THE NARCISSISTIC WESTERN ELITES: AN OPERATIONS MANUAL

Gaius Baltar Feb 14, 2024

The last few years have been years of miscalculation for the West. Big things have been planned and put into action, and failed. All the wars, all the sanctions, all domestic and economic ‘initiatives’, and all responses to what the adversaries have done are failing or have already failed. In fact, the failure of any venture by the West has become almost guaranteed. This has a lot of people scratching their heads – they simply can’t fathom how this can happen.

At the same time the real goals of the western political class have come under increased scrutiny. Everything they do seems to be designed to make things worse for western societies on all levels, including economic, social, health, and so on and so forth. Why, exactly, is that?

It is like incompetence and malice have conspired to create the worst situation imaginable.

Recently I wrote a piece where I suggested that the western ruling class undergoes a filtering process to ensure that they have the right personality and attitudes for their task of deconstructing western societies. I furthermore suggested that this filtering process results in a pool of ruling elites who are either narcissists or forced to behave as such to keep their jobs. This depressing article can be found here:

gaiusbaltar.substack.com/p/what-is-wrong-with-the-western-political

The main factors causing narcissism are low self-awareness and high contribution of emotion to a person’s psychology. This results in a systematic misjudgment of self, and subsequently of other people. The narcissist mistakenly overestimates himself and underestimates others, even pushing others down to reinforce his mistaken self-evaluation. This becomes an emotionally driven process where the narcissist becomes like a drug addict – dependent upon oppressing or manipulating others to get his self-worth fix.

This will obviously affect how narcissists, and thus western political elites, perceive the world in general – and how and what they plan. The main consequence of their narcissism is that their ‘model of the world vs themselves’ moves away from the real world. Instead of reflecting real world events and real world people, their model adjusts reality to serve their delusional self-perception and their emotional needs. The result is an alternative version of reality with different properties and motivations - and different rules, including moral ones. Since narcissists in general tend to have similar models of themselves and the world, this also means that all the narcissists in the western ruling class, a majority, exist in the same alternate-universe delusion. This parallel dimension contains a unified vision for the future of the human race – and causes them all to make the same mistakes in perfect harmony.

Any universe has its own rules. This applies to Reality itself, well written sci-fi and fantasy novels, and of course, the parallel dimension narcissists inhabit. Physicists and mystics seek to divine the rules of our universe; literary experts and enthusiasts ponder the rules of Middle Earth; and it is only natural that someone should attempt to map the rules of the Narcissist Realm.

There are many rules underpinning the exotic physics of the Narcissist Realm, and it would be impossible to list them all here. Only the most relevant ones will be discussed, examples from recent events provided where appropriate, and effect on perception, decision making, planning, and goals discussed.

A narcissistic individual will treat other individuals certain way and for certain reasons. A narcissistic elite will treat entire society the same way and for the same reasons. It is useful to be able to spot this behavior and understand it.

Rule #1 – Everything is personal

Mechanism:

The internal ‘superiority’ model of the narcissist is based on perceived intellectual or moral superiority – even both. This model includes various belief systems which reinforce this. The narcissist believes he understands things better than others (such as climate change or the Ukraine war) and/or is better than others (because he does charity work or something like that). This model essentially represents his self and has heavy emotional responses attached to it. Confirmation of the model feels very good while its failure feels very bad – and may cause anxiety and/or depression.

Any challenge to the model is a threat to the self and automatically causes emotional reaction. This reaction will be frustration, anger – and if it persists or is vigorous – hatred. This hatred can be directed at anyone who defies or challenges the narcissist. It can be a person, company, a country, or a group of people. The hatred can expand if the challenge is prolonged – such as from Vladimir Putin as a person to all Russians. The hatred can persist indefinitely.

In short – any challenge to the internal model/belief system/parallel dimension is perceived as being directed at the narcissist personally. Any serious challenge to it is personal and results in hatred toward the challenger.

Effect on perception and decision making:

Automatic anger: Any challenge, such as a pointed question from a journalist, can cause an emotional reaction and push an elite/narcissist off balance. This may cause the elite in question to start shaking or to say something he shouldn’t have said. A recent example is Justin Trudeau who visibly shakes these days when someone challenges him in press conferences, or Boris Johnson babbling incoherently after the Putin interview. This is very common among western leaders nowadays who seem to be having meltdowns left and right.

