*Warning: This one will be upsetting to some people since it deals with very dark aspects of people in political settings. And yes, it’s very long, so there is a Summary section.

If you are involved in any kind of political activity, whether working for a public or private organization; participating in civics as a general member of the public; or volunteering for a community group, you will most likely run into the Dark Duo of Politics: Narcissism and Misinformation. I came up with that nickname myself.

While I will get into more details later in this article, by narcissism, I mean a sense of grandiosity. I will focus on pathological grandiosity where people elevate themselves by devaluing other people. By misinformation, I mean intentional or unintentional spreading of false information. Researchers distinguish between misinformation and disinformation, where disinformation includes the intent to cause harm. Since it is hard to deduce people’s intent and for simplicity, I will use misinformation as a catch-all term.

After observing much negative behavior in governments, social media, and activist groups, I started reading materials by psychologists. While I am definitely not a psychologist, I thought it would be helpful to discuss these difficult topics since the Dark Duo can inflict much emotional, social, and in some extreme cases, physical harm.

Disclaimer: This and all other pieces of writing on this website (or book, depending on the format) do not contain legal, medical, psychological, or any other professional advice. They are for educational and entertainment purposes only. People should take care to not weaponize these strong words to attack other people, which I myself struggle to resist doing. When I am criticizing negative behavior, I often wonder if I am using these concepts to further anger people rather than resolve issues. I sometimes remind myself it is usually more effective to share specific examples without these terms rather than using these terms without examples. Another question I struggle with is when it would be appropriate to name specific people rather than talk in generalities.

You might run into the Dark Duo even in supposedly apolitical groups such as artist gatherings. Any environment where people are vying for power and status tend to attract people with strong narcissistic tendencies with more willingness to cross boundaries into devaluing other people. My impression is that narcissism is often an underlying motivator for misinformation. It seems highly narcissistic people often use misinformation to create favorable narratives for themselves.

I will start with discussing narcissism and then misinformation. My goal for this article is to help people deal with those engaged in these types of behavior, not change the people engaged in these types of behavior. Changing the deep negative aspects of ourselves is much more difficult than developing strategies to protect ourselves from others.

Summary

Since this is such a long article, I thought it might make sense to add a very brief summary.

1. I want to focus on the type of pathological narcissism where people try to elevate themselves by devaluing others. Narcissism is on a spectrum and we all have it. It gets into dangerous territory when our drive to be special comes at the expense of others.
2. Some strategies to deal with narcissistic behavior by others are finding supportive people and documenting incidents. People with highly narcissistic tendencies might try to isolate you by controlling information and dictating who you can hang out with. You need to counter that. Gaslighting – disturbing your sense of reality with false narratives – and DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) are some common types of negative behavior associated with narcissism.
3. If you can, it is likely beneficial to leave a narcissistic relationship, but you want to do it with care and let others know.
4. Since politics, especially small municipal politics, is often a quick and inexpensive way to reinvent oneself and gain power, it tends to attract people with negative levels of narcissism. Their conduct can contradict the ideal goal of serving the public.
5. Misinformation seems to be driven by factors such as narcissism, the need to belong, and misplaced frustration.
6. Dealing with misinformation has many parallels with dealing with narcissistic behavior. You can: find support from other people; document incidents; and additionally, create your own narrative. A Finland educator suggests when debunking misinformation, people ask some core questions on intent, sources, and others perspectives. Focusing on debunking others’ negative narratives can inadvertently emphasize them, so you would want to also put energy into creating a positive narrative.

What is Narcissism?

I will rely largely on information from the website psychologytoday.com. Since I am not a psychologist, I do not know how authoritative or accurate the site is, but it seems to be very popular and much of the content made sense to me. Most of the writers are professional psychologists. The website’s definition of narcissism is at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/narcissism:

“Narcissism does not necessarily represent a surplus of self-esteem or of insecurity; more accurately, it encompasses a hunger for appreciation or admiration, a desire to be the center of attention, and an expectation of special treatment reflecting perceived higher status.”

Narcissism is on a spectrum, and we all have some degree of it. Also from the webpage:

“Narcissism is properly viewed on a spectrum. The trait is normally distributed in the population, with most people scoring near the middle, and a few at either extreme.”

I am concerned with narcissism at a pathological level where psychologists can diagnose it as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD; from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder):

“The hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also have grandiose fantasies and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts, such as at work and in relationships.”

