 Welcome back and thank you for joining us. This part of the show is where we look at mental health matters on all things to do with psychology. Stay with me because I'm just going to read out something that came out in the census. The transgender and non-binary people have been counted for the very first time in the 220-year history of the census for England and Wales. It revealed that 262,000 people identify as a gender different to their sex registered at birth. Now, the England and Wales census also recorded sexuality for the first time with 1.5 million people aged over 15 or 3.2% identifying as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or other sexual orientation. The charity Stonewall, which has long called for the inclusion of gender and sexual identity questions, described the results as an historic step. Canada has also recorded similar figures. Now, a lot of people, I have to say, I don't include myself in this, but a lot of people will be asking, why is LGBTQ plus, why is it so prominent? Why do we keep hearing about it? I've heard people on this station and call us into many other stations and say, why do there seem to be so many LGBTQ or transgender, or why is this such a thing at the moment? Well, one reason is because people feel that they can talk about it more easily. That's not to say there aren't significant barriers and discriminations, but that's one issue. Is there anything else into the equation? Well, this is a question of my next guess. I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have. I know he got a huge response last time he was on the show. From Israel, Dr. Sam Vaknin, Professor of Clinical Psychology. Sam, welcome back. I mean, our last talk, I can't tell you how interesting it was. Love it, love it, love it. So gender wars and the emergence of a uni gender. As I said, so many people are saying, why is this a thing? What's going on? What is your take on this? This is part of a historical process. The two world wars created a shortage of males. And then capitalism has transitioned into a paradigm of eternal growth, constant growth, continuous growth, which required the introduction of women into the workforce and also as consumers. Of course, we only have 24 hours a day. And if you spend your time at the workplace and then spend even more of your time consuming, then you have less time left for family, intimacy, marriage, and so on and so forth. And there has been a tectonic shift in the way genders interact and team up to reproduce and to perpetuate the species. This is one of the greatest revolutions in human history in my view. And the outcome was the emergence of what I call the uni gender. The uni gender is a sex genderless person, someone who identifies less with social constructs such as gender, stereotypical male or stereotypical female, and identifies much more, for example, with a career or with a lifestyle or with a sexual preference or orientation rather than with gender. Gender was an organizing principle. Gender is performative. It's a social construct. It's actually a script. It's a form of acting. And so now we have different other scripts. So studies by Lisa Wade and many other scholars are showing that women are defining themselves as masculine while men didn't complete the transition from masculine to feminine. And this is called the stalled revolution. Women have become men, but men have remained men. End result, we haven't seen the gender. So let me, when you say that, when you say that that's taking it away from the social construct of what a man does and who he is and what have you, because before, up until recently, we had all sorts of, as you say, a script for what men were identifying by what they did, their jobs, their roles in the family, et cetera, and likewise with women. With the erosion of that, with both sexes having, you know, with a lot of crossover, if you take yourself away from those constructs, from those definitions, like a man puts out the rubbish and doesn't what have you, you then become what's floating between the two, because what I find is interesting in many African societies, before colonialism, before invasion, and also before slavery, because the tribe had to work together to get the harvest in, they couldn't, you know, one lot do one thing and one lot do another. Everyone had to work together. The constructs of male and female that we have in the West that we recognize, they weren't like that. And so you had many, quote unquote, genderless people that you looked at and you couldn't readily identify as being a male or a female, because people enveloped both sides just so the tribe could exist. Then along comes faith and religion and what have you and says, no men do this, women do that. But it's something that existed centuries or, you know, hundreds of years ago. And you're saying now it's coming back, if you like, it's coming to the West. Yes, what's happening now is not that the genders are exchanging scripts. It's not a swapping of scripts. It's a conversion, convergence on a single gender and the gender is masculine. Everyone is becoming masculine regardless of genitalia. Now, the construct of gender had emerged originally when people began to create surplus wealth. Prior to capitalism and prior to industrialism and prior to urbanism, we had hunter-gatherer societies. When we started, when we transitioned to agriculture, following the agricultural revolution, we started to generate surpluses. Surpluses accumulated as wealth and you needed to transmit this wealth from one generation to the next. And to do so, you needed to control reproduction. You needed to be sure that your child is your child and not someone else's child. And to accomplish this certainty, you needed to imprison women, essentially, to imprison women, to imprison them sequestered. And this is when gender roles emerged, culminating in the Victorian era. But today, of course, the emphasis is not so much on reproduction. There are numerous mechanisms for transmitting wealth. Everything is contractual, scripts are fluid, sex is fluid, et cetera, et cetera. So there's no need for the old constructs, such as family, such as marriage, marriage that declined by 50%, that's 50% from 1990. We don't need these institutions anymore. And one of the institutions we are getting rid of is gender. However, it is very unfortunate that we have converged on a single gender that is toxic, both women and men. Why? Why is it toxic? It's toxic because women have adopted a male role model, which is psychopathic, narcissistic, aggressive, bullying, disempathic. Women did not adopt a male role model, which is hardworking, altruistic, empathic, loving, compassionate, caring, and protective. Women are emulating and imitating the worst conceivable men. And men are doing the same. So we have a toxic convergence. The unigender is a toxic convergence. So why is that? Why is that? Is it because it's still seen as, all of those negative values that you talk, the narcissistic one, the aggressive one, are still seen as the tools of power? Is it because being male or being seen as being more male or having more quote, unquote, male qualities is seen as the path to having power and control? Men have not become more feminine. Men have remained stereotypically masculine, almost a caricature of masculinity. Women have transitioned to toxic masculinity rather than men. Men have remained stuck there. So we have a situation where everyone agrees that values such as ambition, callousness, ruthlessness, suppression of empathy, competitiveness, and so on and so forth, everyone agrees now. Men and women alike agree that this should be the guiding light. This should be the northern star of one's life. Today, two and a half times, more people say that they would prefer a career to a relationship lifelong. 38% of people in the United States are lifelong singles by decision. So we have created a masculine world which is a caricature of what real healthy masculinity is. And then we have adhered to it, male and female alike. And this is the unigender. It's a toxic, sick, pathological construct. So what about gay men then? A lot of people would say that, and it's a generalization, I know, because, you know, but a lot of people would see very gay of you, like very camp men. Let's say camp, because, you know, you could be camp and not gay, but very camp men as having what we see as female qualities or is that just the guys? Is that a caricature of female qualities? Many women would tell you that the best thing that could happen is having a gay friend, someone you can trust without the constraints of sexual expectations and even sexual assault. Because sexual assault is on the rise. Sexual practices are heavily influenced by pornography. Heavily influenced by pornography and these practices have entered the daily sexual practice of the vast majority of young people under age 35. Sex today is a ritualized form of extreme aggression. Not, there's nothing there anymore. Really, you think that? Yes, please. Really, I mean, there are people like Andrew Tate, I don't know if you've heard about that influence as Andrew Tate, and then there's the incel, you know, the whole incel movement as well, which is women hating, feminine quality hating, if you like, and promotes violence against women and what have you. But