Counter-Narcissist Intelligence in Action

Shutting Down Narcissists by Weaponizing Paradoxes

Long before I understood narcissist psychology, I enjoyed using common sense and pure logic to point out paradoxes to counter idiocy and ignorance, because it often worked. When done right, the paradox was so persuasive that it made weak and flawed arguments so obvious that even the teller changed their mind.

Regardless, the tactic revealed whose mind was still open and who was in a state of what I would later come to call “mental lockdown.” Mental lockdown meant I might as well be talking to a brick wall. After having late-night debates in a “hard drinking” European country where forgetting the night out is considered amusing behavior, and then regularly debating “libertarians” for research, one of my favorite political mantras became, “I don’t debate drunk people, brick walls or libertarians, all for the same reason.”

With apologies to our libertarian leaning members of the community, I really did fairly listen and learn for a few years all the way down the rabbit hole, and at the bottom of it all was nothing but unworkable utopian theories and a pathological narcissist’s dream ideology. Riddle me this. Name any country that has been run according to libertarianism, ever? You see that is the ideology’s paradox. No country has ever been run in a libertarian way, which means history and reality itself have so far proven libertarianism is a set of unworkable utopian theories as well.

I get it though. I grew up with a lot of techies and covered the techie libertarian worldview in Elon Musk’s psychological profile. Most are innocents lured by the dark siders with promises of a utopia of freedom that will never come, by those who groom techies with narcissism, like Peter Thiel. Ironically, True Crime Elizabeth Holmes turned the tables on a lot of these groomers for a long while. She conned many a good person and narcissist alike, due to her own particular highly manipulative psychology.

Libertarianism is a narcissistic ideology that starts with, “I want no rules.” Too much? Take a wild guess how narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths feel about any government putting rules on them. Shockingly, they feel the exact same way libertarians do. Coincidence?

In the past, pure logic and common sense techniques consistently proved that truth could usually win over most good and reasonable people on the Left or the Right, who were just misinformed. Usually the best method was to present them with a paradox in their mistaken belief, watch their face reveal a brain freeze, and then help them see the light by gently showing how their flawed beliefs caused their brain to crash on the rocks of paradox. However, even this technique lost much of its effectiveness shortly after Fox “News” arrived in 1996.

After becoming more fully aware of pathological narcissism, I realized the reason pure logic and common sense stopped working on so many once reasonable people was because Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and other far right “media” had been grooming and gaslighting generally fair-minded conservatives with narcissism, fear, insecurity, false flags and massively exaggerated propagandized outrages with predictable Overton window shifting results, since at least as far back as the early 1990s.

What this narcissistic grooming meant in practical terms was even if a paradox was presented to a groomed minion gently, they were so locked in and invested emotionally, that their ego would rather keep spouting illogical nonsense that spun them into intellectual never-never land, than admit a simple error was made due to getting bad information from a dishonest source. I would later learn an inability to admit a normal human error is a very predictable narcissistic tell and compulsive reaction whenever a narcissist is confronted with the inconvenient truth that they are wrong about anything, no matter how small. By nearly all Republicans currently being unable to ever admit any wrong or fault, they prove the CNI theory by continually acting exactly how a narcissist would.

Flashing forward decades to now, after studying narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths for around 15 years and being a digital political warrior against narcissistic authoritarianism starting around 2011, I have a lot of experience in how to effectively psychologically defeat and/or expose narcissists on-line, so trust me when I say most are not worth any of your valuable time or energy. What I have also learned is it should all come down to whether one is being constructive or destructive, because we should only be interested in making progress and not adding to the trauma.

Good humans are constructive, while what trolls usually want is to feed their predatory nature by trying to upset people so they can feel powerful and destroy civil society and replace it with their own version of a sadistic and Machiavellian dystopia. In their dark fantasy, they no longer need to justify a purely selfish, cruel and predatory existence because in their nightmare world of selfish rule, no one is holding any narcissist back from their disordered pathology and cravings, or telling them to take the much tougher road of trying to be a better person. Picture a world of greedy, predatory, well-armed children with no rules, aka Mad Max’s world, or much worse.