American Psychology Association (APA) has a more formal definition of NPD at https://dictionary.apa.org/narcissistic-personality-disorder:

a personality disorder with the following characteristics: (a) a long-standing pattern of grandiose self-importance and an exaggerated sense of talent and achievements; (b) fantasies of unlimited sex, power, brilliance, or beauty; (c) an exhibitionistic need for attention and admiration; (d) either cool indifference or feelings of rage, humiliation, or emptiness as a response to criticism, indifference, or defeat; and (e) various interpersonal disturbances, such as feeling entitled to special favors, taking advantage of others, and inability to empathize with the feelings of others, included in DSM-IV-TR, DSM-5, and DSM-5-TR. [originally formulated by psychoanalysts Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), Otto Kernberg (1928–  ), and Heinz Kohut (1913–1981) and psychologist Theodore Millon]

From my experience, narcissism enters into dangerous territory when people try to elevate themselves by devaluing other people. That kind of narcissism is what I will focus on in this article. We all might occasionally show off by putting other people down, but if somebody is regularly engaging in such behavior, it is a warning sign. From “Revisiting the Narcissistic Personality” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/202502/revisiting-the-narcissistic-personality):

“Because narcissists overvalue themselves, they will inevitably devalue you. But they will go a step further; they will seek to do so sadistically if they can get away with it as it will be even more gratifying.”

Psychologists divide subclinical narcissism that is serious but not to the level of clinical narcissism into grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. From https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-love/201906/vulnerable-vs-grandiose-narcissism-which-is-more-harmful:

Upward of ten percent of people in their twenties are believed to suffer from subclinical narcissism, severe enough to compromise their interpersonal relationships.

There are two subtypes of subclinical narcissism: grandiose narcissism, which is continuous with a narcissistic personality disorder, and vulnerable (or hypersensitive/covert) narcissism. Both subtypes have self-centeredness as a core feature, but the self-absorption is expressed differently in the two cases.

Grandiose narcissism is characterized by extraversion, low neuroticism and overt expressions of feelings of superiority and entitlement…

Vulnerable narcissism reflects introversive self-absorbedness, high neuroticism, hypersensitivity even to gentle criticism, and a constant need for reassurance.

The difficult question that you might want to keep to yourself is, “What is the source of pathological narcissism I see in myself or another person?” Somebody engaged in very negative narcissistic behavior might have traumatic events that became a large part of their identity. It could be demanding parents who kept telling them that they are not good enough; losing at a high-stakes competition; others making fun of them; painful career failures, etc. My speculation is that some people develop pathological levels of narcissism to cope with trauma. An outwardly condescending person might be hiding a deep inner insecurity. This goes into a deep rabbit hole better left to the experts, but it is something to keep in mind.

How to Deal with Narcissism

I will start with some common types of narcissistic behavior and strategies I learned from writings by others. I will then follow with my personal tips. This brief article, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/narcissism-demystified/202109/8-ways-narcissists-seek-manipulate-and-dehumanize-you, lists 8 common manipulation tactics, which can be helpful to read. The following are some of the more well-known tactics.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a term for disturbing another person’s sense of reality by creating false narratives. It comes from the 1938 British play “Gas Light”, which people later adapted into multiple films. In the play and its adaptations, a manipulative husband with secrets tries to convince his wife that she is insane despite her correctly observing that something is wrong with the the gas light.

I have experienced it myself where some people made up false narratives about what I did to confuse me and make me look bad in front of others. In many cases, I had documentation of what I actually did, so I was able to determine that they were gaslighting me. What I found disturbing was that sometimes, people engaged in gaslighting seemed to believe in the distorted narrative themselves.

Our perception of reality is not very solid, as much as we hate to admit it. We can only see limited parts of reality to form our individual narratives. I do not know anyone who can be in two places at the same time or remember the details about a regular meal they had two weeks ago. That means we have to inevitably make up the missing parts. Sometimes, people might be consciously manipulating you. Sometimes, they might really believe in a false narrative since that is favorable for their self-image.

DARVO

DARVO is a popular psychology term that stands for “Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.” It is a well-known tactic among people who try to avoid accountability, who also tend to have high levels of narcissism. When you try to raise concerns about their improper behavior, people who are in the habit of using DARVO will try to turn the narrative around to blame you as the offender.

We all can get defensive when somebody points out our mistakes or wrongdoings. It becomes more of an issue when we are regularly engaged in avoiding accountability, going as far as blaming the victim. When somebody is acting improperly to you or others – lying, yelling, throwing insults, etc. – and you point that out, they might suddenly start accusing you of doing something wrong. It might be true or it might be not. The goal is to distract people away from their conduct as a self-defense strategy.