Impulsivity: Decisions are often made during anger/hatred episodes even if there is no challenge. Even thinking about a challenge is enough to create anger, and thus impulsivity. A good example of this is when Annalena Baerbock declared war on Russia on behalf of Germany – out of the blue. This impulsivity is very frequent because narcissists constantly obsess over challenges to their model.

No reverse gear: Narcissists rarely back down after they have made a decision and/or put a plan in motion, even if it has already failed. However, this only applies if the plan is based on their internal model. Backing down from such a plan means failure, and failure causes emotional pain because their model (and thus the plan) defines their self. Backing down literally hurts. On top of that - if the plan is directed at a challenger (who they hate), their obsession toward the challenger will drive the plan on indefinitely.

Rule #2 – I/we are superior

Mechanism:

A key aspect of the narcissistic delusion is a feeling of intellectual and/or moral superiority. Two things cause this: A) Low innate self-awareness which means that they have problems forming their own self-image and must outsource it to others (others must tell them who they are) and B) having been praised too much or brainwashed into thinking they are superior - as children, teenagers or young adults.

Because narcissists are also emotion-driven, this model of superiority becomes a center of their self and their emotions. Evidence that they are not smarter or better than others causes emotional pain. The main driver of narcissistic/elite behavior is to reinforce this feeling of superiority and avoid evidence to the contrary by all means.

Effect on perception and decision making:

Overconfidence: A constant trait of narcissists is overconfidence. They take on jobs without hesitation that they cannot deal with, and form unrealistic plans they then put into action. They must be able to do these things because they are smarter than others and understand things better. This is one of the most obvious characteristic of the western ruling class. They are almost all incompetent – on top of being delusional. A perfect example is Kamala Harris, who recently went out of her way to declare that she is ready to be the President of the USA, despite being a certifiable moron.

Inability to evaluate own work: An essential reason for narcissists’ incompetence (and their inflated self-image) is that they are poor at introspective thinking – resulting from their low self-awareness. This results in an inability to critically examine their own performance or plans. They believe that substandard work is superior work, a shitty movie script they just wrote is a great movie script, and a delusional plan for a military campaign is a great plan. It can be almost be said that they are not fully sentient when the situation demands that they look inward and perform a realistic internal simulation. This explains why the western elites create and approve unrealistic plans constantly – plans that anyone capable of running an internal simulation will see will never work.

Always reject advice, only accept support: Advice which is counter to a narcissist’s thinking or planning tends to be seen as a (hurtful) challenge. That kind of advice is therefore rejected. To prevent that kind of advice, narcissists/elites only accept advice from people who agree with them and ‘support’ them. To enable this, the narcissists will remove people who give them the wrong advice and surround themselves with ‘supportive’ people instead. This explains the echo-chamber groupthink among western elites. This process insulates them even more from the real world, pushing them further into the narcissistic parallel dimension.

Lack of contingency planning: Plans, whether they are for the conquest of Russia or alternative energy solutions, are by definition perfect and can’t fail. They are perfect because they are made by a person or persons who are superior to others, and because they have not been properly examined internally due to low self-awareness. In other words, plans are rarely thought through because narcissists cannot think things through. This, in almost all cases, leads to a lack of contingency planning. The plan is perfect, it will therefore not fail, and a plan B is unnecessary. This is very obvious in all plans nowadays. The US attacks the Houthis – it fails and nobody knows what to do. Ukraine carries out the ‘counteroffensive’ – it fails and nobody knows what to do. The West blocks Russia from SWIFT – it fails and nobody knows what to do. The West places sanctions on Russia – it fails and nobody knows what to do. Every western plan is like this. The western elites didn’t even consider increasing ammunition and armaments production in the West as a part of their Ukraine project until recently – because they and their plan were so superior, and they and the West are so strong – and no preparation was therefore necessary.

Sense of entitlement: Low self-awareness and feelings of superiority combine to create a great sense of entitlement. A narcissist/elite will accept a job handed to him as a part of a non-meritocracy program and will truly believe he deserves it. He will accept a meaningless prize (such as Nobel peace prize) like it has great significance (in fact narcissists love to give each other prizes and medals). He will, in general, believe he deserves to rule over others. This sense of entitlement and the vanity it breeds makes narcissists/elites easy to influence and manipulate through flattery. Their lack of self-awareness prevents them from spotting empty praise.

