Vox wrote a post examining whether John Scalzi is a Narcissist. It is always tough to know what is going on the mind of another person. Especially when Narcissists are younger, and smart enough to ape the social and self-deprecating aspects of non-narcissists, identifying them can be almost impossible. They will appear, to almost every eye, as normal.
There is one thing about Scalzi which points to some sort of amygdala insufficiency, which would, if I were to meet him, make me extremely cautious in trusting him
It is my understanding that Scalzi did not pay his dues at SFWA, demanding that Vox be expelled before he would continue as a paying member. Most of us today recognize that we need to actively expel leftists from any organizations we can, but we do that for a very specific, practical reason. If we do not expel them, they will seek to expel us. Our amygdala has adopted that position, and drives that behavior, because it sees a very real threat in the offing. Such behavior is a commonsense attempt to prevent that threat from materializing.
Scalzi’s motivator was different. Vox was not actively targeting anyone at SFWA for expulsion, nor was he of the psychology which would seek that. Still, Scalzi simply could not tolerate the presence of Vox. His amygdala looked at Vox, and freaked out to the point that he needed to either see Vox leave, or he himself would have to leave.
How many reading this could imagine that? I have been a part of many groups in my life. Almost all have had people in them I did not like. A few had people in the group I found repulsive. But my amygdala processed the negative information about those individuals, stored it as data, and there it remained, recognized but not acted upon. My amygdala never freaked out to the point that I needed to see that person expelled, “or else!” Indeed, I would have been ashamed to admit having such a cognitive deficit, and inability to tolerate the adversity of diversity.
If you are normal, your amygdala will recognize that there will be people in the world who you will not get along with. It will adjust to tolerate their presence, and even to deal with them when necessary. Those people who we recognize as extraordinary, are often those who tolerate even greater adversity, be it the young SF recruit who withstands impossible hardship in the Q-course, or an astronaut who endures a death defying ordeal with aplomb. We subconsciously recognize that such an individual will probably be a pleasure to know personally, due to their calm, even tempered, unflappable approach to the world around them.
If you have the beginnings of a personality disorder however, you will freak out disproportionately at the most minor of stimuli. In essence, you will expect the entire world to revolve around you, until you approve of its position, and if it does not, then emotional fireworks and hysterics will be forthcoming.
That is of course, a step down a dangerous path. The Nazis had the same problem with the Jews. Jews stimulated Nazi amygdalae, and as a result, the Nazis needed them gone. Without societal constraint, such a lack of amygdala control can lead to joyfully stuffing women and children in gas chambers and ovens. The negative emotions, and basic framework of thought are exactly the same. You can’t tolerate their presence, circumstances allow you to act out against them in some way for no reason, and lacking any inner moral control provided by a personal morality, (ie another form of amygdala development), you act out in such a way as to appease your inner panic.
Why couldn’t Scalzi tolerate Vox? It is tough to say. Maybe he is a rabbit with an unusually triggerable amygdala, and Vox’s tweets were making him physically sick. Maybe he hated the jocks that Vox reminded him of, whom he felt as a child had it so easy, and whom always stirred in him feelings of unfairness and hatred. Maybe he sensed how Vox’s blog was always destined to eclipse his own, and take from him an important marketing claim to fame. Maybe he has a need to always be bowed before, and Vox didn’t pay his ego enough attention sometime, and he began to feel slighted in Vox’s presence.
Whatever the trigger, the circumstances would say to me that something in Scalzi’s amygdala was triggered by an otherwise insignificant stimuli, which a normal human being should be expected to tolerate easily. That such minor stimuli would drive him to act, is, in my experience, highly indicative of what is going on beneath his surface.
I’d assume, based on my experience with other individuals with that trait, that underneath his amiable portrayal of an easy-going, likable guy, was a more unpredictable neurotic, waiting to freak out about something, and act out unpredictably on just such a seemingly insignificant cue. In my experience, such individuals are never to be trusted, because they are slaves to their amygdala, and will whip loyalty without a second glance, if the terror of amygdala commands them to do so. That they have learned to hide that inner demon so well, often from an incredibly young age, is what makes them dangerous.
It is fortunate that given the circumstances of our place in history, that is the worst of the horrors they are capable of aiding and abetting. It is even more fortunate that due to environmental factors, their psychology is no longer ascendant, and we will see it diminish in numbers as the coming turmoil cleans the Augean stables of our civilization’s psyche.
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