Do not assume people have good intents once they have crossed into the world of DARVO and misinformation. Some defensive strategies people suggest are to document, have boundaries, and lean on friends and family:
https://harbormentalhealth.com/2025/10/31/darvo-manipulation-how-to-spot-and-protect-yourself/. You do not want to deal with DARVO on your own.

Sometimes, if you let people engaged in DARVO continue to speak, they self-implicate. Since they are improvising to distract people from their own conduct, the improvisation can start to crack. On the other hand, it might be better to stop engaging with them.

The following are my personal tips to deal with people engaging in negative narcissistic behavior.

My personal tips on dealing with narcissistic behavior

These are tips based on my personal experiences.

1. Set boundaries. Don’t let people pressure you into submitting to them. They might try to downplay their unethical behavior or make you feel guilty by not following their demands. If something feels off, it can be helpful to check with trusted family members and friends.
2. Speak up with care if you need to. Express how you feel. People might counter by making statements such as “You are being too sensitive.” or “I am simply caring for you.” Another common statement is, “I am speaking truth to power, and I am not responsible for how you feel.” You can drive yourself nuts trying to see if they are being sincere. Try going back to what they said and how it made you feel. Whether you are being sensitive or not, you expressed discomfort, and the person should not try to invalidate that experience.
3. If people are insisting they are right even when they are not, one strategy is to keep asking them questions instead of countering. Ask them for more details and sources instead of debating with them. I noticed that people with strongly narcissistic personalities insist on being right even when they are not. The term for this behavior is “stonewalling.” People who are frequently stonewalling can be their own worst enemies since they might dig themselves deeper into a hole. If you show them evidence that they made an error, they might dismiss them or react in anger. This focus on the appearance of being right even when they are not can hurt their cause. By starting with an incorrect position and continually adding details to support that position, the position gets weaker. At some point, people might even make up refutable details, which is a hint that it might not be worth engaging with them.
4. Document what you and others said and did. It could be videos, social media screenshots, keeping a journal, etc. At some point, you might realize that the amount of information you need to document is too much, especially if you are regularly interacting people engaged in negative behavior. For your mental health and leisure, limiting or eliminating interaction with them is a strategy. The risk with that is that they might continue to generate negative talk about you, a.k.a. “talking behind your back.” While you cannot eliminate the risks, the next tips might help.
5. Form a network of people who support you. People engaged in narcissistic behavior will often try to isolate you so you end up depending on them. Isolation might involve belittlement (“You are not good enough for anyone, so you should be grateful that I am spending time with you.”), threats (“If you tell others about what I did, I will make your life miserable.”), controlling information (Refusing to provide you with sources after they lecture you), or ordering you on who you can hang out with. By telling supportive people about what is going on, they can later come to your defense by pointing out particularly egregious examples. All in all, absolutely resist people’s attempt to isolate you. That is a strong warning sign that you are better off without them.
6. Share your own narratives. Countering negative narratives by addressing them directly can backfire since you are inadvertently emphasizing them. By sharing your own narratives, you get to form a positive story rather than something that is simply against another person’s negative story.

Navigating Narcissistic Relationships

You might run into highly narcissistic people in different environments such as personal relationships, work, and politics. The interaction might be tolerable enough for you to stay in the environment or it might become so intolerable that you might be better off addressing the issue or leaving the environment. In general, do not suffer alone.

In a personal relationship, you may suddenly realize that somebody you have been friends or lovers with for a long time has a history of getting pleasure out of treating you as an inferior person. You may then conclude that the relationship is more harmful than beneficial. If you decide to get out of the relationship, you want to do it with care. Let others you trust know before you initiate the process and take care to not enrage the person. Some conflict might be unavoidable, but in these negative relationships, being too honest risks enraging the person. I heard of anecdotes where people invented a narrative about, “It’s not you, it’s me. I have issues I need to resolve.” to get out of the relationship while making the person feel good.

In politics, if you are dealing with difficult public employees (elected public officials are also public employees) or general members of the public, you may have less leeway to get out of the conflict due to its public nature. On the other hand, politics being public means other people are paying attention. There are also more strict laws and lots of documentation and videos. Document your experience and discuss it with your trusted coworkers, supervisors, family, or friends.

You might run into a situation where government officials – elected officials seems to do this more often than appointed officials – send you intimidating emails about their government jurisdiction using their personal email addresses and claim that they are private. You want to check with local laws and ideally consult with an attorney, but in general, the content is what makes an email public, not the originating email address. If a person is producing negative email content related to one’s public duties, that email is likely a part of the public record by law even if its originating address is private.

