The Most Fundamental Misunderstanding About Narcissists

"Why not just call them a-holes?" - Counter-Narcissist Cheat Code Series

Author’s note: As a rule, since the malignant types of narcissists and narcissism we cover at CNI are often such dark vulgarities in themselves, the philosophy dictates we limit the use of dark imagery and vulgarity to only what is necessary. Therefore, I hope you will agree that in this case the use of this purposely provocative and mildly humorous vulgarity is the memorable positive it is meant to be in helping clarify, simplify and make useful a few foundational counter-narcissist concepts.

Please also note that this intelligence is also part of the psychological defense class series and will be eventually indexed as Counter-Narcissist Cheat Codes: A-holes &...

The Most Fundamental Misunderstanding About Narcissists

"Why not just call them a-holes?" - Counter-Narcissist Cheat Code Series

Supportive subscriber Thomas D’Arcy O’Donnell asked for my “thought” on David W. Runyan’s comment,

“the word ‘narcissist’ is so widely used these days one would think 99% of humans are in that category . . . can we just call them what they are? which is assholes.”

That was David’s response to someone who wrote an article asking questions like:

“How do you tell the difference between Narcissistic rage and Demonic rage?”

“Are Narcissistic people Demonically influenced, or, are the Demonic Narcissists, or is it both?”

Like most things related to narcissist psychology, even seemingly simple questions like David’s are not as simple as they seem after being put through a CNI matrix, and that’s without even touching any evil or demonic aspects.

Therefore, a thought or paragraph attempting to answer most narcissism questions is normally an unsatisfying and useless oversimplification that misses several layers of interwoven psychological complexity.

It is indeed rare if it does not take connecting several thought lines to make much useful sense or logic out of the jargony abstractions of narcissism, which is one large part of why a broader public knowledge of the psychology remains elusive. It’s not rocket science. It is an art and a science. There is just a fair amount of subtlety and nuance that needs to be accounted for, if one is interested in learning the whole truth.

This is also why CNI welcomes all productive challenges and opportunities to show how the philosophy can bring fairly rapid clarity and hidden insights into the narcissistic abstractions too often hiding in jargon’s shadow.

Additionally, I personally needed a distraction from an epic new psychological defense class project that jumped itself to the front of the cue a few weeks ago. I initially thought it would flow out in a few days, a week maximum, but more good philosophy keeps coming, so I will need to wrestle with this dragon for a little while longer. In fact, it has now grown into at least two new epic and timely Counter-Narcissist cheat code dragons soon to come.

While the following commentary is not dragon-level or from the deepest end of the CNI philosophical pool, it should be a helpful tool in understanding and teaching others that while it is true that every malignant narcissist is an a-hole, and every a-hole is being a narcissist, it is far from true that every a-hole is a narcissist. A-holes can change, pathological narcissists by definition almost never can.

Questions reveal…

In truth, when I see a question like, “Why not just call them assholes?”, it instantly tells me that person likely has little to no understanding of narcissist psychology, or at least not nearly as much as they think they do.

Unfortunately, far too often in the halls of power regardless of whether it is in politics, business, media or anything else, I hear questions and answers that reveal that far too few understand the psychology behind most of the domestic and global threats we are currently facing from a wide variety of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths in our midsts. What a coincidence that narcissists with more power and money than they deserve is how most supervillain origin stories start.

To be fair, it does seem like David is trying to logically convince the writer to not excuse a-holes by calling them the now convoluted term “narcissist,” or to blame their antisocial behavior on the “demonic”.

To be clear, it is fundamental to CNI philosophy that ignorance of narcissist psychology is never meant as a personal critique or indictment, unless the ignorance is of the compulsive or willful variety.

The reason CNI holds most individuals harmless is because under the false flag of ethics, the APA has had a de facto gag order on the psychological, academic and media professions discussing even the most obvious malignant narcissists like trump and the symptoms he has regularly displayed in public for decades. The people cannot be blamed for their ignorance of narcissists or misunderstandings about narcissism when most of the experts stay silent.

It is truly shocking that these people who are supposed to solve psychological problems are a main reason why so many around the globe have little to no Cluster B education, awareness or even a frame of reference, unless they are a survivor.

By the APA ironically gray-rocking the public awareness of narcissism into nothingness, their vacuum has left massive societal blind spots that have allowed the predators among us more opportunities to terrorize more innocents and steal more of our planet’s health, wealth and democracies.

Today there should be zero doubts that certain types of malignant psychological disorders consistently align with the behavior patterns of history’s worst toxic abusers and dictators. In fact, the term “malignant narcissist” was coined to have a more precise way to describe hitler and stalin’s level of pure “evil.”