I mean, many of us would see that as something that's fringe. But let's just come back to the previous point then that when with gay or very camp men, then where do they lie in all of this? Do they not have more quote unquote feminine qualities or is that a guys? Feminine and masculine, as I said, are social constructs. So of course a guy can be feminine. A guy can be feminine without being gay. Femininity is simply a set, a list of traits and behaviors which denote, for example, enhanced empathy, caring and connectivity rather than aggression and competitiveness, which are stereotypically masculine. But gay men aside, I don't see any other enclaves of femininity even among women. And when I said that sex is ritualized aggression, regrettably, it's also among the gay community. Sex in general is becoming way more aggressive. For example, the incidence of choking on sexual dates has quintupled in the past 10 years alone. Anal sex had replaced vaginal sex as the main practice and anal sex is very painful to women. So there's an orgasm gap. Women experience orgasm six times less than men in most sexual encounters, which are not committed, which are not in committed relationships and so on and so forth. And this- Obviously, we just went, sorry, Sam, just because we're talking in a day, we've got to be slightly less graphic. But do you think that's because of the rise of, and you mentioned pornography and we talked on this show about many young people learning about sex through pornography. But coming back to the role of the roles of men and women and what you're saying about women becoming more, taking up the negative qualities of being masculine. Is that the way you see it? That's the way it's gonna go. That's the way it is. Is it a fad? Is it a tide? Or is it, this is what's happening to humanity that we'll see more and more and more. It's interesting that I'm just thinking of, apparently there are more when it comes to actually, and that's another issue about people who say, I'm not born the sex that I am, if you like, and having, changing their gender through surgery and what have you. There's quite a big increase. I know there is a big increase in women, at least if they don't go the whole way, but having their breasts removed. And there's quite a big increase between more so than women doing that than men, because it's so difficult to come from a position of male power, if you like, to transitioning to a woman, because you may have the operation, what have you, but then your status, everything changes so much. So, do you see this, basically I'm asking just to finish up, is this the way it's always gonna be? Is this the beginning of a tide or is it a trend? No, I think that's the way it's gonna be and I think that's the way it's gonna be for several reasons. One, women, men have walked away. Men going their own way, men have walked away. They refuse to accept responsibility, they refuse to commit, they refuse to invest. They refuse to form families. They refuse to engage in relationships and so on and so forth. In the absence of men, women have to be men. They have to fend off for themselves. They have to work hard. They have to make money. They have to attain financial independence and they can't trust men to be there for them as they used to. This is point number one, point number two. Capitalism and technologies, various technologies encourage women and men to be atomized. They encourage them to be self-sufficient, to need no one and to interact with no one because there's a very simple trade-off. Any minute you give to your spouse, any minute you give to your boyfriend, any minute you give to your child is a minute taken away from Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and so there is a built-in incentive for technologies and capitalism to destroy your intimacy and your human relationships because they take you away from them. Capitalism today is built on an unsustainable paradigm. It's built on the paradigm of eternal growth and so forth. For capitalistic societies to grow eternally, they need to generate consumption all the time. They need to interpolate you. They need to brainwash into consumption. Now, if you are a single and you work, then consumption becomes your religion and your anxiolytic, your anxiety-reducing activity. You consume in order to reduce or control anxiety. This is precisely what capitalism wants, the current iteration of capitalism. So everyone is encouraged to live alone, to consume Netflix, to consume online, to not interact with other people because it takes away from profit. Everything is bottom-line oriented and of course women play the game because it's the only game in town and the irony is this is a male game. It's not a female game. Third and fourth generation feminism sold out women to men because today women construct themselves to fit into a male world. They behave, they convert themselves into sexual objects for the male gaze and the male grasp and the male use. This is more of a male... There's a lot there, Sam. I'm sorry, I'm just like, whoa. There's a lot there and I'm sure. I mean, I'd love to discuss it even further. I know there's a lot there, a lot there. Sam, I hate to cut you short because it's very provocative what you're saying and I'd love to go into it further and indeed we must on another show but unfortunately have run out of time. But wow, lots to think about. Sam, that's why I love talking with you because it makes smoke come out of people's ears and go away and consider things and at least think things through. So please, Sam, do come back and join us on a future show. Dr. Sam Vaknin, a professor of clinical psychology and if that doesn't make you think... However you think about that, I'm sure you're all arguing about it somewhere in your household and why have you, but at least we've made you think if that doesn't make you think nothing will. Dr. Sam Vaknin there on why he thinks that we've all come to one sex and it's not just about sex, it's about society, it's about consumerism and a whole lot of other things. Wow, lots to think about there. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back to your phone calls and messages of which there have been lots. Back in a moment. Sometimes one reads something or one is aware of someone and my producer Carla and myself will say, let's get this person on the show and we think, oh, will we ever? It's just a dream if we can get that person. Aha, fanfare, we did. Think of all the terms you know about narcissism and the way in which it's written and a lot of that will be thanks to my next guest who is in Israel. We're crossing live to Israel at the moment. Professor of clinical psychology, Sam Vaknen. Let me give you just a little bit of a background. He's a leading authority on narcissism. He's a pioneer of the field. He's a professor of psychology, clinical psychology, a scholar, author, and as I said before, a lot of the language involving around narcissism has been created because of him and I'm absolutely, I mean, I'm overwhelmed. I'm really happy that we are joined by the professor, Professor Sam Vaknen, live from Israel. Sam, if I can call you Sam, thank you so much for joining me. I mean, this is great because every time I read an article, it pops your name. Can we get him on the show? Yes, we did. Sam, can we start off with a definition of narcissism? Because I'm sure lots of people think it's lots of different things and it may or may not be correct. So let's start with that. Well, first thank you for having me and thank you for the extremely kind words. Hopefully some of them are deserved. We'll have to see about that. Narcissism is a healthy phenomenon, gun or eye. Everyone has healthy narcissism. Healthy narcissism develops in early childhood. It propels the child to explore the world because you need to be a bit grandiose to take on the world apart, away from money. And so, but when this remains as a feature of an adult personality, then we are talking about the pathology. Now the narcissist is someone who is incapable of regulating his sense of self-worth, his self-esteem, for example, by himself. So what he does instead, he outsources dysfunction. He reverts or resorts to other people and solicits from them, elicits from them what we call narcissistic supply, which is a fancy term for attention. He asks for attention. But he doesn't simply ask for an unbiased type of feedback. He wants people to tell him that he is godlike. He is grandiose. He creates a facade. He creates what we call the false self, which is a piece of fiction. And this false self is everything that the narcissist is not. It's all knowing. It's all powerful. It's infallible. It's perfect. And it's brilliant. And that's what the narcissist does throughout his life. He goes around coercing people to tell him that his false self is not false, but it's very real. And of course this creates a lot of problems in interpersonal relationships, anything from the workplace to the family. And that's what I'd like to go through because, you know, let me just ask you, is it a mistake to think of the narcissist? And I'm sure a lot of people think of a narcissist of somebody who's going around and very bombastic. Can they often seem quite, you know, shy or withdrawing? Are there many types of persona that they show? Because, you