Episode 60 - Ego and Morality
Date: 2018-06-16 | Duration: 29:23
Topics
Moral flexibility Loser strategy Master Persuader view of the world Ego as a tool Ego as who you are
Transcript
[0:06]
Boom bum bum bum bum bum bum bum. It’s Friday, and it goes well with Friday: Coffee with Scott Adams. And what goes well with Coffee with Scott Adams? Coffee. Grab yours. You can get it quickly. Come on out; I’ll wait. You got it? Simultaneous sip. Oh, is it my imagination or is everything starting to change? There’s a change in the air, isn’t there? Don’t you feel it? It’s kind of cool. I guess the President will be giving a speech today about his plans for lowering prescription drug prices. That might be good news; we’ll see what he has in mind. But mostly today, I wanted to talk about this idea of ego.
[1:08]
I wanted to talk about this idea of ego and narcissism. I was thinking of this because you probably saw this story about J.K. Rowling. She tweeted that she never believed in handwriting analysis until three minutes ago because she saw President Trump’s signature, which is big, jagged—it fills up the page. Apparently, the handwriting experts would say in their astrology-like way—I don’t think there’s any science to this—but the handwriting experts would say that it means he’s got a big ego and he’s a narcissist. Now, let’s just hold that thought. The idea is that President Trump is a narcissist. Now, a narcissist with a big ego would think that he could do things better than other people.
[2:09]
Could do things better than other people—that would be sort of a narcissist. Let me give you an example. There was also another story about how one of the actors from Game of Thrones—really big guy, forget his name—but in his non-acting life, he had been trying to become the strongest person in the world. I guess he proved that by lifting the heaviest object or something. After three years of trying, he succeeded. He’s actually literally, according to whatever tests they give to do this, the strongest person in the world. He’s actually literally the strongest person in the world. Three years ago when The Mountain, as you’re calling him—I think that might have been his Game of Thrones name—three years ago when he said to his friends, “I think I could be the strongest man in…”
[3:09]
“…the world if I really put my mind to it,” what did his friends say? Did they say, “Oh, you egomaniac, you narcissist. Strongest man? Wait a minute.” I believe his critics sounded something like this: “Oh, you’re going to be the strongest man in the world? In the world? You are going to be the strongest man in the whole world? Good luck with that.” Scene. Then, three years later, he’s the strongest man in the whole world. Now, was he an egomaniac? Was he a narcissist? Or did he just know what he could do and then he went and did it? Let’s get back to President Trump.
[4:11]
When he was running for president with no experience as a politician, people were saying, “Oh my God, the ego on that man. The narcissist! He thinks he can become President of the United States with no practice.” Then he became President of the United States with no practice. But he doesn’t get credit for that because of Russia and racists. There had to be reasons he got elected that had nothing to do with his skill. So then people started saying he’s an egomaniac and a narcissist; he thinks he can get things done and do all these things. Now we have a 3.9 percent unemployment rate, kind of what he said he would do. We’re negotiating with China and getting some headway, apparently some progress with…
[5:12]
…automobiles, I think. Maybe there might be more; we might see progress in North Korea, the kind that nobody has ever been able to accomplish. If North Korea goes right, and if the economy stays on track—and those are pretty good bets at this point—could you say President Trump is a giant narcissist with an oversized ego? Or did he call his shot and then just do it in front of you? Did he tell you, “I can do this thing,” and then he went and did it right in front of you, just like the strongest man in the world? Solving North Korea—was it easy, if it’s solved? Now, some of you have already been trying to prompt me to remember that David Brooks, the famous anti-Trumper, wrote an article in The New York Times.
[6:13]
He wrote an article in The New York Times, I think today, in which he pointed out what I’ve pointed out a number of times, which is President Trump’s facility in dealing with bad actors. During his construction days, he had to deal with a lot of bad actors. His friends are like a pirate ship full of criminals and other ne’er-do-wells, as well as nice people. Not all of his friends are criminals and ne’er-do-wells, but he seems to operate effortlessly with the best and worst people. The speculation in David Brooks’ column, which I agree with, is that he’s uniquely qualified to deal with despots and dictators and foul people of every variety because he can do it. He’s got that skill. He knew he had that skill. This is my lead-in to my whiteboard talk. Shall we go to the whiteboard?
