Sam Vaknin Interview - Excerpts Part 23 - Narcissistic Thoughts

Written by Sam Vaknin

2. Vindictive Narcissists

Basically, there are only two ways of coping with such people:

(a) Frighten them

Narcissists live in a state of constant rage, repressed aggression, envy, and hatred. They firmly believe that everyone is like them. As a result, they are paranoid, suspicious, scared, and erratic. Frightening the narcissist is a powerful tool for the modification of his behaviour. If sufficiently deterred - the narcissist will promptly disengage, give up everything he was been fighting for and sometimes make amends.

To act effectively, one has to identify the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of the narcissist and strike repeated, escalating blows at them - until the narcissist lets go and vanishes.

Example:

One should threaten a narcissist with public disclosure of misdeeds, misbehaviur, or unfavourable traits. One should drop cryptic hints that there are mysterious witnesses and recently revealed evidence. The narcissist has a very vivid imagination. Let his imagination do the rest.

advertisement

If the narcissist has been involved in tax evasion, in malpractice, in child abuse, in infidelity - these are so many fields which offer a rich vein of attack. If done cleverly, noncommittally, gradually, in an escalating manner - the narcissist will crumble, disengage and disappear. He will lower his profile thoroughly in the hope of avoiding hurt and pain. Most narcissists have been known to disown and abandon a whole PNS (pathological narcissistic space) in response to a well focussed campaign by their victims. Thus, a narcissist may leave town, change a job, desert a field of professional interest, avoid friends and acquaintances - only to secure a cessation of the unrelenting pressure exerted on him by his victim.

I repeat: most of the drama takes place in the confined recesses of the paranoid mind of the narcissist. His imagination runs amok with him. He finds himself snarled by horrifying scenarios, pursued by the most vile "certainties". The narcissist is his own worst persecutor and prosecutor.

You don't have to do much except utter a vague reference, make an ominous allusion, delineate a possible turn of events. The narcissist will do the rest for you. He is like a little child in the dark, generating the very monsters that paralyse him with fear.

Needless to add that all these activities have to be pursued legally, preferably through the good services of law offices and in broad daylight.

Otherwise, if done privately and in the wrong way - it might constitute extortion, blackmail, harassment, and a host of other criminal offences.

(b) Lure them

The other way to neutralize a vindictive narcissist is to offer him continued narcissistic supply until the war is over and won by you. Dazzled by the drug of narcissistic supply - the narcissist will immediately become tamed, forget his vindictiveness and triumphantly take over his "property" and "territory". Under the influence of narcissistic supply, the narcissist is unable to tell when he is being manipulated. He is blind, dumb, and deaf to all but the song of the NS sirens. You can make a narcissist do ANYTHING by offering, withholding, or threatening to withhold narcissistic supply (adulation, admiration, attention, sex, awe, subservience, etc.).

3. Narcissistic Thoughts about Humanity

What is different today is the DEATH OF CURIOSITY.

Curiosity is the result of SCARCITY of information. It is like thirst - it is so much stronger when water is scarce. Or like hunger - it is so accentuated after a long fast.

But when there is a glut - too much of something - our hunger for it, our cravings, die.

There is too much information, data, knowledge. We have been desensitized. No one wants to know more than he ABSOLUTELY needs to know. This is the world of the absolute minimum. People are becoming more and more narrow minded, less open to the world, more isolated. The more TELEcommunication - the more the distance (=tele) between people. There is no more "professional pride" because people value their leisure more than their work, change workplaces and professions very often, and are flooded by superfluous information. So, no one knows anything about anything. What we fail to understand is that too much information results in insufficient knowledge and pervasive ignorance. People are dumbed down. Television, newspapers, books, films - I remember another era. Today, these are mass products for intellectually passive consumers. The education system disintegrated. Publishers refuse to publish books, or articles, with a vocabulary "too extensive". Collective idiocy replaced collective intelligence.