Is it not shocking that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths have always been and are humanity’s greatest existential threat to each of us as individuals, to our civil societies, to the human race itself, and yet we have no warning system for them? One would think that the most powerful psychiatric organization in America and perhaps the world might feel some duty to warn us common folks. Seems like basic common sense, right?

Does narcissist really mean anything?

This is not the first time I have heard something to the effect of, “the word ‘narcissist’ is so widely used these days one would think 99% of humans are in that category . . . can we just call them what they are? which is assholes.”

However, since the sentiment does come from a few important angles, let us unpack some of the comment to explore why CNI dictates we follow certain conclusions and how it crushes others.

Perhaps one of the main causes of common misconceptions about narcissists and narcissism is that most people do not realize everyone has a certain level of narcissism. At least I know I had no idea I had any kind of narcissism until well after my late 2000s awakening, and I still find myself explaining this rather basic psychological concept far more often than one would expect for anything that is broadly known or understood.

In other words, I have no idea where David is getting information that would make him think 99% of humans are being portrayed as narcissists. Frankly it sounds like he bought some narcissist propaganda and/or has somehow conflated or confused the fact that 100% of people have some form of narcissism with something else. It is not surprising at all because we see this type of purposeful and accidental confusion about the proper use of the term “narcissist” all the time.

Indeed, explaining that everyone has narcissism and that there are two main opposing forms has become foundational in the understanding of CNI. On the one hand, we have positive healthy narcissism which naturally forms and grows in well-adjusted, justifiably confident, emotionally intelligent, reality-based people who have put in the work to hone their abilities and personality.

Unhealthy narcissism on the other hand is the opposite. Here, the poorly adjusted, insecure and emotionally unintelligent delusionally tell themselves and often everyone else how great they are at things they are not. This primarily happens because either their fragile ego cannot ever handle admitting any weakness, inability or failing, or they are shamelessly lying for advantage because their grandiose and/or massively inflated ego thinks they can get away with it, or both. Not surprisingly, narcissists are almost always certain they are justified in lying, cheating and stealing to get whatever they unjustly believe they “deserve.” That is far beyond being an a-hole in my book.

The most fundamental misunderstanding about narcissists in society?

When I first really began to comprehend the different meanings of the term in the late 2000s, I then did some personal polling by asking a lot of smart friends and strangers if they could define “narcissist?” Every single one gave up within seconds to a minute or two, which proved to me that the vast majority of people have never really been able to define the term, and thus did not really understand its complexities and layers.

The fundamental misunderstanding I had and the one I still see most often is that while many know that someone acting like a selfish and self-absorbed a-hole is being a narcissist, there has historically been little to no public awareness that a fair percentage of every society are people who would be classified as Cluster B-level narcissists if they submitted or were forced into clinical psychological testing.

It still blows my mind that I once had no idea that a sizable percentage of humans have compulsive, maladaptive, narcissistic psychological disorders such as HPD, NPD, BPD, or ASPD, and these disorders explain so much bad behavior. Sure I knew a lot about psychopaths as a Sherlock/mystery/crime fan, but somehow my mind was tricked or hacked by the movies and TV into thinking all psychopaths were serial killers, when the truth is far far different, because the vast majority will never kill another human. But yes, the vast majority of the worst serial killers are still psychopaths.

Sure they may have no functioning conscience and run on primal animal instincts but the more intelligent and organized ones normally do not color too far outside the legal lines, because they know they want to avoid jail, maintain their “mask of sanity” and get rich and powerful by doing legal things that will reward psychopathic shamelessness. For example, “off the top of my head,” MAGA Republican politics seems a great fit for those without a conscience.

Another fact that still blows my mind is that roughly 1% or more of every population are psychopaths. This means in America alone we have at least 3.3 million psychopaths. How useful for them and treacherous for society that the smarter ones hide in plain sight extremely well after spending a lifetime figuring out how to pass as a normie. Fortunately, they do have completely tone-deaf blips here and there that often are a signal they are not who they are pretending to be.

Then again, psychopaths are just the tip of the iceberg as far as Cluster B personality disorders are concerned, which for some suspicious reason stays hidden in the shadows thanks to organizations like the APA almost appearing to protect narcissists over our democratic society. They certainly protected narcissist trump from any public psychological comments by viciously and professionally attacking experts such as Dr. Bandy X. Lee and others who took their ethical duty to warn the public seriously.