While I generally agree with the principle of “Don’t feed the trolls,” letting the predatory behavior of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths go completely unchecked in our free society is clearly not working, and indeed they directly seem to be causing things to get much worse. Unfortunately, it is just easier for governments to let them go unchecked because understandably, few have the want, know-how or resources to come out victorious after getting down in the muck and the mire with those who get off on it.

Here is a recent exchange that demonstrates how the (forged in the fires of Twitter) technique of using a paradox to silence or reveal an online narcissist troll works. To be clear I am not someone who goes looking for trolls but I am starting to think Jonathan Katz enjoys trolling trolls, if you are into that sort of thing. The CNI view on trolls would be to keep that negativity out of your life unless you think you have armed yourself with enough counter-narcissist skills and you want to test yourself.

Just remember, for pathological narcissists it is fight or flight and they won’t fly unless you cause them to hit a barrier or consequence that makes them flee, so please be sure you are ready, very careful and have multiple contingency plans if you decide to take on someone who gives off the tells of a pathological narcissist.

Jonathan M. Katz

“It’s so weird to me how people think racism isn’t a real thing that exists in the world. As if pointing out that someone was racist is like saying they were Bigfoot.”

Highly Narcissistic White Man

“So why do you want the government to discriminate on the basis of race?”

Sam Ray

“You really think all debts are paid for making black humans slaves?”

Highly Narcissistic White Man

“Yes, I do. There is no way to correct the wrongs of the past better than to live your own life well. Go ahead, set goals, lift your head high, care for yourself and your family. Take responsibility for your own future”

In these sentences, he has subtly revealed himself to be either a really dark person, a paid troll or a narcissist minion groomed to be selfish, or all of the above. Regardless, I immediately knew not to get sucked in by his ridiculously self-serving and racist gaslighting, but to focus on using Counter-Narcissist Intelligence to expose his peak level of selfishness to other readers less attuned in the predictable ways of the dark side, and the behaviors of its groomed followers.

Sam Ray

“Strange, that’s exactly what a pathological narcissist would say.”

Highly Narcissistic White Man

“Really, I don’t see it that way. I find sacrifice, deferred gratification, and hard work the best way to combat the evil perpetuated by narcissists. And doesn’t it depend on one’s efforts to perpetuate the good?”

Here the narcissist’s predictable manipulative, self-justifying, and tricky language comes to play, because it is reacting to a threat. Amazing how he shifts to “sacrifice” being gratifying in battling the evil of narcissists, and implies doing it for good, but his self-declared idea of doing good is just looking out for himself, and that revealed that narcissism is the “good” he wants to “perpetuate,” whether consciously or unconsciously.

Maybe he has a different meaning in his head, but it sounds exactly like something a pathological narcissist would say to rebrand their selfishness as virtue. When reading it through the psychological lens, it reveals highly narcissistic and disordered thinking on several levels, whether clinical or not. If the words and behavior that someone puts out into the world is selfishness is the best way to address racial injustice, what does it matter if they are clinical or not? That is some next level overt narcissism.

It is actually a bit surprising he would be so open about it, but then trump, the right-wing media and the “prosperity gospel” have given every narcissist permission to let their self-serving freak flags fly. In the past, narcissistic people knew society frowned on their selfishness. This guy was actually advocating for it. I still wonder if he was using the trolling technique of sealioning me, aka saying ridiculous things to try to trigger me. Knowing the game, I only bit a little, so I did not give the troll what they usually really want. Us outraged and upset.

Remember, the only thing that stops these psychic vampires are firm barriers like their manipulations crashing and burning, legal consequences or threat of exposure of their true nature. Weaponizing a paradox against a narcissist can potentially publicly expose them in social media, or at least make them run away, but you could also be putting yourself on their list, which is why the most extreme caution is greatly urged.