[7:13]
Yes, let’s go to the whiteboard. I’m going to pull in a few disparate topics. I’ll pull it all together if things go well. We’re having this conversation now about waterboarding, and we’re seeing that the nominee for the CIA, Haspel—Gina Haspel—is being asked what her moral conviction is about waterboarding. In a public setting, everybody’s trying to be nice and say the right things and not get in trouble, so nobody can say what the obvious answer to the question is. Here is the obvious answer: Risk and moral flexibility have a relationship, and should. When your risk goes up—let’s say during 9/11 or the risk of North Korea—your moral flexibility goes up too.
[8:14]
Let me give you an example. Did the waterboarding work to maybe prevent some imminent terrorism or potential terrorism? People who seem to know are saying yes, or at least probably yes. Now, at the moment, our risk in the world looks lower. It just feels like our risks at the moment are lower today. So today, if you ask somebody, “Would you waterboard?” I think most people would say no. Waterboarding is morally inappropriate; we won’t do that. But if we had another 9/11 type situation, if North Korea was almost going to attack us, would we consider lying to avoid a nuclear war? Yeah, we would. Lying’s bad; lying is immoral. But you would certainly be a little bit flexible if you were avoiding a nuclear war.
[9:18]
Now, what you can’t say if you’re being considered for the top job in the CIA is that dangerous times require a little bit of moral flexibility because sometimes the ends do justify the means—if what you’re doing is avoiding a nuclear war, for example. A hundred percent of human beings agree with what I just said, but 98 percent of human beings will deny it to the last breath in public because nobody wants to say in public, “I could get pretty morally flexible if I had to.” Nobody can say that, but that’s our underlying truth. Now, I’m going to tie this into my next point: the difference between what I would call a “loser strategy” and a master persuader’s view of the world is that a master persuader uses ego—their own ego—as a tool.
[10:21]
A loser says, “My ego is who I am; it’s very important.” Here’s how this plays out. Let’s say that North Korea was going to send a nuclear weapon our way and the only way we could avoid it was if our President lied and said, “Hey, if you do that, we will do X,” or “We’re already doing X.” If the only way to avoid a nuclear war was a lie—well, a lie is morally objectionable. But a master persuader would just say, “My morality, my ego, the ‘who I am’ part—these are tools.” And the tool I need right now is whatever tool will prevent a nuclear holocaust. I’m using the extreme example because it’s easier. The loser says…
[11:23]
“Well, I’m not a liar. I’m not a liar. My moral code, that’s who I am. I can’t change who I am for the world. I’ve got to be true to myself.” The ego approach results in the destruction of the world by nuclear weapons in my weird exemplar. In a more down-to-earth example, if you were a candidate Trump, or you were thinking about being a candidate, the first thing you would think of is, “I am going to get savaged if I run for president.” The level of criticism that you will get will be off the chart. If you cared about your ego as “who you are,” you don’t run for president. You don’t, because you don’t want to have that kind of pressure on who you are.
[12:25]
But if you believe that your ego is just a tool, then people are going to be criticizing the tool. You just take a step back and say, “Yeah, the criticism is outrageous. Look at that criticism.” It’s not really about me; it’s just things that are happening in their head. Things that happen in other people’s heads are not me. That’s not who I am. The loser strategy says, “If people are going to think poorly of me, don’t do it.” Let’s take this also to the idea of optimism and the power of positive thinking. President Trump famously—his pastor, I say this all the time, wrote the book…
[13:26]
…The Power of Positive Thinking. Norman Vincent Peale was the author who, coincidentally, was also the pastor of Trump’s church. This idea of saying, “Yeah, we can do this. Everything’s going to be great. The world’s going to be great,” is a technique. If you didn’t know it’s a technique and you saw somebody say, “I can solve North Korea. I can solve Iran. I’ll make your economy great. I’ll be your president with no practice,” you’d say to yourself, “What the hell is wrong with this crazy guy? That’s insane. None of those things you’re saying are rational.” But the persuader says it’s just a tool. These are the things I say to become president, and then this is the same tool I’ll use while President to get done those things I said I would get done. Even a year ago, I couldn’t have done this whiteboard talk because it was before you saw that these tools work. You saw Trump use the tools to…
[14:28]
…become president, but that felt like a little bit of a special case because elections are such a weird human construct. But then he takes his skills to the messy world. Now we see they work. That conclusion is hard to miss, even for the critics. The tools work. Going back to Brooks’s article about how maybe President Trump is uniquely qualified to deal with despots because he’s dealt with sketchy people all of his life, and successfully. Again, when President Trump deals with some horribly sketchy person, it’s not who he is. It’s just a tool. That’s just a way to get something done, so he doesn’t have his ego in the game. When President Trump hangs out with his friend—who’s the fight promoter? Don King. So if…