know, looking through your work, I think I've come across narcissists who seem very, almost seem humble and, oh, it's not me and what have you. And so, you know, and you think, well, they're not a narcissist because you're expecting someone who's beating their chest. Yes, indeed. That's very true. We make a distinction between overt and covert narcissists. The covert narcissist is shy, fragile, vulnerable. The covert narcissist is actually a narcissist who cannot secure attention, who fails to secure narcissistic supply by applying directly to potential sources of supply. So what he does instead, he wallows in self-pity and misery. He engages in displays of pseudo humility, false modesty. He is very cunning. He is passive aggressive. And I'm saying he because until recently, until about 10 years ago, 75% of people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder were men. This is no longer true, by the way. Right now, it's 50-50. Women have with this salubrious trend. What is common to all narcissists? Whether they are sulking in the background and just sabotaging and undermining everyone, whether they are overt in your face, I'm the best, I'm Godlike, I should acknowledge this type of narcissist. What's common to all of them is regarding other people as instruments, as functions, instrumentalizing other people. Other people are there to cater to their emotional and psychological needs. Other people are there to serve them, to admire them, to provide them with supply, to simply create an ambience or an environment where the narcissist's grandiosity, his inflated, fantastic self-perception is never challenged. So that's their role. And if they don't comply with this, he just discards them. He devalues them and he discards them and he can be very cruel when it comes to devaluing and discarding. It's very abrupt and it's really, really sadistic sometimes. We're talking about narcissism. Sam, just as you say that, and I wanted to look at narcissism in three different areas. Social media, surely, you know, before social media, I would have thought you had to do most of this face-to-face or on the telephone or what have you. But social media must be a great tool to the narcissist. Social media simply amplifies the narcissist's ability to tap into people's vulnerabilities, people's insecurities. People's own narcissistic tendencies because narcissists idealize you. When they start to interact with you, they idealize you. And then they project onto you your ideal image. And that's very captivating. It's very addictive. Suddenly you see yourself as flawless and perfect and brilliant and that's irresistible. The narcissist captures you this way. Captivates you and kind of renders you a slave in effect. So social media is an amplification device. So definitely narcissists regard social media as stomping grounds and hunting grounds for potential prey because they're predators. Can they become trot? I'm just thinking some of the things when you say they'll praise you, praise you, praise you, they'll idealize you. But then if you slip, if your crown slips, for instance, I'm just thinking a lot of trolls I've thought, you know, it's not just a debate online. It's almost like, and they usually start off with, I always thought you were amazing, you were great, you were this. But now, and then the tables turn and they go after you and after you and after you in a vicious way. There are two types of narcissists online. Social media is only one kind of platform online. You have, for example, YouTube, which in my view, tends to attract narcissists far more than social media. So there are two types of narcissists. The first type of narcissist is I'm a victim narcissist. It's a narcissist who presents himself or herself as a victim. They adopt a victim stance and victimhood becomes a determinant of their identity. They are professional and career victims. They're proud of their victimhood and they leverage their victimhood to gain a sympathy and attention. These would be typically covert narcissists. Now overt narcissists would tend to woo you, idealize you, and then if you don't conform, if you don't obey, if you're not obedient, they would then, as I said, cruelly and publicly if possible, devalue you, shame you, humiliate you, degrade you, and punish you. That's their way of punishing you for not having fitted in and not even having provided them with the feedback that they are godlike and perfect, et cetera. Let's talk about narcissism in the workplace. Is a narcissistic boss good for the team? Are they a cheerleader of the team? Because everybody, you know, they're saying, I am god, I can run everything and it makes the team feel, yes, we're behind someone who's going to help us to win. Or can they be destructive in business situations or a bit of both? Opinions differ. There are psychologists who claim that high-functioning narcissists and even psychopaths, psychologists like Kevin Dutton and others, even Makobi, they say that even psychopaths are good for business and good in leadership positions and good in certain professions. For example, medical surgeons. There is an overrepresentation of psychopaths among chief executive officers in Fortune 500 companies and among certain medical professions. There's an overrepresentation of narcissists in show media and show business, I'm sorry, and various media and so on and so forth. So, narcissists and psychopaths gravitate to the position of exposure or authority, or both. But it's very misleading. It's a mirage. Because the narcissist claims to have a vision. The narcissist has the vision thing, as the Americans like to say. He presents an agenda which is essentially grandiose and therefore usually unrealistic. And then because he's charismatic and he's very convincing and he knows which buttons to push. He spent a lifetime pushing other people's buttons and rendering them functional and instrumental. So, he is good at assembling a team and then leading the team. But to understand the role of the narcissistic boss in the workplace, we need to review extremely briefly, I promise you, three concepts. The first one is internal objects. The second one is grandiosity. And the third concept is pathological narcissistic space. I'll start with the last. Pathological narcissistic space is simply the physical place the narcissist goes to or frequents in order to obtain supply. So, the workplace would be a pathological narcissistic space because that's where the narcissist obtains his supply. The second concept is internal objects. The narcissist is incapable of interacting with real people because he lacks empathy and he doesn't read social and other types of Qs very effectively. So, he never interacts with real people. What he does, he creates a representation of you in his mind. And this is called introject. And then he continues to interact with that representation, never with you. But there's a second crucial factor because it means that the narcissistic boss regards the workplace as his playground and regards his employees as internal objects, as extensions of himself. He doesn't see them as separate entities. And the last thing is grandiosity. The narcissist's only project in life is to aggrandize himself fantastically. And he just uses the workplace, leverages it and everyone in the workplace to pursue this project. In other words, the good of the company, the good of his employees, the well-being of everyone are utterly besides the point. The point is to be great again. Him. Thank you. We're going to take a short break. But when we come back, let's talk about what it's like to be in a relationship with a narcissist. I'm talking to Professor... Welcome back. I'm crossing live to Israel to speak with Professor of Clinical Psychology, Professor Sam Vaknen. We're talking about narcissism in... What I have to say is that absolutely... They're saying in the studio you can hear a pin drop. We've talked about narcissism of social media and things like YouTube. We've talked about narcissistic bosses. Now, being in a relationship with a narcissist. Let's talk about from the person experiencing that. How do you know you're in a relationship with a narcissist? What sort of things do they do to you in order to keep you feeding what they need? That's an easy one because you are never in a relationship with a narcissist. The narcissist is incapable of perceiving you as a separate entity with your own needs, preferences, priorities, personal history, wishes, friends, family, et cetera, et cetera. The narcissist regards you as an internal object, as I said before. He regards you as an extension. He regards you as an instrument. The equivalent of an internet service provider. Narcissists seek essentially four things in a relationship. I call them the four S's. The first one is sex, obviously, then services, then supply. Narcissistic or sadistic. You could be the narcissist punching bag or end, sorry, safety. The narcissist has abandonment anxiety. He needs to believe that you will never abandon him or dump him or discard him. If you provide two of these four, you're in. But you are commoditized. You're commodity. You're utterly replaceable, utterly interchangeable. The narcissist cannot perceive you as unique in any way, shape, or form, because it would negate in some ways his uniqueness. What the