Animal Kingdom Wisdom

Nature's defenses against narcissist predators.

Hopefully everyone had a nice holiday season and is still enjoying the calm before the coming American four year sh*tstorm. The plan was to put out something psychologically useful and inspiring on December 31st but some life and tech issues interfered, so I was forced into extended time away.

🎯 4 years in a row & will now be for 4 more. 🤬🤑🤡s

In hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise to break up routines and have some time away to contemplate and process all the new and renewed darkness and greed working to infect every free society with malignant types of narcissism as a means of control.

It is so important to understand that with all the gaslighting that will be put out on a daily basis over the next few years as egomaniacs try to further consolidate power, it will all quickly become overwhelming if one does not have a personal and public strategy for positively handling all the triggering, propaganda and attempts at manipulation we are about to receive from all directions, and especially from local and national corporate media. Basic elements of CNI’s strategy are process and dismiss.

This is why as a supplement to the trump 2.0 Survival Guide, it seems a good time to cover some fundamentals of what the law of the jungle, history and empirical CNI indicates are required foundational tactics and strategies needed to survive, thrive and win psychic wars vs. natural predators or groups of malignant-type narcissists.

Of course with one of CNI’s primary missions being to simplify the abstractions in narcissist, sociopath and psychopath psychology, I am always on the hunt for clearer prisms that reveal beyond a shadow of a doubt what it takes for free peoples to successfully recognize and defend themselves from the sharks that swim among us.

Foundational tactics and strategies

Coincidentally to that evocative and favorite CNI shark mantra, I recently came across a new Apple+ series called The Secret Lives of Animals. Normally, I don’t prioritize watching nature documentaries anymore because as a nature blessed Northern Californian, I find that time is better spent being out in it, or researching psychological shows to save nature from the narcissists who would destroy it without care or conscience.

However, while watching the entire series still wasn’t my path, a few episode titles suggested some animal kingdom secrets might be insightful or good examples of how to counter predatory narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths in the human animal kingdom. Of course animal to human analogies often don’t work, but the two intriguing episode titles seemingly related to CNI were called Protecting Yourself and The Art of Deception.

The reason these two titles seemed interesting is because one of the foremost things to understand about human malignant forces and predators in the animal kingdom is that absolutely everything is zero sum to them.

For those unfamiliar with the abstract term, in essence it means the only two outcomes are winning or losing. On both primal levels of human and animal thought, it means feast or famine, survive or die, thus there is no room for compromise or loss in either world, and any form of deception to get what they crave is “just business.”

This is also why there is no bottom to what malignant-types of narcissists will say or do to get their way. It is all very primal and animalistic for narcissists because for those lacking in positive willpower and conscience, it is fight or flight, be the predator or be the prey. They may pretend to cooperate but in the end, they are almost always only out for themselves.

Indeed, with few guardrails protecting us from human predatory types today, it is so important to build up personal and group psychological defenses and evasive landing strategies against any upcoming inevitable attacks, so CNI will continue to stay focused on helping good people and societies find and develop their defenses with new, ancient and occasionally cross-species wisdom.

Protecting Yourself

The first relevant example was from the African Savanna. The narrator explained how Vervet monkeys “form tight-knit groups,” and that “living on the ground and in the trees, they face dangers at every level.”

As they show a literal “snake in the grass,” a 12ft python moving towards the foraging monkeys, they are safe because they have someone in a tree on the lookout for such predators. As soon as the snake is noticed, the spotter sends out a specific warning that tells the group exactly what to do. “Stand tall to spot the snake and keep your distance.” Apparently this works because “pythons are ambush hunters and if their cover is blown, they give up.”

However, there are a variety of predatory threats out there so the monkeys “know it is not how loud you shout, it is what you say that really matters.” Indeed the sight of a leopard sets off a different alarm to run to the thin branches of the trees, while an eagle warning tells them to run for cover below the canopy. Each of these three signals and strategies are essential to the group’s survival, as is working together to stay safe.

CNI Lesson: When there are predators around, there is always safety in numbers and it is existential to have a support network with good spotters on the lookout when most of the group’s attention needs to be on other essentials.

Obviously, having specific dangers spotted and the best defense quickly transmitted is just as important for humans against predatory narcissists, because regardless of what type of narcissist they are specifically, most of them are also “ambush hunters who give up once their cover is blown.”

CNI works to be one of humanity’s best spotters of existential malignant-type narcissists, and like Vervets, we also generally recommend to, “stand tall to spot the snake and keep your distance,” and that danger coordination and good “communication saves lives.”

Otherwise, being on your own only helps human snakes in the grass ambush, Homo sapien leopards more easily eat faces and flying predators more stealthily stalk from above. Again, how telling it is that malignant-type narcissists always try to divide people and isolate targeted prey from their support networks.

