Paul Conti

But they're generally, they're not people who are being overtly destructive, although that, they're over the border into the, you know, into the envy territory, right?

Malignant narcissists are very different where they then want to have everything.

So even if I have a thousand times more than you, do I still envy you what you have?

Because I want to have, I don't think I can feel good enough about myself unless I have everything.

Mm-hmm.

And once I have everything, I won't feel good enough about myself either, and then I'll have to have more, right?

It's like, that's malignant narcissism, which we think of as sociopathy, right?

Again, we can define these words in different ways, but they're very, very negative concepts.

That's profound sociopathy, malignant narcissism, envy writ large.

Uh, no, because we can do sort of sociopathic things that, but not be sociopathic.

Like, well, you know, you tell a white lie.

It's, it's, it's like sort of sociopathy on steroids, right?

Is, is then, you know, envy writ large is malignant narcissism.

Not really, because the words don't have clear definitions like psychopathy and sociopathy.

There's no real definition of psychopath or psychopathy.

Does that mean someone's sociopathic but psychotic?

We end up using those words colloquially, which is why concepts that we can define, like envy, empathic attunement, narcissism, even though there might be nuances and definitions, we can define them in ways that are...

were widely accepted, including within psychology and psychiatry.

Yes, and the thing I would add to that is the thought about culture.

How does the cultures we're in, whether it's the culture of a household, the culture of a community, the culture of a nation or the world, how does that impact what unfolds in that person and then how does what unfolds in that person impact that culture?