Simon is a clinical psychologist who writes about the connections between “Narcissism, Trauma, Fame, and Power” — the name of his substack. He has over 20 years experience in the field of treatment of personality disorders and complex PTSD — the field of psychology in which narcissism is most invoked. We talked about what narcissism is, healthy and unhealthy; and we discuss some famous narcissists — Charlie Chaplin, John Lennon, Hitler, Churchill — and the childhood patterns they have in common. Then of course you-know-who, our Malignant Narcissist-In-Chief.
An auto-transcript is available above (just click “Transcript” while logged into Substack). For three clips of our convo — how narcissism is formed in childhood, my own struggles with it, and when narcissism turns malignant — head to our YouTube page.
Other topics: growing up in Birmingham; his mom a social worker and his dad a probation officer; Simon working in prison psych units; personality disorders vs mental illness; the Big Five traits; bipolarism; Freud and trauma; cold parenting; the Best Little Boy in the World syndrome; the coping strategies of narcissists; Sly Stallone; Norma Desmond; the benefits of narcissism for society; John Lennon’s violent bullying of others; Churchill’s childhood wounds; his psychic similarities with Hitler; Charlie Chaplin and sex trafficking; Trump’s sadism from a very young age; his nonstop superlatives; his 2020 denialism; his retribution crusade; how Obama’s narcissism is different than Trump’s; the new interview with Susie Wiles; the new Diddy documentary; Nietzsche’s Übermensch; social media as a playground for narcissism; the love-bombing of Trump’s 2016 rallies; his empty marriage to Melania; Epstein; and the danger of Trump’s psyche when allies like MTG turn on him.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness, Laura Field on the intellectuals of Trumpism, Vivek Ramaswamy on the right’s future, Jason Willick on trade and conservatism, and Claire Berlinksi on America’s retreat from global hegemony. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
From a fan of last week’s episode with Shadi Hamid:
I greatly enjoyed the discussion — two things in particular. First, I’m on record as being a big fan of your religiously oriented episodes, and while it wasn’t the primary topic this week, Shadi’s discussion of his Islamic faith and the relationship between Islam, liberalism, and democracy was fascinating. I would totally welcome more dialogues between you and practitioners of different faiths going forward.
Second, stylistically, I found this to be one of the more successful Dishcasts yet, in which you and your interlocutor sharply disagreed on the main point. While you didn’t hold back in challenging Shadi’s viewpoint on US global leadership and the benefits of intervention, you generally did a much better job than you sometimes have in allowing him to fully develop his thoughts and arguments without interrupting too much. I can tell you’ve taken listeners’ feedback to heart on this part, so well done.
In terms of substance, I think it’s possible to bridge some of the gap between your position and Shadi’s by distinguishing between the American exercise of hard power and soft power. I suspect most listeners will be sympathetic to your view that the 21st century has called into question the wisdom of direct US military intervention in foreign conflicts — or at least a much higher bar for intervention.
At the same time, the US absolutely can deploy lots of resources to shape global outcomes in a positive way. These can include a robust deployment of economic, cultural, and diplomatic resources, ranging from USAID, PEPFAR, the Peace Corps, Radio Free Asia and Europe — which are now under assault by the Trump administration — to American support for the kinds of global institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO.
It’s also helpful to distinguish between granting military aid and actually deploying US forces. It seems probable that without US (and European) military aid and intel, Ukraine would have suffered a rapid defeat and been reduced to a Russian puppet state. Setting aside the knotty question of how to end the conflict, the fact that US support has allowed Ukraine to fight Russia to a stalemate after nearly four years is not only a remarkable achievement, but a pretty serious blow to Russia’s global prestige and strategic positioning. It also may have helped reduce the likelihood of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which would be a much more difficult operation than the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
All this to say: it doesn’t have to be a choice between Cold War-style interventionism and a retreat into isolationism.
No it doesn’t. Which is why, nonetheless, we need to air radical critiques of our recent past to find a saner, smarter middle path of responsible retrenchment. Here’s another listener in favor of that middle:
I was shocked that someone as smart as you, and arguing in good faith (I think, I hope), would smear together under the rubric of “interventionism”: the 2003 Iraq invasion, US military and financial support for Israel, a commitment to the defense of Taiwan, a commitment to the defense of Ukraine, an interest in defending Rwanda’s Tutsis from marauding mass murderers, and ... drum roll ... acceptance of China into the WTO.