Sam Ray

“Strike two. Making it all about you is being a narcissist.”

Highly Narcissistic White Man

“No, it’s more important than that. It’s about our children’s future.”

Yes, looking out for #1 and claiming it is for the children’s future is about as narcissistically manipulative as it gets. As many of you know, a narcissist’s kids will often seem to excel, but behind the scenes is abuse. Narcissists are fixated on their children appearing to be star pupils, athletes, singers etc, so the narcissist can use the child’s success as proof that they are a good parent, and falsely virtue signal to everyone they meet that they are the entire reason for their child’s success.

Sam Ray

“Nope. The only child you are helping is yourself. What you are saying only makes sense in a narcissist’s fantasy world while trying to justify being ignorant, lacking empathy & being a selfish person. The only person you are fooling is also yourself, Dunning Kruger folks and perhaps children you groomed to be narcissists too. “

“‘There is no way to correct the wrongs of the past better than to live your own life well,’ is 100% bullshit and being a narcissist.”

Sam Ray

“Strike Three, you’re out! There is nothing more to say. You revealed yourself. Since narcissists always need to have the last word, you can either prove me right by being narcissistically compulsed to have the last word or you can go away and rethink your life.”

He went away to hopefully rethink his life.

So you can see how using the narcissist’s paradox of desperately not wanting to be exposed as a selfish person can be used against them when you are done exposing their online idiocy and manipulations. Once I know I might as well be talking to a selfish brick wall and have said all that I have to say to reveal them, that is when it is time to test them with the narcissist’s paradox. The only question left once I drop the hammer is will they keep fighting and further reveal themselves publicly or go through one of a narcissist’s greatest pains by muzzling themselves to limit the public exposure of their dark secret. Either result is a positive.

When it comes to “Highly Narcissistic White Man” above, it is likely he is only a Flying Monkey, because wicked witches and warlocks usually compulsively fight harder for dominance, and will throw some serious gaslighting at you before leaving the battlefield. As exhibited here, once you have exposed them with a paradox, they will go away of their own accord, but if you are done and they want a verbal cage match, immediately use the ace you always have up your sleeve and use it often. aka The Ace of Blocks.

This technique is sometimes called hit and run, but since most experts say, “cut all ties” with pathological narcissists when you can safely, in social media you can say your peace and then “cut all ties” with a click. From a CNI perspective, blocking narcissists after you expose them is a beautiful thing, because that is a toxic trigger that should now be gone from your life forever, and others have been warned too. The better one can utilize CNI, the more one can eliminate most toxic triggers from their life.

Protips:

Once high levels of narcissism are detected and confirmed, remind yourself you are not debating the narcissist because that is usually pointless. You are only exposing their true on-line nature so others can see them for who they are too, and then you can positively move on to shine a little light on another darkness, thus little by little making the world a better place. However, you definitely need to be very cautious and judicious when speaking out and be 100% certain you are ready to take on the level of troll you are trolling, or your valiant effort can turn into a nightmare with a human form boogeyman.

Calmly and methodically take them down and/or trigger them into revealing themselves. If they just keep spouting nonsense, they reveal themselves to anyone with a brain, so mission accomplished. Time to block and move on. Otherwise, you can present them with the paradox of proving themselves a narcissist by triggering their compulsion to have the last word vs. their compulsion not to publicly reveal their self-serving psychological darkness.

Of course we need to make every legal disclaimer that nothing here should be considered anything beyond the author’s personal opinions and beliefs, so should not be considered advice in any way, because each person’s situation is unique. Every individual should consult a professional about their own specific situation before taking any kind of psychological action that may or may not appear to be suggested or implied here.

Sam Ray © 2023 Counter-Narcissist Intelligence

Part II of Weaponizing Paradoxes