In a reverse direction, if a general member of the public is using one’s personal email address to send to your personal email address intimidating letters about your official duties, the person likely would not be able to fall back on “This is a personal, not public, communication” defense. In general, somebody sending you an email is akin to sending you a letter. They cannot claim some censorship right for the content they willingly sent to you. That is probably the reason why people use social media to send retractable direct messages rather than send emails that are not retractable.

Unless you are wealthy, you probably would have to work to earn a living. If somebody with very negative tendencies are making your workplace miserable, you might have to make some tough decisions. You can document a history of negative behavior over time and bring it up with higher-level people. Tip: Human Resources (HR) is not your friend in many cases. Based on my experience, HR’s main goal is to hire and fire people while keeping issues under the rug. I think it comes from a combination of long-standing culture that is not necessarily healthy and the desire to avoid lawsuits. Communicating with a sympathetic co-worker or higher-up in your department is a better choice to start. Sometimes, you might have to communicate with somebody from a nearby department. A serious issue will likely escalate to HR, for better or for worse.

If you cannot find anybody at work to turn to, it suggests to me that the job is not worth keeping. I heard of the saying, “Any job is better than no job.” I disagree. A workplace is a group of people who are working together to provide service; produce products; or generate revenue. It is by nature social and if you are not getting the social support to be an effective member of the group, the organization is no longer serving you and vice versa. If you can tolerate the job for a little bit, you can start planning for a new job while staying at the job. Or, if it is just too unbearable, consider resigning and using your savings until you find the next opportunity. If you are financially strapped, you might need to turn to people you trust for financial assistance.

I think no workplace is worth permanently damaging your mental or physical health. If it pays $10M a year, I might change my mind. Even then, I probably will stay for a year at most.

Power vs. Public Service

Communal narcissism describes the type of narcissism that revolves around an inflated sense of contribution to the community. Since politics by nature involves public service, this type seems to be common in politics. From https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mysteries-of-love/202106/the-4-faces-of-narcissism:

“Narcissism is not a homogenous concept, however. A narcissist’s desire for power, success, and admiration can take the form of an inflated sense of how successful, powerful, or intelligent they are.

This form of narcissism is also known as agentic narcissism. Agentic narcissists tend to have diminished empathy for others and openly derogate those who don’t admire them.

But a narcissist’s desire for power, success, and admiration can also be realized in the form of an inflated sense of their contributions to the community. Thus, for example, narcissists might conceive of themselves as highly compassionate or generous or morally exemplary (Nehrlich et al., 2019).

Narcissism of this kind is also referred to as communal narcissism. Although communal narcissists also have diminished empathy for others, they may refrain from openly derogating others. Accordingly, they may come across as more empathetic toward others than agentic narcissists.”

Politics, especially small municipal politics, is one of the cheapest and fastest ways to reinvent your image. Going to school to reset your career might take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars, or even hundreds of thousands. It offers no guarantee of a better career. With politics, if you are running for elected office, you just need these things:

1. Be a registered voter in the municipality or the region you are running in.
2. Have enough money, time, and other resources to run a political campaign.
3. Collect enough signatures to be on the ballot. If you decide to run last-minute, you can even be a write-in candidate and not gather signatures. You have low chances of winning the election as a write-in candidate.

Yes, it is still a lot of work, and political campaigns might cost much more than going back to school if you are running for a large area or coveted positions, but in small city and town politics, the financial cost might be less than $5,000 (My 2025 US East Coast estimate), which is less than the cost of a used car or some fancy bicycles. Also, small campaigns usually start and end in less than a year.

If you win to become an elected official, you gain the power to:

1. Influence other people through appearing at public meetings and on local media.
2. Access government employees more easily.
3. Control other people and resources such as money and infrastructure. For example, in Massachusetts, if the municipality has a manager-council form of government, the councilors have the group power to hire and fire the manager. School Committee members, regardless of the form of government, have the power to hire and fire the school superintendent. They also can direct the superintendent on policy matters.

The low cost of entry to gain power makes politics an exploitable target for people with strong narcissism. I often found interpersonal conflicts over who has what power to be one of the most difficult yet common challenges in public and private organizations with a public service goal. The human drive for power seems to often overwhelm the ideal goal of public service.

Here is an actual anecdote with details removed. I briefly worked for a nonprofit where a volunteer board member walked into our workplace, ripped out supplies from one of the workers, and started dictating how to work. This same person also ordered supplies from a vendor friend and then forced the nonprofit to compensate the vendor on the basis that this person comes from a marginalized group.