Current CNI theory concludes with fairly high confidence that a lack of public awareness of the positive, negative and pathological types of narcissism are large parts of why there is so much confusion, conflation, mislabeling and incorrect overuse of the terms “narcissism” and “narcissist,” which again leads us to the APA’s culpability in this apparent psyop to keep the public psychologically in the dark.

A CNI “narcissist” history.

Full disclosure, before my late 2000s studies to rescue a friend, I personally had zero knowledge of Cluster B, what the word narcissist really meant. that it had anything to do with personality disorders, or that there were even such things as personality disorders that essentially made people egotistical a-holes. This is why I can usually recognize a similar or greater lack of knowledge in others, by the comments they make.

The full extent of my knowledge on the word narcissist prior to my studies came from Dave Chappelle. I heard him use it on Inside the Actor’s Studio. He said something about narcissists being the reason why he turned down a multi-million dollar payday and left Hollywood for a while.

I had heard the word before here and there but due to its abstraction, it seemed to have just gone in one ear and out the other. I remember looking it up, reading about how it came from a Greek Myth about a guy named Narcissus, and remembered it meant something to the effect of “people with too much ego.” This of course fit perfectly into a nice and neat little box of Hollywood stereotypes, which in hindsight is what caused this seemingly non-descriptive word to go in one ear and out the other once again.

What I suspect happened to make the word appear overused to the point of meaninglessness for some, goes back to 2015. Of course, because trump is such a poster child for narcissistic personality disorder, many of us who understood the psychology started calling him out as an obvious narcissist.

Of course the predictable Republican Party, the right-wing media echo-chamber and the other parts of their cult of narcissism responded with both conscious and unconscious projection, by accusing everyone else of being a narcissist. What a coincidence that Republicans have a long history polluting terms to the point where they are rendered toxic or meaningless, if they cannot steal them.

From a historical right-wing media perspective, I clearly recall “psychiatrist” Charles Krauthammer of Fox News never having any reservations about calling Barack Obama a “narcissist” and always insinuated he was the malignant type. However, every time I watched him attempt this political Three-card monte, I recognized all he was really doing was just projecting and conflating his own disordered narcissism onto Obama’s healthy narcissism. What a surprise I always got a, “he’s one of the ones who is not a serial killer” vibe off of Krauthhammer.

Well, however it happened, it is now popular to say the word “narcissist” is part of the zeitgeist but that does not seem to help us save the world and means almost nothing.

Call to spread knowledge

Currently at a foundational level, it seems we should all be spreading the knowledge that everyone has narcissism, there are both healthy and unhealthy kinds, that non-pathological narcissists who are full of themselves can change if they see the light, and then there are those with compulsive maladaptive disorders who will never change, so they must be contained, or else they will keep marching us down the path to some form of apocalypse.

It is also very important that more people know that most malignant kinds of narcissists are not in jail, but instead are hiding in plain sight and in the shadows at every level of society, in every country, religion and ethnicity.

Of course their goals are almost always a variation of the same predictable patterns of filling their emptiness by remorselessly crushing our hopes and taking away our rights, unity, money and power, so they can rule over our democracies. This is why we must win in places like Ukraine. It drives these predators crazy that we have so far kept them at bay in most democracies, but not being stopped from doing what they crave always only encourages them even more.

What we must always remember is the shameless never quit and have no moral bottom to hold them back from going ever darker. Other rules to remember are the only things that stop them or even give them pause are firm barriers such as consequences like death, jail, exposure or massive financial penalties.

Oh, and just to make solving the problem even more complicated, they usually attempt to burn it all down if they enter narcissistic collapse, or often just for pettiness, so before you act, make sure you are prepared for the narcissistic abuse that is directed at those who counter them. If you are forced to act after the fact, it is usually about limiting further damage.

From a-hole to narcissist to nice guy?

trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is an interesting case-study of this narcissist/a-hole dynamic. Certainly while working as trump’s fixer and media defender, Cohen was very much an a-hole of the highest magnitude in defense of trump and certainly gave a strong impression of a pathological narcissist in his tactics and manner.

However, when push came to shove and Cohen was confronted with the reality of his legal situation, meaning trump expected him to spend years behind bars taking the fall for him, he surprisingly transformed over a short period of time into someone who has escaped a cult, done a full mea culpa and now seems like a decent fellow who fell under trump’s dark narcissist spell. Considering how many people trump still has under the cult spell, it is fairly impressive what an inside trumpworld truth-teller and advocate for accountability and democracy Cohen appears to have become.