narcissist does do, once he has internalized you, he idealizes you as I said. It creates a totally imaginary figure, which is not even loosely related to where you are. And then he continues to interact with that figure, with that internal object. But then he grants you access to this object. And by seeing yourself through the narcissist's gaze, you become addicted. You fall in love, not with the narcissist. You fall in love with the way that the narcissist sees you. It's the first time that you're actually allowed to fall in love with yourself as a mother falls in love with her child. So it's a kind of self-parenting. It's kind of self-love from a parental point of view. And it's irresistible. It gets you addicted. So it's going to say so many things. So if he sees you as an extension of himself, and we're using him and it could be her, anything you do, quote unquote, wrong, away from that idealized picture he or she has of you, then you shame them. You let them down. But then it also suggests that he or she would be open to, if you don't measure up and you're not meeting one of those four Ss, he or she has no problem either having an affair or moving on to the next person. And bam, you never existed. Yes, you're never existed. That's the thing that most victims of such relationships find difficult to digest. You were never there. And he was never there. The narcissist is not a presence. The narcissist is an absence. There's nobody home. It's like a huge black hole with a galaxy of internal objects swirling it. But the core is a black hole. And so he digests you. He consumes you. He assimilates you. He converts you into an idealized thing because he's ideal and everything inside himself has to be ideal as well. This is called core idealization. So he idealizes you. And then he expects you to conform to this static snapshot. It's not a video. It's a snapshot. And he expects you to freeze. He expects he mummifies you like an ancient Egyptian mummy. And if you at any point deviate or diverge from the snapshot, he's going to respond ferociously. He's going to devalue you and he's going to discard you because you have dared disbalance the precarious structure that is his personality or what passes for his personality. He's in a constant state of panic. So does a narcissist ever know they're a narcissist? Well, I don't know about narcissists, but they are fully aware of their behaviors. And most of them are very proud of who they are. They consider themselves the next stage in the evolutionary ladder because they are invulnerable. They are impermeable. They are superior. They are amazing. They are godlike and so on and so forth when humanity is catching up to do. And so there's a lot of what we call catexes. There's a lot of emotional investment in the disorder, which is why it's very difficult to heal or to cure narcissists because they think that what we call the disorder is actually a competitive edge, a competitive advantage. They think it's a great thing. Narcissists would tell you, without my narcissism, I would have never accomplished what I had accomplished. Without my narcissism, I would not be creating. And so you're trying to make me an average person. You're trying to make me a common chap. And I will never accept this because I'm not a unique. There's a strong resistances and defenses. I remember going on a website once for people, support for people who had family members who were narcissists. And I went all the way through it. This is a long, long time ago. And I got onto a page and it just said run. Maybe that's a little bit, that's a little bit cruel. You're not it. You agree? Actually, historically, it's my advice. In 1995, I designed a set of strategies, which I coined the phrase, no contact. So the no contact set of strategies is the only one that I recommend. If you are in a relationship or a pseudo-relationship with a narcissist, cut your losses, get out now. And the reason you should get out now is because narcissism is contagious. The narcissist provokes in you narcissistic defenses, dysregulates you, makes you, in other words, crazy to put it simply. Yeah, absolutely. Let me just show people your book, Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited by Sam. Sam, just amazing talking to you. We've had so many calls. So, so many texts and messages. People begging for us to have you back on again. So if you would absolutely do the favor for us because the switchboard's gone mad here. People want to hear what I'm saying. Thank you so much for your time. I would love to talk with you again. Absolutely amazing. Professor of clinical psychology, Sam Vaknin there. And we will try to get him back. Thank you for joining me. And thank you to all of you on X who are joining me. Let me tell you what's coming up. We'll be talking with a herbalist about what she believes the power of herbs truly is. Plus a young man who's running from underground station to underground station to raise money for calm. Why he's doing that. Why he feels males and mental health is so important. As it did, it is. His own story. We'll be talking with him a little later. But I guess the spot that has been very rightly on what's happening in Israel. What's happening in Gaza at the moment. We've talked with a very powerful talk. I know has affected all of us with our Imam and our rabbi who we've actually asked to stand by throughout the program in case we need them back in again. We may well be talking to them before the end of the show again. But also we've talked with Julia Samuel, psychotherapist about the effects of seeing the pictures, seeing the headlines, the way it affects us viscerally. My next guest is one I'm very excited to talk with again. Sam Vaknin is Israeli. He's in Macedonia at the moment. He's a professor of clinical psychology. Absolutely fascinating. And I'll tell you why he's joining me today. It's to talk about conflict. In particular, the sorts of personalities behind the Israeli Palestine conflict at the moment. Sam, thank you so much for joining me again. Just reading through some of the notes you've sent me. I'm like, wow, this is a totally different and a really interesting take on all of this. Let me start off by asking and I have asked all of my guests how are you feeling? Because I don't take lightly that you may well know people and what have you. How are you feeling? I have hundreds of relatives in the war zones, both in the north and the south. I haven't slept a wink for quite a few nights now, as you can see probably. So I'm not in the best of shape. But I'll give you whatever I can. Thank you. Thank you. And I know you can't even get a flight back home at the moment. I can't get a flight back. No, Israelis is actually a couple of them. Yeah. When you look at the personalities, and I think there are interesting ones involved, when you look at Bibi Netanyahu, his eighth time around now, and many people are pointing out that the reason he quote unquote took his eye off the ball is when you need power at any cost and you bring in cronies, people who will back you up. You are often displacing people who are very, very learned in their trade, in security, in the military and what have you. You're displacing them with your buddies, your political buddies. What that, it seems to me that the need for power underlines so much of the world's conflict. And I'm really fascinating to hear your views on this. The diseased leadership of both the state of Israel and the Hamas, and I'm using the word diseased judiciously, definitely clinically, has to do with underlying factors, which are actually not personal. Leaders reflect constituencies. The psychology of leaders resonates very closely with the psychopathology of their electorates and nations. So here we have two peoples, two nations, and they are both exhibiting what we call in psychology a trauma response. Now we have four types of trauma response and the most famous of which is fight or flight. So in this case, we have fight. Both nations are traumatized and both are in a post-traumatic condition. As you recall, the Jewish people has just had, in historical terms, just yesterday, the Holocaust. And the Palestinians had something they called the Nathba, which means in Arabic, the catastrophe, which is the expulsion in 1948 from their territories, which now constitute the state of Israel. So they're both traumatized and when people are traumatized, they tend to perceive themselves as victims. The victimhood, their victimhood becomes their identity politics. And this is called in clinical psychology, competitive victimhood. Now I'm the bigger victim. No, I'm the bigger victim. And they compete for victimhood. And so when you compete for victimhood, when victimhood is who you are, you feel entitled to special treatment. You feel much less empathetic towards the other party. You feel egotistic, you're self-centered on your needs and priorities and so on, so forth on recovery. And many, many victims, true victims, become very self-destructive. Unfortunately in both nations, the Israelis who are Jews and the Palestinians in both nations, there's a founding myth of suicide. In Israel, we have the story of Masada. Masada was the resistance in a fortress in the desert against the Roman army. And then all the fighters that committed suicide when things were looked