If you notice a difference in how people act in public meetings versus more private settings like parties and social media, take note. People may project an image of being an ideal community leader in public meetings but engage in derogatory behavior outside them. With social media, if you find some content that is very alarming, it might be helpful to take screenshots and note the URL.

Films that Deal with Narcissism

Because people with highly narcissistic personality can bring much conflict, numerous fictional films explored narcissism as their main theme. Fictional films discuss difficult topics without getting into real-life individuals (characters based on real-life are very common), so they can buffer some emotional pain and help people reflect on them at a distance. They also protect the filmmakers from lawsuits. Films are parables of sorts, and our brains seem to handle parables better that specific facts. Here are some.

Mean Girls (2004)

This famous film helped launch Lindsay Lohan into stardom – her subsequent drug struggles are another story. Also, Rachel McAdams, pictured in the center of the three women in the background, developed a solid career spanning decades. She just starred in the extremely dark comedy “Send Help” (2026). “Mean Girls” is a classic high school drama where a new transfer student gets the attention of the “queen bee” group, gets invited into it, and develops multiple conflicts with both the queen bee group and her earlier friends due to developing a sense of entitlement. It is worth a watch, so I won’t comment on how it ends. It brought for me negative memories of high school, but I managed to watch it through once.

12.12: The Day

“12.12: The Day” (Original Korean title: 서울의 봄) is a fictionalized telling of the real-life 1980 South Korean coup by the self-centered military officer Chun Do-Hwan. The film renamed him as Chun Do-Gwang. The film, “1987: When the Day Comes” (Not pictured here; The original Korean title is simply, “1987”), is another fictionalized telling of the downfall of the Chun regime following an attempt to hide the torture killing of a college protester. As you can guess, these are pretty intense films.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

While the entire series (Three films as of 2026) deals with narcissistic parents and authoritarian political figures, I chose Volume 2 because one of the main characters is literally named Ego. If you enjoy space action sci-fi and do not mind the Marvel brand, it is worth a watch.

Moving to Misinformation

This section will focus on why people engage in misinformation and some strategies to deal with them. I found two helpful articles on misinformation in “Issues in Science and Technology” (https://issues.org/). It is a quarterly journal published by the National Academy of Sciences and Arizona State University.

Learning to Debunk Misinformation

The article, “In Finland, We Make Each Schoolchild a Scientist” (https://issues.org/finland-education-misinformation-social-resilience-kivinen/), is by a Finland educator who helped implement youth media literacy program in Finland to handle the increased amount of misinformation. What struck me about the program was that rather than trying to debunk each piece of misinformation before it got to youths, educators taught youths the skills to debunk it themselves (Highlights mine):

“We soon discovered that children enjoyed playing Sherlock Holmes when fact-checking the claims teachers gave them to be verified. After some trial and error, the teachers building the curriculum boiled down complex fact-checking methods into three fundamental questions: Who’s behind the information? What’s the evidence? What do other sources say? These questions are folded throughout the curriculum, across subjects, and there is continuity from year to year. Young children may learn to tell the difference between a mistake and a hoax, while older students may undertake more advanced projects on elections and threats to democracy.”

I reconfigured the three fundamental questions for my own use when trying to verify somebody’s claims:

1. What is their intent – both stated and implied?
2. What are the sources of their claims?
3. What are other viewpoints and their sources?

Misinformation will almost always have a kernel of truth. If it is 100% misinformation, people would see through it very quickly. It combines people’s frustrations, facts, and falsehoods to create a narrative with a favorable image of the presenter over other people.

The occasional irony is that people who use this term on others are engaged in verifiable misinformation campaigns. Life can get messy since you cannot tell who is sharing accurate information and every idea has pros and cons. People engaged in a misinformation campaign might only focus on the pros of their ideas while leaving out the cons. Or, they might do the reverse for others’ ideas – only focus on the cons while leaving out the pros. One way to counter is by focusing less on the labels and more on the specific pros and cons. It also helps to consider multiple viewpoints from others. Questions in addition to the above three I found useful are:

1. What is their background, which can hint at their underlying values and goals?
2. What are the pros and cons of their ideas?
3. What are some specific examples of their conduct, including the ones they do not want others to find out?

Quoting people out of context or omitting relevant text is a common tactic of misinformation campaigns. Even if you would not be able to verify the accuracy of every claim, having some clear examples of misinformation acts as a warning sign. If people are making strong negative claims about other people that are hard to believe, it helps to focus on a few of those. They might be true, or they might be distortions to create a negative image of the other person.