[15:34]
…if you looked at Don King’s Wikipedia page, you’re going to see some really bad stuff there. If you’re concerned with your ego—how people saw you—would you have him as a friend? Probably not. But if your system allowed you to talk to everybody because you just see ego as a tool, you can do it. Let me give you another example: Kanye West. I’ve called him a master persuader. Kanye West—everybody says, “My God, Kanye, what’s wrong with your ego? Why are you such a narcissist? Why do you think you can be president?” Well, it’s the same thing going on. Kanye uses ego as a tool; he doesn’t use it as “who he is.” This allows…
[16:36]
…this allows Kanye to simply do things that other people wouldn’t do. Imagine—the reason that Kanye is Kanye is because, with no musical experience back in his origins, he decided that he could do this to become “Kanye,” and then he just went out and did it. How big did your ego have to be to imagine that you could pull that off? And then he did it. Kanye has taken his reputation and just torn it up and said, “I’ll build a new one. I’ll talk to Candace, I’ll talk to you.” You retweeted me—that can’t be good for his reputation. Kanye was willing to completely destroy his ego right in front of you. I mean, he set it on fire. He took his ego out of his head, set it in front of the public…
[17:45]
…and set it on fire right in front of you. He knew what it would take to have what you call a safe, nice reputation. He knows what that takes; it’s easy. That’s what everybody else is doing. He just didn’t do that. Now, what did that get him? He turned his ego into a tool. Kanye can talk to anybody now because he’s determined that that’s his brand now—that’s his space. “I’m going to talk to anybody and I’m going to love anybody I want.” What looks to the less sophisticated observer—is that the best way to say it?—is that he’s just operating out of ego. But when you see him sacrifice his ego completely every now and then, you see that he uses it as a tool. He’ll take his ego from a ten, where it works to boost his confidence, where it’s sort of…
[18:46]
…sort of a self-talk. It’s like, “Yeah, I can do this. I can make this happen. Watch this—I’ll do five albums this year, and announce my run for president, and change race relations in the country. I’ll do that all this month.” And then he went out and did it right in front of you. When you see somebody who can take their ego from a ten to a zero, then back to a ten and back to a zero right in front of you—you can see it in real time—that’s not somebody who says the ego is who they are. That’s somebody who’s using it as a tool. This relates a little bit to the torture point, because if you think that your ego is who you are, and your morality is sort of wrapped into your ego, then you say, “Well, there’s nothing I can do because I’m a moral person. I can’t do the things…”
[19:46]
“…I need to do to waterboard a suspect, to lie to North Korea if that’s what it takes.” I don’t know that we’ve lied to North Korea, but if hypothetically we had to… the losers say, “I’m locked into my little world; I can’t get out. My ego is who I am.” You can identify these people because they’re the ones who troll me and people like me. If you look at my Twitter feed, you’ll see the people who said—even as recently as yesterday and today—people say, “You can’t retweet that person.” Yes, I can. “You can’t support Kanye because maybe you don’t agree with all of his political preferences,” if he’s even figured out his political preferences. Well, yes, I can. I can do anything with my ego because it’s just a tool. I don’t use it as “who I am.”
[20:48]
I think you’ve probably noticed the degree of criticism that I get on social media. I think you’ve all seen it—I mean, you’ve seen it on these Periscopes. Have you noticed how little it seems to bother me? Now, you could be confused by the fact that I so enjoy interacting with my trolls. For example, one of my critics today on social media, on Twitter, said that I look like Skeletor. Now, first of all, it’s not far off. As insults go, I’m never as bothered by one that’s actually clever. I thought to myself, “Skeletor… it’s not bad. It’s pretty bad. Yeah, that’s pretty good.” But I, of course, responded back. You’d have to see the picture, because it’s this guy with this long, scraggly hair…
[21:49]
…this guy with this long, scraggly hair and scraggly beard, and wasn’t too attractive himself, and he was mocking my look. So I responded back that he reminded me of something I pulled out of my shower drain. Now, did I enjoy that interaction? Yes, I did. It fueled me. Where his insults would bother someone who had an ego that they believed was “them”—imagine if you thought your ego was you and then somebody in public calls you Skeletor. How would you feel? Well, you’d feel terrible because, “Oh my God, my ego is who I am, and who I am just got compared to Skeletor.” That’s pretty bad. But when I heard it, I first of all laughed, and then I used it for fuel. I thought, “How can I respond to that? This will be fun.”