Rule #3 – Others are inferior

Mechanism:

This rule is a counterpart of rule #2. The high opinion narcissists have of themselves is rarely warranted. In fact, narcissists are far more likely than others to be incompetent for the simple reason that competence often requires self-awareness – which they lack. They have solved this problem by viewing their superiority in terms of comparison to others. In other words, they maintain their self-image by systematically regarding others as inferior. If others are inferior, that automatically makes them superior. They don’t really need any accomplishments, intelligence or skills. It’s enough that others are below them.

Narcissists are masters of rationalization which they use, among other things, to justify their negative opinion of others. They do not only hate those who challenge them – they also despise the entire ‘out-group’ which is everybody who is not like them. They despise the rednecks, the breeders, the common folk, the Slavs, the Africans, the Asians – and so on and so forth. This is not necessarily based on racism – because they look down on elements of their own race as much as they look down on other races – and even more so. This is just a strategy to maintain their model of superiority. This disdain easily turns to hatred if someone they already despise (like the Russians) challenges them – as described in rule #1.

  

Effect on perception and decision making:

Underestimating others: Narcissists will constantly underestimate their ‘inferiors’ – simply because if they took them seriously, it would be difficult to see them as inferior. The most serious result of this attitude is systematically bad planning against ‘inferior’ adversaries. Narcissists will always attribute incompetence, stupidity and weakness in general to their adversaries and form their plans accordingly. A good example is their view of the Russian economy (Russia being a gas station disguised as a country) and on the supposed inability of China to produce computer chips. Same applies to the view on the incompetence of the Russian army. Narcissists are basically forced to hold those views because their contempt compels them to. This damages any plans against their adversaries because they always assume incompetence – and they usually don’t even assume counter-responses from them. This results in a lot of failed plans.

Dehumanization of others: If challenged, disdain and contempt evolves toward hatred. A symptom of that is the dehumanization of the challenger. Russians are stupid animals and China is basically just a swarming anthill full of thieving ants who steal western intellectual property. This dehumanization is somewhat different from the way Nazis dehumanize people. Nazi dehumanization is usually directed at a targeted ‘outer’ group while a narcissist may dehumanize anyone who challenges him, even members of his own family. The western elite would even start seeing Swedes and Norwegians as subhuman animals if they were to challenge the narcissistic cult. They probably don’t hold high opinion of the Hungarian and Serbian nations at the moment. It’s easy to become a subhuman, even in the European heartland.

Don’t listen, don’t honor agreements: An unavoidable part of contempt and dehumanization is that adversaries can’t be taken seriously. You can’t take people beneath you seriously - doing so would indicate that they weren’t inferior after all – causing cognitive dissonance. This is the reason the western elites have never listened to anything the Russians have said, and haven’t honored any deals they have made with Russia. They are not really doing this on purpose – or as a tactic. They are simply unable to listen to Russia and honoring deals because it would interfere with their contempt and hatred of Russians, and their view of them as sub-humans. This also means that no deal with the West can be trusted in general.

Heedlessness: When you are dealing with someone inferior, you don’t have to worry about them. They are, by definition, less competent in every way than you and ‘your people.’ This fosters carelessness and blindness when it comes to planning and development at home. A narcissistic elite can look at a city in his country which is on the verge of becoming unfit for human habitation and think it’s just fine. This also explains why the western elites have allowed the West to stagnate militarily for the last three decades. They are so strong and the adversaries are so weak that real development wasn’t needed.

Rule #4 – The ‘others’ must be subjugated, oppressed and humiliated

Mechanism:

While narcissists regard ‘the others’ as inferior and tend to develop hatred toward them if challenged, this attitude is not really the main aspect of narcissism. The main aspect is the compulsion to actively push others down in order to elevate themselves. This takes the form of either direct oppression of others, or manipulation. Both serve as tools to create a differential between themselves and the ‘others’ – thereby reinforcing or inflating their already inflated self-image. Successful oppression or manipulation will result in an emotional fix which then reinforces (and sometimes escalates) the oppressive behavior. Manipulation, the true goal of any narcissist, is a form of humiliation. Humiliation, in general, is a powerful fix for a narcissist.

This aspect of the narcissist/elite psyche has profound effects on the policies, long-term plans and political goals of the narcissistic political class. Every end goal will contain a form of oppression down to the individual level, as well as manipulation and humiliation. It is simply impossible for the narcissistic elite to create goals which do not contain these elements. Their politics will unavoidably become an extension of their narcissism. The ruling narcissistic class will essentially treat society like an individual narcissist treats other individuals.