Of course the moral of this story is that while Cohen was an a-hole for years, he was not the malignant narcissist he often appeared to be on TV. He was just playing by the rules of what we now know it takes to be a trump lawyer. No surprise that meant almost perfectly mimicking a narcissist in words and deeds. So in the end, the a-hole just behaved like a narcissist, and we know this because the now liberated and on the right side of history Cohen appears to be a completely different person since he has been liberated from trump’s narcissistic assholery.

Michael Cohen does seem to be a cautionary tale about not jumping to conclusions and in reminding us that while virtually every narcissist is an a-hole, not every a-hole is a narcissist, or in this case the a-hole was given a shot at redemption, and he fully embraced it. Indeed by giving a full mea culpa of his guilt and personal failings, he does not even seem to be an a-hole anymore.

The above behavior is pretty much conclusive proof that Cohen was never the Cluster B-type narcissist he once appeared to be on TV when defending trump, because a pathological narcissist could never so freely and easily admit their mistakes and take full responsibility for their failures, unless they are caught and want to brag about their crimes.

No wonder his former boss, the world’s most famous malignant narcissist, wants “absolute immunity” and will never take any personal responsibility for himself or anything that comes out of his mouth, ever. That my friends is a big red flashing warning sign for very unhealthy narcissism aka a wannabe dictator alert.

Conclusions

To cover the most fundamental misunderstanding about narcissists in society, we explored how people’s questions often reveal a lack of understanding that a fairly high percentage of narcissists are far more than just a-holes.

Indeed it is still fairly shocking and hard to hear how someone clearly does not understand that there are psychologically disordered narcissists that are far more dangerous and destructive than normal a-holes, because narcissists almost never learn, and are the people who can’t handle the truth.

We are of course talking about people with personality disorders often built by extreme trauma and/or born without a fully functioning conscience. Not the people with a little too much ego, but in their heart of hearts are good people, or can be.

It is this kind of disordered brokenness that happens spiritually, physically, genetically, or all of the above. Unfortunately, for far too many, being a relentless, remorseless, selfish, greedy and power-hungry narcissist is their primary defense mechanism. They compulsively fear being dominated for right and wrong reasons, but unfortunately their disorder leads them down a path of empty, soulless and self-destructive solutions in hopes of dominating others in return, so they feel big and safe. “It’s the path to the dark side.”

In other words, prior to trump and often still, most people have no idea that there are scientifically established personality disorders, how they manifest in society, or how there are clinical tests that professionals use to determine who is or is not a “clinical narcissist,” and yet they are de facto ethically forbidden from discussing anyone specific in a public.

Obviously, ignorance of narcissists is not the case for regular CNI readers, but we have observed for years that when most people hear the word “narcissist,” they usually conflate it with “a bit too much ego” or selfishness, and it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Again, never feel bad about recognizing you may not understand something about narcissist psychology because as repeatedly noted and questioned, the APA has been blocking the sharing of this knowledge for decades. What a strange coincidence how narcissistically self-serving the APA’s behavior is when you think about it. Hmm?

Additionally, the APA also likely plays a role in maintaining the abstract jargon and questionable labeling that obscures the deeper levels of psychological truths we all need to know as individuals and societies, so we are prepared to properly defend ourselves and our loved ones, when narcissistic predators come calling, as has happened to the good people of Ukraine, and so many unsuspecting places elsewhere.

Hopefully it is now clear why it makes no logical, tactical or strategic sense to dismiss narcissists as a-holes, cynics or even power-players because in doing so, we ourselves are then shielding malignant-type narcissists from the scrutiny they deserve and the containment they need to stay out of destructive societal trouble, for us and them.

If we allow narcissists to be conflated with all the non-pathological fixable a-holes, we are helping them hide their predatory nature, putting our heads in the sand, and sowing the seeds of our own destruction by creating more ignorance, while obviously fighting on the wrong battlefield.

Additionally, we hope it is now more fully understood that 100% of people have narcissism and what we should all strive for is the healthy kind that is rooted in confidence and positive success, while working to be far away from the negative and unhealthy brand of narcissism that is usually birthed from trauma, insecurity, selfishness, brain deformity, gene variation and/or repeated negative failure.

Luckily, I learned this lesson of humility from Bruce Lee as a young boy. Before he tragically passed, he was the baddest man on the planet. While Bruce was supremely confident, he was also extremely humble, wise, philosophical and playful rather than being the arrogant, cocky, condescending and domineering person he could have been if he wanted to be. Indeed Bruce showed so many of us that anyone with true greatness has no need to be arrogant, an a-hole, and definitely not a narcissist.

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