to be, you know, beyond hope. The Masada myth is a foundational myth of the state of Israel. Every child learns it. It's inculcated in us. And the Arabs have the concept of, the Muslims actually have the concepts or concept of Shahada. Shahada means martyrdom to be a martyr. And to be a martyr is to die. And to commit suicide in Masada is to die. This is a death ethos, an ethos of death. These are two death counts at war. I know, not politically correct. No, but what it speaks to then, if you have an upbringing or if you have a society through which such a message runs all the way through, your way, your dialogue, when we talk about peace dialogue and often, well, right from the beginning of the creation of Israel and what happened with, you know, with the 700,000 Palestinians being displaced, it was people from other cultures parachuting in to draw lines either on a map or either in the sand with their western, no knowledge of that. This is what we need to do right from the days of Balfour, historically going all the way through. So even Jimmy Garter, but one of the things of my husband and myself are talking about is every time there's been a leader from those groups, they've been assassinated. If they speak against that language, if they speak one of peace and hope and I guess non-victimhood, they're taken out. Yes, that's because victimhood, as I said, is an identity politics. And like all forms of identity politics, it involves a series of psychological defence mechanisms which lead inexorably to violence. And with your permission, I will enumerate these defence mechanisms going into too much detail. The foremost mechanism is known as splitting. Splitting or dichotomous thinking simply means I am all good, my enemy is all bad. I am perfect, whoever disagrees with me is evil and must die. This is splitting. It's a defence mechanism that operates in individuals and in collectives. Then you have paranoid ideation. It's me against the world. As a victim, I've been victimised, means the world didn't help me. So I have to rely only on myself. And all the rest of the world are potential enemies. I should be hyper-vigilant. There are conspiracies everywhere. That's paranoia. And then another form of defence is grandiosity. Especially if you have existential anxiety if you are not really sure that you're going to be here tomorrow. If you have true enemies who seek to exterminate you, eradicate you, displace you, whatever. One of the main defence mechanisms we have as individuals and collectives is grandiosity. It's a form of cognitive distortion. It impairs our reality testing. We don't perceive reality correctly anymore. So Israel, for example, has this misguided belief that it is untouchable, invincible, immune to the consequences of its actions. This is a form of grandiosity, of course. And, of course, the other party, the Palestinians, have their own type of grandiosity. They are the perfect victims. No one has ever been victimised as they have. That renders them unique. And they're entitled to special treatment and special concessions, and they have rights that impose obligations on others. It's a form of grandiosity, entitled grandiosity. And then we have magical thinking. If we just put our minds to it, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. Our thinking, our words, our wishes and dreams and hopes, they are reality. We have absolute influence and we can shape the cosmos around us, our environment. This is magical thinking. It's not true. But then something like this, but then something, somebody takes that action that changes that friction between two similar ideologies, if you like. Somebody just steps way outside of that. I guess they have to do something horrific in order to what? Up the ante to become, I'm just thinking with the Hamas doing what they did, it's a massive upping of the horrific ante. Yes, everything I've just described is known collectively as pathological narcissism. And in pathological narcissism, you need to be noticed. Your existence relies crucially on what we call external regulation. Feedback from the outside, input from others, regulates your moods, your emotions, your reactions, who you are, how you perceive the world and so on. But how are you going to be noticed in a rapid news cycle with two zillion social media accounts with cats and semi-naked people all around? How are you going to be noticed? Ostentatiousness. So you need to become ostentatious. You need to escalate your behavior. And the more atrocious you are, the more abominable and abhorrent and so on, the more likely you are to garner the attention that you need. This is, by the way... I was going to say, just to let me remind people, I'm talking with Sam Vaknen, who's a professor of clinical psychology. So Sam, just tell me, from what you're saying then, if you have to escalate things to be noticed to such a horrific level, the media using lots and lots and lots of photographs, more and more and more and more and more, that surely feeds the monster. Yes, actually, both parties abuse the media, social media included, mainstream legacy media, social media, all forms of media, all forms of access. It's not only media, it's access. They abuse this to do something manipulative and it's called projective identification. Projective identification is when I force my adversary or my enemy or another party, I force them to behave in a way which conforms to my expectations of them and also presents me in a good light. So if I expect you to abuse me, I will provoke you. I will push your buttons. I will escalate my behavior until you do abuse me and that would confirm my position that you're an abuser and that would also make me the good guy because here I am being abused by you, being victimized by you. And that's how they would use those, the photos and the pictures and what have you, does what make them, well, they are victims, but it makes sure that you can't ignore that. There are no saints in this question. I think that the problem is that people define themselves as victims. Victimhood is an identity. Being victimized is a series of events and behaviors or misbehaviors. It doesn't make you a victim. It means that you have been victimized. Victimhood is a totally different thing because it involves entitlement at the expense of another person. And of course, the media are harnessed and leveraged and used and abused by all the parties. These are signals. This theory is not in psychology, a signaling theory. The parties are signaling to each other via the media and use the media to use and modify the behaviors of the other side in a way that would reflect well on them and would confirm their prejudices and biases regarding the other side. And this is a form of aggression which involves gaslighting, the alteration of reality in counterfactual ways and also involves projective identification. I'm going to make you do what I want you to do. I was going to say, where does anger is, I mean, not just anger from the parties involved, but anger from all of those watching from, let me say, news commentators and what have you. Whenever I see shouting and anger around this, it's a horrific issue. But whenever I see colleagues in the media shouting and angry, I see that as them fueling the flames. Am I wrong? I would beg to differ with the word anger, not your fault, by the way, it looks like anger. It's righteous indignation. It's a form of virtue signaling. It's ostentatious. It has nothing to do with real anger because you see real anger is a good thing. Real anger is a way to affect your environment and to modify other people's behaviors so that you won't have to be angry anymore. This is not anger. This is victimhood. Self-righteous, sanctimonious, 100% good while the other party is always 100% evil. Okay, we've got to take a break. I'm going to come back and talk with you more. I'm talking with Sam Vaknin, a professor of clinical psychology, back with more in just a moment. Welcome back and thank you for joining me. I'm having an absolutely fascinating conversation with Sam Vaknin, who is a renowned international professor of clinical psychology, usually based in Israel, as we heard, he can't get back there. He's in Macedonia at the moment. Sam, coming back to it, what is the answer to the competition of who can be the biggest victim? What is the answer then? How do you create peace when you've got two traumatizers? You explain the Jewish people with their trauma, the Palestinians with their trauma. You can't do therapy for hundreds of thousands of people. And as we said before, those people who have tried to create peace have been assassinated historically. It seems that governments, people's go back to, and you made that point, the leaders that mirror their grief, Hamas became a political party, but still always have that. It's like the IRA, when Sinn Fein, people forget that Nelson Mandela came from a once terrorist organization. So you've got the Jews with Bibi Netanyahu coming back, the Jewish people, yet he gets back again, you've got Hamas. What is the answer? You can't do therapy for hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people. What is the answer? The situation calls for pessimism. However, there are two mitigating circumstances or mitigating aspects. We distinguish between cultures and societies