary part of society because they push us to do better. But that the problem we have is we haven't learned how to set limits on them. So high conflict people pushe us to do better, but they can't stop themselves. That's the key. Speaker 1 (17:49): Uh, yeah. Setting limits on them. And, and we also, you know, we just aren't kind of aware of, of them around us or, you know, kind of how to take care of ourselves around them as well. So it's a, uh, you know, it's tricky. And I, and I agree. I I think society, we, if we were all just the same, we probably wouldn't advance that much. And you look at the advancements that are, that are made by, uh, you know, I mean, it's some major world advancements made by people who may be both antisocial and, and narcissistic. And eventually, I I, you know, I, it's not sustainable. And eventually they either, uh, self sabotage or they end up in prison or uh, dead or something. But it's, it, it is an interesting mix and, and it would be kind of boring if we were all alike. And I do have to say, bill, that I don't know if you've heard about this newer new movie that's come out in the last, I don't know, six months or so, it's called Megan . Oh. And it's, it's a, uh, I have not seen it, but I hear that it's about, uh, a robot that's been created to be a friend of a little girl and Megan gets out of control. So , Speaker 2 (19:01): Oh, we have to make sure to see that. Speaker 1 (19:03): I don't think so. Speaker 2 (19:04): , don't you want me to see it and tell you whether you should see it? Probably Speaker 1 (19:09): . Speaker 1 (19:11): Yep. Exactly. Yep. Uh, you know, it's, it's fascinating to, to think that there are some people in positions of, uh, who hold these secrets. Whether it's a, a national secret or just something, you know, family secret. They've, you can use that to control and have power and be seen as powerful and, and special. And so it, it's, it's a risk, right? So for someone like this young man at age 21 who had that much access to powerful secrets that are, could be their high risk, uh, uh, for damage to the United States and maybe other countries, I don't know. But you know, if, if you're the person that's hiring that person, , maybe you should be, there's a, there's a, a reason to exercise excessive caution, I would say. And maybe a 21 year old isn't the right person in that, that position. If, if, if we believe that the brain, uh, the prefrontal cortex and all that is not really truly formed until age 25 or so, maybe wait till someone's over that age to even consider them for a position like this. Speaker 2 (20:17): I think we have to start thinking like that because people aren't all the same. And all of us in the conflict resolution field have a tendency to focus on conflict instead of personality. Not everybody's the same. We've got 10% of the world. Adults may have high conflict personalities who engage in these extreme behaviors that people have to learn how to recognize that in the people around and develop confidence in setting limits. And as you know, we put in the dating radar book, wait at least a year before you commit to somebody, uh, have a baby, buy a house, get married, all that stuff, Speaker 1 (21:01): Hire Speaker 2 (21:03): And hiring too. And part of it, and it's being looked at, is that there's way too many people that have security clearances. Many of them don't need it. Like this guy. I don't, I don't, I understand procedurally that he needed to know some stuff, but it's too much power. And there are people like this out there. And that's what people need to understand and recognize. Speaker 1 (21:30): People need to, uh, I don't wanna say earn trust, but really they need to earn trust. You need to give people that year at least to see if you can trust and, and you know, like you've always said, bill it, within about six months, you're going to see some high conflict behavior. Some, or at least something you know, is unusual. Something's off, or you suspect something, something doesn't feel right, typically within six months. Uh, but most definitely a year if you're paying attention, you know, and, and what that pay attention might look like is there's just a lot of conflict or a lot of drama, or many crises or a lot of blame , um, um, all or nothing. But what I kind of see is, is uh, there's, there's these o often crises surrounding this person and, um, just causing, causing lots of trouble and blaming. And so you just pay attention to those things. Pay attention to yourself. Like, do you feel confused? Do you feel attacked? Do you feel put down unworthy ? Do you feel, feel like you don't feel around, uh, around this person? Do you feel differently than you do around most people? I think is a, is a big key. Speaker 2 (22:45): Exactly what we, we talk about the web method that the words they use, do they have all or nothing words, extreme blaming words and stuff, your emotions. So you're exactly right. Describing what you feel. If this is odd or unusual or you know, disturbing, pay attention to that, look into that, that may be a warning sign. Your gut may be telling you something your brain hasn't picked up yet. And of course, lassie's behavior is words, emotion, behavior. Do they do things 90% of people would never do? That's kind of a shortcut to get you thinking, this isn't like you can't convict somebody based on this and you shouldn't, but you can warn yourself, uh, oh, I need to be cautious with this person. Now I wanna mention while we're talking about that is the book, uh, five types of people who can ruin your life, identifying and dealing with narcissists, sociopaths, and other high conflict personalities. And in the back of that book, I put 40 behaviors that can help you recognize a high conflict person. I just think people need to start knowing about all of this. And like you said, recognize their own emotions, look deeper and realize some people really are different. Speaker 1 (24:09): Yeah. Speaker 2 (24:10): And you can deal with them. It's like an alcoholic or an addict. Doesn't mean you can't be a friend or family member with them, but don't give them alcohol or drugs. And with high conflict people don't give them power over you because that's where they get into trouble when they have power that they shouldn't have. Speaker 1 (24:29): Right. And I'm, I'm thinking of a particular situation I've been, uh, uh, helping some people through recently. And the, the individual that's causing so much trouble is likely high, has a high conflict personality in a different environment, that that high conflict personality has helped them achieve great things that most people would never achieve. And it, it's in some very, um, difficult circumstances in, in a war, um, on the other side of the world, but when that same individual is put into a regular setting in the United States, that personality of, you know, just, I'm gonna rise up and I'm going to battle and I'm gonna fight, it doesn't work. Um, so it, it's, it's kind of interesting, like you've said in the past, these are wartime personalities and not necessarily great in the office or at home. Speaker 2 (25:30): Exactly. Speaker 1 (25:31): Yeah. So anyway. Well, any last thoughts, bill? Speaker 2 (25:34): Just, you know, have empathy for people with these problems, but get comfortable with setting limits. And that's what the government has to do. That's what we have to do at work and families and friends, is don't see people as evil or, or terrible or even reject them. Just realize you have to set limits on what you'll let them do, and especially on giving them power over your life. Speaker 1 (26:01): Yeah. And it, I have to say, once you really grasp that concept and try it a couple of times, you just, you know, have courage and do it, have confidence and do it. And it, it's amazing how well it works and how much stress it takes off of you and decreases and deescalates the situation. So. Speaker 3 (26:27): Alright, Speaker 1 (26:28): Well, great conversation. Um, next week we're going to talk about letting a win be a win. Uh, sometimes in high conflict situations, we, you know, use some great skills and get a win and we sabotage it later. So let's figure out how to, how to avoid that. Uh, send your questions in the meantime to podcast high conflict institute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. And, uh, we'd love it if you tell anyone about us, your friends, your colleagues, your family. Until next time, keep learning and practicing your high conflict skills and, uh, management skills, I should say, not about how to be high conflict, be kind to yourself and others while we all try to find the missing peace. Speaker 3 (27:19): It's Speaker 1 (27:19): All your fault. It's a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music, by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and zip Moran. Find the show, show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app Laos ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.