 My name is Sam Wadden. I'm inviting you to my fencing talk, Shoreditch, London, October 1st. So you will be going to a lecture by a psychopathic narcissist. It's very much like going on a safari in an open-top car. When will the tigers strike and what will be the outcomes? At this stage, you are the ones who are paying me money. You are the ones who came to listen to me and not the other way around. And that's of course the way I like it. But it raises a more important question. Is narcissism a mental health disorder? Or is it actually an adaptation to our brave new world? A world that is essentially a narcissistic civilization. Am I, as a narcissist, better adapted to survive and thrive than you? And then there's of course the issue of the difference of demarcation between morphological narcissism and self-confidence, self-esteem. You see, our children are taught to be assertive. The constant messages, if you only put your mind to it, there is nothing you cannot achieve. But this is of course a faceless and narcissistic message. So should we be teaching our children to be more narcissistic? You have a narcissist in the White House. It's a success story. You have narcissists everywhere. In show business, among the clergy, the top echelons of society, the pillars, they're all narcissists, or at least narcissistic. It's not such a bad thing to be a narcissist, is it? But we know that narcissism is based on grandiose fantasies. We know that it's pathological. Or are we making the wrong distinction between healthy narcissism and the pathological kinds? Did we get it all wrong? Is leadership, for example, enhanced by narcissism? Or is it diminished by it? And then how are narcissists made? Is there a genetic predisposition? Or is it just childhood abuse, as we are being taught? And what is abuse? If you spoil the child, it's a form of abuse. You don't recognize the child's boundaries. So can we ever get it right? Can we raise our children right? And is it only parents? Do only parents induce narcissism? Also, fears, role models, television, drama series, the news. Are we growing up in an environment which is a petri dish for narcissism? I coined the phrase narcissistic abuse. It was back in 1995, when the world was a hell of a lot different. There were no social media, for example. But what does it mean? What does narcissistic abuse mean? In an age where narcissism is no longer a clinical entity, no longer a diagnosis, but a pejorative majority. Narcissism is hurled about when everyone in his dog is an expert on narcissistic abuse, or a professional victim. Are the victims somehow complicit in their abuse? Is it codependence, but another form of narcissism? So one thing I promise you, as you can see, the talk is going to be provocative. And I hope that once you have left it, you will ruminate. Think about things I have said, and try perhaps to reach a new view of narcissism in its place in the world. It's an organizing principle. You see, the future is here, and narcissism is the new normal.