Effect on perception and decision making:

Oppression and micromanagement: The end goal of every single policy put forward by the narcissistic elite is oppression down to the individual level. This is usually hidden through the use of doublespeak, virtue signaling, and the promotion of fake crises, but oppression can always, without fail, be found in the ‘solution’. Since the almost entire western political class is narcissistic, all western domestic policies unavoidably contain this goal. It doesn’t matter if they are large in scope or small in scope – they all have this end goal. This is motivated on an instinctive level, and compulsively.

Humiliation: Not all narcissists are good at manipulation, but they all want to be. The best and purest drug for a narcissist is the end goal of manipulation - the humiliation of others. Nothing affirms their superiority better. Humiliation therefore becomes a goal of the elite and they try to incorporate it into as many policies and initiatives as they can. A good example of this is the drive to convince people to eat bugs. The only purpose of that (apart from control of food production) is humiliation. Being able to convince the public to eat bugs would be the most intoxicating narcissistic humiliation ritual in history.

Rule #5 – The ends justify the means

Mechanism:

Many people see the western elites as psychopathic. This is partly right and partly wrong. Narcissists may have ‘amoral psychopathy’ on top of their narcissism, but classical psychopathy and narcissism do not go well together. Narcissists are emotionally driven; classical psychopaths are not – at least not in the same way.

Narcissists do not really need to be classical psychopaths to behave the way they do. They have extraordinary powers of rationalization which they can employ to brainwash themselves into justifying almost any behavior. Their low self-awareness and poor ability for introspective thinking enables almost unlimited doublethink - which enables the rationalization process and subjectivist thinking.

On top of that, ‘developed’ narcissists have emotional needs on the level of crack addicts – and we all know what addicts are capable of in order to get their fix. A ‘developed’ narcissist can thus become a far greater monster than a psychopathic serial killer – and far more destructive.

Effect on perception and decision making:

Subjectivism: Any method can be justified, as long as it is used against enemies. At the same time, enemies can’t do the same without becoming subhuman animals. Doublethink, hypocrisy and contradictory rationalizations are visible in almost all explanations and justifications by the western narcissistic elites. It is almost impossible to watch press briefings or interviews involving the western ruling class nowadays without hearing it. In fact, subjectivist and contradictory arguments, particularly on moral issues, are a sure sign of a narcissist.

Normalization of genocide and mass murder: A very large portion of the narcissistic part of society (including the wokesters) believes mass murder and genocide is justifiable – as long as it is perpetrated against those they consider ‘bad.’ This may sound extreme but is nevertheless a fact. Many narcissistic wokesters will tell you this. The genocidal fervor among those people toward Russians is a clear sign of this as well. Another example is the different attitude among the narcissists toward the genocide in Syria perpetrated by ISIS and the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Israel. The Syrian genocide was good (because Assad=bad) and there was no reason to protest against that. The Gaza genocide, however, is bad – and must be protested against. A naïve person, like me, would posit that both are bad.

General normalization of atrocities: Certain atrocities and crimes are being normalized large-scale in the West. Those crimes are either beneficial for the wider goals of the narcissistic elites and their woke brownshirts – or must be tolerated because tackling them would cause problems for the goals of the narcissistic elites. A good example of this is the changing attitude toward rape in the West. Rapes are increasingly being seen as acceptable when committed by immigrants, and they are sometimes not even prosecuted. Some Swedish feminists have even declared that immigrant perpetrated rapes should not be seen as a problem, and have encouraged rape victims not to press charges in these cases. Another example is the drive among narcissists for full-term abortion, and even ‘post-birth abortion.’ Any atrocity can be justified and normalized, even infanticide, as long as it fits in with the goals and world-view in the narcissistic parallel-dimension. This narcissistic normalization process has already had serious consequences for western societies.

Lastly…

Political views and goals are downstream of personality, which is downstream of evolution. When a particular personality type has taken control of our societies, and we recognize that personality and understand it, we can see its fingerprints everywhere. We see it in political goals, economic policy, environmental policy, education, and the aggressive foreign policy of the West. Even the mistakes the West makes, and its general incompetence, have these fingerprints.

It is easy to rationalize all this and blame everything on incompetence – but in this case both malice and incompetence are to blame – blissfully united in the personality-type of narcissism. Let’s hope incompetence is the stronger force.

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