Each of these cases needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Mr. Hamid’s position is far more defensible, which is that America should steer away from extreme policies, avoiding the follies of the neocons and the isolationists.
Your concern for the American voter doesn’t sound right. I agree with Mr. Hamid that American voters don’t seem to know much about foreign affairs, or remember for long what happened. I am not convinced there is any new robust isolationist consensus.
You made an interesting historical swing in the conversation, saying that before 1941, America had been isolationist; that the period from then to the end of the Cold War was a justifiable deviation; and now we need to get back to reality and realize we are safe in our continental redoubt. I’m a little surprised he didn’t push back and ask, “Well, ahem, do you recall that all through the 1930s, until 1941, Republican leaders in the US Senate were saying the very same thing? They were myopic then, and, given how MUCH more interconnected the world is now, you are being that much more myopic now.”
I feel as though you are over-compensating, having committed a colossal error in judgement in 2002 and 2003 by cheering on interventionism in Iraq. I wish that instead of switching to the opposite extreme, the lesson you took from that fiasco was to be more humble in your views. Sadly, you haven’t done so.
I’m not against all intervention. I favor NATO and our alliances; I support more military aid to Ukraine to get a better settlement. I just don’t believe in going to war for Taiwan, or using the military to “stop” something like the genocide in Rwanda or the civil war in Syria.
Another reader dissents against both me and Shadi:
I’m not sure if you were serious or simply playing Devil’s advocate when you seemed to question why we should support Ukraine (and Mr. Hamid’s response was wholly inadequate). We should support Ukraine because it’s in the long-term interest of the United States. Russia is one of the junior partners in a coalition of nations that means to do us harm and alter the geopolitical order that has served us well since WWII. To the extent that Putin is thwarted, that the Western alliance is strengthened, and that Ukraine is integrated into the EU, we and our allies will be stronger.
If, however, Putin ultimately absorbs Ukraine, Russia and its coalition will be an even greater threat. And if he does win, he will test the alliance again, possibly in the Baltics.
Do we need to recognize that it’s 2025 and not 1945, or even 1995, and accept that reality? Of course things have changed, and we’re not in the same position we once were. Do the nations of Western Europe need to do most of the heavy lifting in their own defense? Yes, absolutely, and they are beginning to, but it will take time to restore their atrophied militaries.
Putin will never agree to a peace that leaves Ukraine as an independent nation as long as he thinks he can win. Resolve on the part of the United States now, standing shoulder to shoulder against an aggressor and providing unambiguous military support at a relatively small cost, can make the difference.
China under the Communist Party will be a dangerous adversary for the rest of your life and mine. Their aim is the same as Reagan’s a generation ago: we win, you lose. Taiwan is already as good as lost, but things won’t end there. We will need all the allies we can get.
And your notion that we have deep resources and two big oceans to protect us is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Chinese hypersonic missiles can sink our fleet when it’s tied up to the pier in San Diego; cyberattacks can destroy critical infrastructure nationwide; and our bombers in the heartland can be destroyed by drones in the same way Ukraine destroyed many of Russia’s.
Neo-isolationism might give us peace in our time for a while, but I don’t think we’ll like living in that world.
Another writes, “US citizens won’t care about Taiwan because of some affinity for Taiwanese self-determination, but they will care about their pocketbooks when computer chips, which are in almost everything now — from airplanes to cars to children’s toys — are scarce or expensive.” Yes. Which is why it’s such a damning verdict on foreign policy elites that we ended up in that situation. Same with rare earths. But we’re working to alleviate that problem.
Another points to polling:
You are greatly exaggerating Americans’ turn towards isolationism. If you look at the Pew report that came out last month, only 28% of Americans believe the US should not provide military assistance to Ukraine, which is the same percentage of Americans who say the US should not provide military assistance to Taiwan.
Also, your idea that pre-1941 America was a bastion of isolationism is also overstated. Besides entry into WWI (which I don’t think you can wave off as the exception that proves the rule), think of William Howard Taft’s famous quote about the Philippines in 1907: “Our whole job in the Philippines is to make them good democrats.” Or think of the support of American humanitarians and missionaries for Greek independence in the 1820s, or their support for Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Revolution almost a century later. From early in our history, there was always an important current of support for America’s “civilizing” role in the world, linked to Protestant evangelism.
Yes, and it violated the Founders’ vision, in my view. More history comes from this listener:
You keep saying that Taiwan has been part of China “since forever.” You need to do some homework, because that’s not even close to true.