which look to the past and cultures and societies with a future orientation. Now the cultures and societies in the Middle East, the Arab world, the Jews, they are past oriented. Their nourishment is based in the past, not in the future. They derive their sustenance, their strength, their resilience, everything from the past. So this is the first thing. If we succeed somehow to change this orientation and to render it present or future orientation, I think this would go a long way towards kind of pacifying both people. But where does that come from? I was going to say, because the traditions, everything about both Islam and Judaism, traditions, everything is, as you say, how you map out your day, your week, your month, your years based in the past. To change that orientation, does that come from their face basis? I mean, if somehow you could approach what we had earlier on, a fantastic Imam and a rabbi who have come together and are supporting each other and seem to be speaking of the future. So is that possibly where that focusing and baiting themselves on the future, is that a place from which it could come? Past orientation has to do with what we call learned helplessness. The belief that everything is hopeless, that regardless of your best efforts, you will never be efficacious. You will never accomplish long-term goals. And everything that you do accomplish is transitory and meaningless. So if we were to establish an environment, and here the Western world has a major role, it does China and so on, if we were to establish an all-encompassing environment, which includes, incorporates both the Arabs and the Jews, in a way that guarantees them stability and safety and long-term prospects and economic development and jobs for all, et cetera, et cetera, I think the hopelessness and helplessness will abate. And with these, the past orientation will be replaced with a future orientation. That's a big ask. It's a big ask. We're talking about territories. It's been done before. For example, the Marshall Plan in Europe. It's been done before, in Japan after the Second World War. The United States is spending $6 billion a year in the Middle East. This money on weapons, mind you, only on weapons. I mean, take this money and use it differently. Same money. No need for appropriations. No need to negotiate with the Republican Party. Same money. So this is the first thing. The second kind of ray of light, hope, is the fact that societies in the Middle East, Jews included, are shame-based, reputation-based. The social control is exerted and channeled through shaming people, humiliating them, criticizing them in public, damaging their reputation irrevocably. So these are the levers of social control. Now, this is very bad because you need to save face. And in order to save face, you act irrationally. It's save face or die. Liberty or death. So saving face or death. That's it. Literally, people are willing to die to save face. If we were to transition from a reputation and shame-based society to a society of rule of law, objective and neutral measurements and evaluations, a society that doesn't shame people or humiliate them, but teaches them and educates them and nurtures them, then I think we will have removed another component of this seemingly endless and intractable conflict. You see, this is the cycle. This is exactly the cycle. The Jews live in the past. The Palestinians live in the past. Both of them have been shamed and humiliated. Now the Hamas humiliated Israel, shamed Israel. Is Israel acting rationally? Allow me to have my doubts. Is Israel acting proportionately? Almost for sure it's not. Why? Because Israel has to save face. It has to restore its deterrence and the respect and the awe that it used to be held in. It's all about reputation. It's exactly like the mafia. Exactly like a mob mentality. And I guess you could say the same about Hamas. They had to save face. They had to save face. Do you think it's time? We've got to finish this interview. But part of me thinks, isn't it time that women took over? I mean, I say that glibly. But so much of it is bound up in the sorts of things I guess we attribute to men. Saving face, muscle, might, aggression. Those are attributes that are very male. We're talking maybe about societies in which the man has a role that many would say is adhering more to the past because younger people, as we've seen on both sides, don't adhere as much to that. So part of me thinks maybe it's time for the world to have a good go at women running it. I mean, can we do much worse? I mean, I don't think it's a joke. This might be true in the West, but regressively in these areas, in the Middle East and so on, there's a whole collaboration between men and women in perpetuating this state of affairs. Women have been co-opted into the male patriarchy, basically, into the male structure. Well, Sam, thank you as always. It's fascinating talking to you. And I really, I send you my warmest wishes. It must be, I know it's going to be a very, very difficult time for you as well. Thank you for your sentiments. Yeah, and thank you. I mean that because all of our guests that we've had from the area, I'm like, God, how are you lack of sleep and the churning of stomachs and all of those things going on and even be able to focus or gather their thoughts. It's not something that I take lightly. So I do thank you again. I want to say one last thing. I want to say one last thing. This is a crisis, definitely. But it's also an opportunity. In 2003, Israel has been surprised. There was a surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria. And it led four years later to peace. Peace with Egypt, later peace with Jordan and so on. This horrible atrocity committed by the terrorist organization from us could be an opening. It doesn't need to end this way. You could reconceive of it and reframe it and leverage it to make peace. Unfortunately, I don't see the leadership there to do this on either side. It's sad. Sam, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. You're so welcome. We will definitely be talking with you again. I know we will be in the future. Professor of clinical psychology, Sam Vakmin there, as you heard, he's Israeli can't get back to Israel because there aren't any flights. So he's in Macedonia at the moment. Lots to think about there. Lots to think about there. We're going to take a quick break and after that we'll be back on a totally different subject. I believe segment where we hear from a herbalist back with that in a just a moment. Once upon a time we used to think of domestic abuse as purely being someone hitting someone in the vast majority of cases, although not exclusive. It was about a man hitting a woman. That's how we used to see it. We know it works both ways and we know domestic violence can extend to other members of the family. But that's how it was once seen. But things have become more nuanced and now we've got social media and what have you and there are lots of different ways of controlling somebody, keeping them in line. And so the Crown Prosecution Service has had to continually update their definition of coercive control. Now the latest one update, guidance sets out the various sophisticated and subtle ways that suspects can manipulate their partners to exert control over their lives and seek to minimise the likelihood of detection and punishment. Those as I said subtle. Now if you were to tell somebody that your partner continuously gives you presents, gifts, showers you with all sorts of amazing presents and praise and things like that and then takes those away and then that's usually not done on its own. It's difficult one to tell yourself what's going on here when your friends will probably tell you you're lucky and two to extricate yourself from that. It's a really complicated issue and so many times you hear people say well if that person was just abusive just leave. It's not that easy because the art of manipulation and coercive control is insidious. It's gradual and it's very, very powerful. There is but one person to talk about this. I've had him on the show before, absolutely amazing. Sam Vaknin who is Professor of Clinical Psychology and a leading authority of narcissism which is this is all part of that. Sam thank you so much for joining me again. You know as I said before when we talk about coercive control it's very difficult for somebody to get their head around it even if they're in the claws of it to know what shape it takes. Now this love bombing as I said so many people say you're lucky but just talk us through about what kind of control that is exerting and how it manifests. Good to see you again Trisha and no I'm not love bombing you. It's simply good to see you again. Thank you for having me. I'm a former professor. I get my position so just for disclosure. Love bombing as the name implies is when you weaponize expression of affection and love and compassion and attention in order with explicit intent to manipulate another person into a behavior which you deem beneficial to you. This should be the definition. So how does it look Sam? I was going to say how does it give me some examples of how it might look when you say weaponize. Yeah but allow me with your permission before I proceed one disclaimer. We need to define when we criminalize