[22:51]
I came up with a clever response—at least clever enough to entertain myself, which was the goal there—and it sort of lifted me up a little bit. I used my ego as a tool. I use it just for refueling. In this case, it was just a refueling stop. “Ah, a critic! This will be fun. Refuel.” Consistently, if you look around at the people around you, and you see the people who are not trying something risky—those are the people who believe that their ego is who they are. Those are the people who would not stand in front of a group with any risk of embarrassment. Those are the people who won’t apply for a job because they might get turned down. The people who won’t ask somebody out because they might get a “no.” The people who won’t ask for the sale because they think they’re not…
[23:52]
…going to get the right answer, because any of these negative results are “who they are.” You don’t want to have a fight with yourself; you don’t want to degrade yourself, so you avoid those situations. If you look at each of the things—which I have six—look at the pattern here. With no experience as a cartoonist, I decided to switch from the corporate world to cartooning. You can imagine what all of my friends said about that idea. It didn’t look like it was too likely. But using the Norman Vincent Peale mindset, full of optimism, I said yes. If I fail at this, it would be terribly embarrassing to people like that, but I’m not one of them. If I fail, the failure lives on its own. It’s not me. I’m the guy…
[24:53]
…who learned something. Who I am is a person who tried something hard. If it worked, great—and it did work; cartooning worked out for me. If it didn’t work, I would be the guy who tried something that was risky, lived through it, and learned something. I win both ways. I’ve got no investment of ego in this thing, except maybe on the upside—I feel good. When I transitioned to be a public speaker, I was terrible at it, and I embarrassed myself quite substantially in front of a big crowd the first time I tried. Other times I have also embarrassed myself in front of crowds. But I worked on it, and when I was actively doing a lot of speaking, I was probably one of the top public speakers in the country and one of the top paid. I got there eventually, but I was never stopped by the fact that I was criticized or went…
[25:56]
…through what would have been a humiliating experience if I saw myself as my ego. I don’t; it’s just the tool. Likewise, when I transitioned from that world into talking about politics, with all the criticisms that I took—did any of those criticisms slow me down? Nope, because I’m not my ego. Ego is my tool. And so I said to myself, “I can do this thing—writing about politics—that I’ve never done and have no experience.” I have no credibility and will be mercilessly mocked. To me, that was just a Tuesday. So, ask yourself if your ego is helping you or holding you back. You’re going to see this everywhere in your life. You’re going to recognize that…
[26:57]
…almost all of your obstacles are this. When I see somebody who succeeds versus someone who doesn’t—if they have similar skills—it’s usually this. The people who hit a ceiling and can’t go past it, it’s usually an ego ceiling. That’s what I see. There’s a prison reform bill that passed in Congress? Did that just happen? I’ll have to check that out. Let’s get a little feedback: Was this useful? Did anybody get anything out of this? While I’m reading your answers, I’ll answer the question that came by: How did I become a better speaker? The quick answer is I took the Dale Carnegie…
[27:57]
…course, which teaches you to be comfortable in front of people. The second part of the answer is practice, and the third part of the answer is what I was talking about: not letting my ego stop me from doing things that would certainly be embarrassing. It’s one thing to take a chance on something that might be embarrassing; it’s a different thing to take a chance that absolutely will be embarrassing. Oh, good. I’m getting lots of good comments, and I think I’ll keep this one short. I’m using the money that people are donating to my Patreon account—you can just go to Patreon and look me up as Scott Adams, same name I use on Twitter. I use that to fund a transcription assistant. Now I’m paying to translate…
[28:58]
…these into podcasts, so it’s audio only and maybe put on YouTube later, I’m not sure. But that’s what Patreon is going toward. So if you’d like to see this sort of message get a wider audience, that’s what the Patreon account is for. And I will talk to all of you maybe later today, but soon. Bye.