Starting around the 12th century, Taiwan had scattered settlements of Chinese, but these were small and independent, not state-sponsored. Around the late 1500s, the Chinese state started taking a military/colonial interest in the island — at about the same time as the Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese did as well. China ultimately came to dominate, and it officially annexed the territory in 1684. But even then, they didn’t control it, as they continued to deal with suppressing the indigenous people for about another century. In 1895, Japan took Taiwan and held it, and then after 1945, there was the whole KMT vs PRC drama you know about.
The point is, prior to the 20th century, China only claimed Taiwan for a little over two centuries, and only securely held it for less than one century. Saying that Taiwan has been part of China forever makes as much sense as saying India has been part of England since forever.
More like saying that about Ireland. And the UK still has a part of it. Yet another dissent:
A couple of times in your interview, the claim is made that Europe’s GDP is larger than Russia’s. That’s true, but you should not look at GDP based on exchange rates, but rather GDP based on purchasing power parity — a better measure of military potential. Using that metric, Russia comes in as the fourth biggest economy in the world, appreciably ahead of Germany and Japan.
When it turned out that Russia was producing more artillery shells than the whole of NATO, people ought to have started wondering if there was something wrong with the GDP figures. I don’t mean to criticize Mr. Hamid in particular. Lots and lots of people who should know better are seriously underestimating the size of Russia’s economy — and their underestimation means their strategic calculations are faulty.
Using purchasing power parity, my reader is right that Russia is the fourth biggest economy at around $7 trillion. But that compares with the EU with $29 trillion and the UK at $4 trillion — for a total of $33 trillion for the European powers with a stake in security, more than four times’ Russia, and roughly the same as the US. They can afford to pay more.
One more listener provides “a German perspective”:
I really enjoyed your talk with Shadi Hamid, whose views and arguments make a lot of sense to me. Born in 1969, I am one of many Germans who are well aware and still grateful for America’s intervention in WWII, and the bold (and smart) decision to support Germany after the war ended. The world is a better place for all of this, and the order that the US established after 1945 has led to great prosperity for itself and its allies. It’s the reason why we are living in the best of times now — although it looks like the world is about to take a big step backwards.
There is one crucial point that did not get mentioned in your conversation: if Russia prevails in Ukraine, this may well lead to many countries seeking their own nuclear weapons — before starting their own wars against their neighbours. That is clearly not in anyone’s interest and may well lead to a spiral that could cost so much more than the support of Ukraine. So I think it’s in the interest of the US to ensure that Russia does not win this war.
Europe clearly needs to step up, and this seems to be starting — especially since the US cannot be trusted as an ally anymore. Of course at least in Germany, there were good reasons for keeping a low military profile. The re-establishment of the German army was opposed by many both inside and outside of Germany. There are still many Germans who are very sceptical of the Bundeswehr, however shortsighted that may seem to the rest of the world. The trauma of the war still has an effect even on those of us who did not experience it — which unfortunately is also making many Germans fall for Russian propaganda.
I have often wondered what it was like a hundred years ago in Germany, and if I would have had the courage to speak up against the Nazis. It would never have occurred to me that this could happen again, least of all in the US — or that a Nazi party would get a quarter of the vote in Germany.
I have been thinking a lot about your episode on Eisenhower. It answered some of your questions about why the US should take an interest in the world! Eisenhower really represented the spirit that made America the nation that set the standards for everyone else.
Perhaps another interesting topic for your podcast might be the German Jews who looked after captured German officers in the US during the war. In those days the US army knew that they would not have gotten any useful information out of them by torture. Instead, those Jews befriended the people who killed their families, and learned everything they wanted to know. It’s another example of something that made America great and appears to have been lost.
Apologies for the rant! I guess I’ve been carrying some of it around for a while. Love your pod episodes; they are always great food for thought. Keep them coming!
On my latest column, “Ten Years of Marriage Equality,” a reader writes:
Great piece. My husband and I just returned from your native country where we went to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. (We celebrate the date of the actual wedding we snuck off to Canada to have in 2005, even though it was legally meaningless here at home for another 10 years.) I just wanted to say thank you. I don’t always agree with you, but have been reading since the New Republic days, and I know history will remember the role you played in making life better for all us normie gays.
Another reader also gets personal:
My mother is a lesbian, and her forced public “coming out” occurred in a custody trial with the result being me separated from her when I was just a year old.