The Art of Deception

Perhaps the most dramatic example I observed came after they showed how baby Burrowing Owls on the prairie recognize to stay back when they hear a rattlesnake’s warning. As a tough looking American Badger arrives on the scene, the four chicks too young to fly are signaled to run down into their only safe space. A small tunneled underground nest the badger is much too big for, but the drama builds as the babies are cornered below and the predator looks like a good digger.

The owl parents try flybys with claws to the badger’s back with no effect and then the announcer said, “Badgers are built to shift mountains of soil.” Yikes! By all accounts, the baby owls are dead to rights as we the viewers like the babies just wait in horror for the end.

Then all of the sudden, the terrified baby owls started hissing a familiar sound. It’s a sound the badger quickly recognizes. The sound of a rattlesnake. The badger thinks about it for a few seconds and then runs off to avoid the firm barrier of a death bite.

How amazing and uplifting it was to see these tiny, adorable, terrified, and cornered baby birds dramatically save themselves with the deception of a perfect rattlesnake impersonation. This was the scene that confirmed animals had helpful lessons that show how some of Counter-Narcissism’s axioms and rules are obviously true in both the human and animal realms.

CNI Lesson: This example proves the rule that when you are fighting for your survival against a predator, there is absolutely nothing wrong or dishonorable about using trickery or deception to get them to leave you in peace, as opposed to letting them tear you to pieces psychologically or literally. In the baby owls case, trickery was their only real protection, weapon of last resort, and it amazingly scares off skilled predators. “Survival of the fittest!”

When it comes to survival against human narcissistic predators, it is essential to understand that most are instinctively good liars and tricksters by nature because they have been doing it their entire lives to hide from reality. So for both honorable and practical purposes, you almost never want to try to beat them at their own dishonest games, but as the Burrowing Owls prove, sometimes deception is the right thing to do when fighting for survival.

Key Note: This is a most important lesson because malignant-type narcissists always use our honesty, kindness, truths and secrets against us to get what they want. It’s just their nature. That is why whenever someone is urging you to tell them your deepest secrets, this should be a big red flag. It’s not conclusive evidence but it is standard operating procedure of narcissists to try to find your secrets and use them against you.

Of course since all predators are highly-practiced in games of dishonor, all counter-tricks need to be top notch and specific to the fears and weaknesses of each individual narcissist to help ensure effectiveness, because if you leave them a chance to spin it all back onto you, they are virtually compelled to do so. Then you are down in a mud fight with someone who gets off on it, which is a place no reasonable person wants to be.

Philosophical Note: CNI is always trying to be completely honest and transparent with our readers, so while we are noting deception is an important option to have in any Counter-Narcissist toolbox, it is not something to be used within the community.

Another useful example of using trickery to survive predators comes from the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar. It uses deception to “stay off the menu” by initially having the same coloring as bird droppings, which makes it look not worth going after.

However, as they grow larger, the disguise won’t fool their predators. That is when they shed their brown skin for green, switch strategies and use a variety of tricks to make themselves appear to be the head of a snake. They even have horns they shoot out and appear to be a snake’s forked-tongue that puts out a foul smelling acid. This combination of tricks and illusions scares away predators “30 times their size.”

CNI Lesson: This is an interesting analogy for someone who stays below a narcissist’s radar by appearing to be an unappealing target, but then they grow or become more noticeable. Since they can’t escape detection anymore, they can adapt and change to a new strategy by deceiving people into thinking they are dangerous and not someone to be messed with. It is a tricky and dangerous strategy in the human realm but it can work very effectively in the right specific circumstances.

A mixed lesson from the animal kingdom is the Drongo bird. It protects Southern African Meerkats with predator warning signals, but it cannot always be trusted. When a Meerkat has found something the bird wants to eat like its favorite meal, a scorpion, it can also perfectly mimic the Meerkats own warning, to get them to panic and leave behind the meals the bird wants.

Would a bird lie to get what it wants? Of course it would.

CNI Lesson: Sometimes people you think are helping are really helping themselves. To be fair however, the program noted the Meerkats are safer with a Drongo around, so this is a good reminder to weigh the pros and cons of self-serving narcissists before dismissing them. As is the case with Meerkats, it’s not always a case of black and white, and all is not what it seems, so please take necessary precautions.

Malignant-types are always at war with anyone who stands in their way.

“In the animal kingdom, mastering the art of deception can be the difference between life and death.”

Conclusions

For animals to survive in the wild, they need to use their intelligence, communication, cooperation and/or trickery to avoid or scare off predators. It is hard not to conclude through a CNI perspective that their examples are valuable lessons for dealing with human predators that come in the forms of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths.

Essentially, we must always remember it is part of the natural order of things to intelligently use communication, cooperation and deception to get predators to fear what will happen to them if they unjustly attack the innocent.