My Story

I was one of those people who thought kindness could solve everything. My first career promoted that message. I was an activist, the founder of a grassroots peace and justice organization with 75 chapters, a philanthropist and public affairs director for large socially-minded companies.

I was aware that people in power tended to abuse it but I thought the solution was more education on the value of being kind to people so they’d be kind back, an ideas as popular as the golden rule.

Then I noticed that kindness doesn’t always work. Some people have no conscience. Others have consciences they can reliably reassure. No deed too dirty for saints like them.

We call such people, narcissists, gaslighters, jerks, buttheads, a-holes and lots of other names, though they can spit those names right back at us. Robotically. I know you are but what am I?

So I got wondering what distinguishes a butthead, since it can’t just be that we butt heads with them? What’s the most objective, non-partisan, neutral way to understand how people become robotically sado-narcissist?

I began studying this during my doctoral research which I had the good fortune to do with a Harvard/Berkeley neuroscientist and biological anthropologist I’ve now worked closely with for 27 years. His research was perfect for my approach which wasn’t going to be the usual clinical psychology diagnostic discriptive work.

I wanted to understand why humans become like this when other organisms can’t. My mentor’s seminal work was on how humans evolved language. I realized that language floods us with anxious thoughts we can soothe away with self-idealizing self-justifications. People can become sado-narcissists, putting others down for self-elevation. It’s easy and tempting.

I call my research “psychoproctology” a light name for a very serious subject. Nothing is more dangerous than claiming to be the objective expert on who’s an asshole. All the worst tyrants claim that authority. To do this serious research, one can’t afford to take oneself too seriously.

Pychoproctology is the careful scientific diagnosis, treatment and prevention of buttheadedness, basically how to spot and stop these robotic sado-narcissists without becoming one.

I have come to see this topic as the most urgent issue facing humanity. If we don’t get better at spotting and stopping such people from gaining power, we will never make progress on our many other pressing issues.

For decades, I have coached people on how to get such people to back down off their high horse. I have developed practical techniques that if applied strategically can help you get out from under such people.

I try to be a nice guy
But if you show up done,
ready for a fight you’re
already sure you’ve won
I’m gonna do my best
to have you leave here disappointed
with your scheme to dip in quick,
pre-and post-anointed
as the one who only tutors,
teaching others what to think
’cause it’s attitudes like that
that put the whole world on the brink.