The Logic of Envy

The emphasis on a behaviour being genetic in origin is frequently absent in common use of "evolutionary psychology". A trait being the result of evolution, even if not darwinian evolution, is quite useful to know, and is usually clearly the case when we can tell the adaptive purpose of a behaviour, see it replicated across cultures, and so on.

The vulnerable narcissist vs. the grandiose narcissist. That is, the Hollywood-archetypal "nerd vs. jock", though I have also met some grandiose nerds in my time in addition to the vulnerable stock.

On a different node, I also see that accusing someone of "narcissism" can itself be an expression of envy. If you succeed, you can debilitate someone else with doubt and guilt to prevent them from pursuing what they want.

It’s an oxymoron. envy is unhappiness with reality, it’s not logical.

Uncomfortable? Not if it were true. But categoricals tend not to be so.

Such an unblinking read. My only fear is that we are more likely to think this is really about someone else, and not keep these insights only reserved as a tool for introspection.

Even if some hard parts take one by surprise or resonate, sure, reflect, and then I think it's impossible to both recognize those parts and then do anything like them again. That's what makes it amazing writing, when you can't unread it.

Edit (later): There is something about psychology that pathologizes everything equally. There came a point where I started looking at what he meant by deprivation, and he makes it into a negative-moralization of wanting to be desired. What makes his analysis so compelling is that it logically lands every single time and does it so satisfyingly because it is predicated on a single basic inconsistency, and when your system is inconsistent you can prove anything in it.

Taking the basic human want to be desired by others, pathologizing it into a negative extreme, and then producing these parables that reduce to the characters not disproving the pathologized negative definition of their normal desire, is absolutely his hustle. Maybe I should thank him for letting me know that I was the sort of person he thought he could fool! Love the writing, but when the game rails seep through it feels a bit weird.

However, if it's true that economics is the dismal science, I have the impression that psychology is the cruel one.