behaviors we need to define them really really really well because if we don't define them really really really well and delineate all the nuances with precision we will end up criminalizing romance we will end up criminalizing sex and many many young men are already terrified to approach young women because so many aspects of intergender interaction have been criminalized I would even say excessively. Now this is no exception. Love bombing is pathological dysfunctional and abusive it's manipulative it's an integral part of coercive control however if it is not well defined we may end up criminalizing totally legitimate lovely charming enchanting behaviors between people. And unfortunately from the little that I've seen love bombing is wrongly defined in the Crown Prosecution Services document. Oh wow. So what does it look like then? Where are they going wrong because as you say young men are terrified. Yes here are the minimal elements that should exist in any definition proper definition of love bombing. First of all it should be over the top it should be unbelievable incredible no reasonable person would ever accept the contents of love bombing as real or truthful number two it should be premature in other words the compliments the affection the attention the gifts should come too fast and too early so on the first meeting you're the most amazing woman in the world in the second meeting there's an offer of marriage and at the end of the second meeting you're already planning to have three children together and you're discussing the college funds. That's premature. Number three it should be ill founded the compliments in love bombing have nothing to do with you. So even you feel as the victim of love bombing even you feel that something's wrong you're being described in a way that's nothing to do with you we call this idealization. The compliments are actually directed it's an idealized image of you which is totally fictional. So love bombing must include a pronounced element of fantasy in the absence of fantasy it simply might be a dysfunctional way of courting or flirting gun or eye if there's no fantasy. Fantasy is crucial. Number four love bombing must be a part of a pattern of behavior misbehavior known as coercive control if it is divorced from coercive control it should not be criminalized. Number five love bombing should be a part of what we call in psychology intermittent reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement means you get conflicting messages fast on the heels on the heels of each other. So thought and called I love you I hate you I want your company I don't want to talk to you let's chat I'm blocking you. So this is called intermittent reinforcement it disorients you you become disoriented you don't know how to decipher the other person's behavior you try to please the other person you become submissive you're intimidated and you're manipulated intermittent reinforcement is a crucial part of coercive control and there is no love bombing without intermittent reinforcement in other words. So you're continuously trying to keep that person in the positive sort of thing. On their toes. So you said right at the beginning it comes too early now I remember going back in my single day this chat we'd had like the first date I was amazing and all this sort of thing and I was ostensibly there for a completely I'd been invited there for a completely different reason to talk about mental health what have you then you're amazing and what have you all this sort of thing and then the next thing he's saying I'm trying to figure out this thing which house we're going to live in and I'm like so I mean that was like the second date and you sort of think whoa whoa whoa now you talked about although that can't be criminalized to take it from hot and cold and black and white that would still be a flag should still be a flag I'm saying for anyone in a relationship to be wary yes absolutely intermittent reinforcement in the vast majority of cases is a manipulative control instrument it's intended to control it's intended to create such uncertainty in your mind it's intended to gaslight you into doubting your own judgment and perception of reality at the other person's behavior their motivations etc so that you become dependent on the other person's input he becomes your reality test you and so then you lose your independency and agency you become an extension of that person and you because he has the capability to withhold affection from you to withhold his love to withhold the pleasant times together you want to motivate him to give those back to you and so you try to please him to the point of denying yourself and your needs let me throw something at you Sam because we're talking about in a in a relationship physically at all we're talking about in a relationship I've seen this play out in workplace situations of course and and and work wise and that legally in every other way is very difficult to prove we're a boss right at the beginning is talking about you're amazing you're this and then the next bit you know you're rubbish and you need me you don't need me calling you in appropriate times I'm only calling you at these inappropriate times because I can't do this work without you and then you did can it happen in a workplace situation now I think you're very right I think two additional shortcomings of the CPS definition of love bombing is limiting it confining it to intimate romantic relationships when it's absolutely untrue it can happen in church it can happen in a workplace it can happen between a teacher and a student it can happen love bombing is a universal universal manipulative second thing the CPS does not make a distinction between love bombing which is the outcome of mental illness for example people with bipolar disorder they love bomb in the manic phase people with borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder love bomb because they can't tell the difference between truth and lies in a fantasy people with with other psychotic disorders they love bomb because they can't tell the difference between internal and external and so on and so forth these people these people are not acting criminally they're just playing out their mental illness and there's not such exemption or mitigation in the CPS's definition of love bombing that's catastrophic that's absolutely wrong and so on so I think the key the key is coercive control is the love bombing does the love bombing lead to a coercive control scenario is it embedded in a coercive control strategy or is it a totally independent behavior that goes nowhere if it goes nowhere if it goes nowhere it's just a warning sign you wouldn't want to have a relationship with someone who jumps to conclusions in the first meeting it is however if it is embedded in coercive control it should absolutely be criminalized I fully agree because it leads to it's the corridor that leads to coercive control now with your permission I would like to give the indications of coercive control it's up to you yeah well we're just we're just about Sam we're just about to run out of time and I don't want to have to interrupt you in the middle of that what I and I did this last time because where I talked to you generate so much interest can we leave people hanging would you mind coming back on the show because this is something like I really the whole thing about it being in the workplace as well I know people are going to be like whoa they haven't thought about that and and how the CPS definition needs to be expanded Sam we will talk again thank you so much Sam back in there with some really interesting stuff about coercive control and as I said before we will be talking more about that coming up we've got a lot lot more about bringing in legislation that prevents obese people being discriminated against good idea or not that and a lot lot more right after this break so stay with me here on talk TV see you in a moment this next issue absolutely well I mean I love it when we have this guest on because he absolutely makes me think he pushes the boundaries of where you want to go in safety you know we always go for the lowest hanging fruit of ideas and Sam backman absolutely stops I think he stops that happening now if you've seen online and in newspapers those photographs of lines and lines of Palestinian men being huddled together naked the UN has spoken out against this but the IDF the Israeli Defense Forces have said no these are all Hamas fighters that unraveled when somebody in the states found saw that his uncle who a relative who was a baker and a 13 year old and a newspaper saw one of their journalists anyway long story short four of the people were already identified as not having nothing to do with Hamas but what it does is dehumanize the others and there's lots of ways all sides all sides in war dehumanize the other side to make it more quote unquote acceptable for politicians for generals for etc etc to we have to attack these people and they use terms that equating these people to these people to beasts all Sam Vakman is fascinating on this subject and I'm delighted to say joins me now Sam thank you so much just reading doing some research behind what you're talking about really make me think again let's talk about some of the ways in war that one side seeks