In a specific example, I saw a person who had run for office – maybe one will run again – read only a portion of the law to make others look like they are violating the law. A city law described how the School Committee is responsible for normal facility maintenance unless a department for maintenance exists. The person read the part up to the “unless” and accused the City Council of not giving the power of maintenance to the School Committee. This City did have such a maintenance department. It could be rather disastrous for part-time elected officials with no building maintenance experience to be constantly meddling with building maintenance for a municipality with any basic level of complexity.

The Motivation Behind Misinformation

The article, “Misunderstanding Misinformation” (https://issues.org/misunderstanding-misinformation-wardle/), focuses on the motivation behind misinformation and disinformation. From the article:

Both disinformation and misinformation describe false or misleading claims, but disinformation is distributed with the intent to cause harm, whereas misinformation is the mistaken sharing of the same content. Analyses of both generally focus on whether a post is accurate and whether it is intended to mislead. The result? We researchers become so obsessed with labeling the dots that we can’t see the larger pattern they show.

By focusing narrowly on problematic content, researchers are failing to understand the increasingly sizable number of people who create and share this content, and also overlooking the larger context of what information people actually need. Academics are not going to effectively strengthen the information ecosystem until we shift our perspective from classifying every post to understanding the social contexts of this information, how it fits into narratives and identities, and its short-term impacts and long-term harms.

Deducing intent is very difficult, so I have been using the catch-all term “misinformation” as I explained at the beginning. If people are continuing to share incorrect information even after you point out the correct information, you can guess that they are likely engaged in disinformation. Here are the potential motivators for misinformation based my experience:

1. Narcissism, specifically wanting power and status. We all want to be valued by others. People with pathological levels of narcissism attempt to achieve power and status by devaluing other people and spreading false narratives about how grand they are or how bad other people are.
2. Tribal need to belong by sharing a common myth. Misinformation is a type of modern mythmaking. People distort what happened to create a story that favors their group. This might be pretty fundamental brain wiring that is hard to counter. To replace harmful misinformation myths, people probably need a more attractive and truthful myth, which can be hard to find. The risk of trying to create a more balanced myth is that you might discover that you are not such a nice person as you thought or many of your achievements might be from luck rather than some innate quality.
3. Misdirected anger at the state of things. I have seen people blame local government officials for State laws, sometimes even placing all their blame onto one person. People engaging in such behavior might have genuine frustrations about the law and social inequality. It is much easier to blame a small group of local people rather than working to find solutions. I also suspect that people fear powerful State officials and wealthy business owners more than local officials who are visible and much more accessible. What is telling is that some people who are constantly criticizing local officials only do so on social media.

The Value of Third Places

Many people in this day and age seem to struggle with getting their tribal needs met. Spending most of one’s free time on social media and joining polarizing groups are some ways to get this need met but with serious side effects. An alternative is having more third places, which are neutral gathering places that are neither your home (your first place), nor your workplace (your second place). They could range from cafes to parks to bowling alleys to libraries. They have much value in allowing people from diverse backgrounds to gather in a safe environment while keeping personal boundaries. The decline of civic engagement and third places have been covered in books such as Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam.

The trend of disappearing third places might be a combination of people’s increased interest in isolating technology (Internet, social media, streaming TV), zoning law changes that separate residential uses from social uses, increased preferences for separate single-family homes, etc. I have not done a deep study on this matter, but those are my impressions. Bringing back in-person third places in this age of isolation would take some collective effort. People would need to find fun and regular hobbies and form a tribe of sorts around them. The hobbies could be anything, including sports groups, literary groups, art groups, craft groups, speech groups, study groups, etc. Basically, you want to avoid groups that mainly derive their identity by devaluing people outside their group, and join one that is trying to make positive changes within and without. Also, specifically political groups might not work that well since they can bring amplified stress and conflict into the group.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading through this long article. There is a whole article about Finland’s two-prong approach to help youths deal with misinformation – teaching them critical thinking skills to debunk misinformation themselves and teaching them community values to develop shared identities: https://theconversation.com/to-combat-conspiracy-theories-teach-critical-thinking-and-community-values-147314. I will not go into the article but simply mention it here since it is thorough and shows that misinformation is a global problem.

I leave with dilemmas I still have not been able to answer. Many us have strong desire for power and status. How do you meet that desire while not harming other people? Not all of us can be stars. How do you make peace with that?