to dehumanize the other and why always happy to see you Trisha the Israeli Defense Force claims that they had to strip these men because they suspected them of possessing weapons or carrying weapons we'll leave it aside whether these men should have remained stripped and naked for hours and delve right into the topic that you have raised now war is a very interesting phenomenon it brings out the best in us and it brings out the worst in us where war has been identified for millennia with masculine positive values such as valor heroism courage overcoming fear selflessness altruism self sacrifice for the greater good and protectiveness these are all absolutely positive values in an unmitigated unadulterated way but in order to emphasize all these elements of humanity this is what makes us human in order to emphasize them we need to render the other side a bit demonic and this is a defense mechanism a psychological defense mechanism known as splitting splitting or dichotomous thinking is when we cast the world in terms of good versus bad evil versus good, black versus white we're all good, the enemy is all bad so this is known as splitting and the enemy is dehumanized, objectified and demonized in a kind of morality play so the war becomes a kind of a theater production where there's the bad guy and the all bad guy and the all good guy and of course we are always the good guys we are never ever the bad guys now this is a kind of role play if you give me two additional minutes I want to elucidate a few points this is a kind of role play it's adversarial, it's rule based but it's a game when you watch veterans on both sides meet when they meet after the war they are very convivial they are very cordial, they are like best buddies it's exactly the way athletes shake each other's hands after a contest or something so there's a strong element of gaming or role play in war war is about winning and it's about winning because winning validates you it validates you as having been chosen it validates you as having been blessed those of you who believe having been chosen or blessed by God and it's very awkward to mention it in this context but the Nazi SS had an inscription on its buckles and on its daggers and the inscription was God is with us God is with us so winning the war means that you have been chosen and blessed by God's grace, you've been elevated by God it's a bit of a protestant thing because protestants used to believe that if you were successful in business, if you were a money maker that meant that you were chosen by God you were blessed by God, the same applies to war I was going to say as well with politicians though in order for them to get the money for war in order for them to validate their decision to go to war, to validate the actions that they take, they need you to see the other side as humans who bleed, who cry they need their constituency to see the other side as either good or bad subhuman and also equate the people with the terrorist organisation, for instance and both sides have done it when we talk about what's happening between Gaza and Israel that they all must be this for instance they said the settlers all of these settlers, they're not really settlers Israeli settlers, they were really IDF all of those men we stripped, they're all Hamas and there's that equating ordinary everyday people with the boogeyman, the monster then makes it okay for destruction to take place I think it's great that you raised the issue of politics because I think war is a collective cultural social activity war is a great way to bond it creates bonding war is a great way to foster intimacy among large swaths of the population war gives rise to identity which is often what we call in psychology negative identity formation it means my identity is everything that you are not I'm defining my identity in contradiction and in contradiction to who you are we both are mutually exclusive and since I regard myself as human and all good and on the side of God and ethical and moral you must be the opposite because my identity is the exact negation of yours so there's bonding, there's intimacy, there's cooperation there's innovation, war is the greatest engine of innovation, literally all the technologies we use today have been invented during wartime or by military organization and that includes the internet so this is war and it's very important to understand that war leads to a new order war is very cathartic, it's a catharsis it cleanses, it's kind of a cleansing operation after which there is an opportunity to create something new for example I think the current conflict between Israel and Hamas will finally give rise to a Palestinian state I think the... Oh you do! I do, I think the Yom Kippur war in 1973 was a prerequisite was a precondition for the peace between Israel and Egypt and later the peace between Israel and Jordan we need war as an engine of transformation Schumpeter the famous economist called it creative destruction it's very politically incorrect to talk about war in these terms as a positive force yes, that's what I was going to say but do you think... no I was going to say but the language the language as well that is used let's talk about the language because that's frequently used by newspapers to promote that otherness as well calling the other side beasts I mean just looking at the you know the brief that you gave me and then I look at the newspapers and the scales fall from your eyes when you keep reading various reports from various different sources and the various words that are used to equate the other side with animals I mean people that remarks you here will be like oh well you know the in like animals you know in the desert they weren't very developed there is that belief against that the more civilized in western concept the more civilized the society the more I don't know closer to God or they'd be doing the other person in favor of course I'm going to be very sensitive to that because Africa was taken over by people who saw everybody in Africa as savages the need to be educated and we all know that God forbid when the bomb goes off we know who's going to the most civilized people will pass will go first so let's talk about the language that is used to demonize the other side war and the language the language of war has to do with the fantasy space war is a fantasy defense war you as an individual become immaculate become perfect I mentioned I opened my conversation with you by mentioning all the values associated with war heroism, courage, protectiveness selflessness, altruism self sacrifice these are positive values none of them is negative not a single one of them is a fantasy of who you are which is what we call in psychology a narcissistic fantasy and this fantasy of the individual is a perfect being protected by God in effect even the SS the Nazi SS believed themselves to be protected by God so under the banner of God you're a perfect being and obviously a society comprised of perfect being also happens to be a perfect society a city on the hill now you mentioned Gaza for example and this is an excellent example of how fantasy takes over reality and suppresses it Gazans have the highest literacy rate in all the Arab world Gazans are much more literate and much more highly educated than the Egyptians or the Saudis so Gaza is actually an enclave of learning and erudition in the Arab world they're definitely not uneducated peasants or you know they're exactly the opposite they are urban most of them are urban so here's an example of how we create in a fantastic space an image of the enemy there's nothing to do with reality that is counterfactual and then we continue to interact with that image not with the real enemy when we kill members of the enemy we are actually playing a video game in our minds and in this video game there's an internal representation of the enemy that is devalued to the maximum to the extreme humanized etc etc and this is exactly what happens in the mind of a narcissist the narcissist converts people converts external objects into internal objects then the narcissist either idealizes this object or devalues this object but in any case the narcissist continues to interact with the object not with the person that they gave rise to the object so we could say that war is a narcissistic activity absolutely it's about narcissism no wonder that war is very antisocial and there are many psychopathic behaviors in war yes absolutely Sam always brilliant talking with you I just wanted to check how you are I wanted to say although it's a very troubled time happy Hanukkah have you been able to get back to Israel or you're still no I haven't been there for too long I intend to go back next year hopefully when the fighting abates I served in the Israeli army for three and a half years I was in infantry and then in the air force so I know war intimately including urban warfare I've been involved in urban warfare I know war intimately no more hideous spectacle than war all these values that are attributed to war that's post facto nonsense war is dirty and ugly dirty and ugly period there's nothing else there Sam thank you so much thank you so much for speaking with us today always fascinating to talk with you and get another point of view and get people thinking Sam vacuum in there Sam