ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, THREE LITTLE PSYCHOPATHS, FOUR LITTLE, FIVE...

I READ an interesting Psychology Today article by Steve Taylor, PhD recently about the type of people who are attracted to high political office and the type of governments they form. Not surprisingly (or perhaps it does come as something of a surprise), people with narcissistic personalities are attracted to positions of power. So are psychopaths. Narcissists and psychopaths share several personality traits in common: Both lack empathy for other people, both have an exaggerated sense of self worth and superiority, and they desire power and control over others as a way of demonstrating their superior nature, and to maintain their dominance. Narcissists, Steve explains, differ from psychopaths in that they also want adulation and fawning respect from others, and their tendency towards autocratic or dictatorial rule may be tempered or softened by their overweening need to have others ‘love’ them. [Trump, Trudeau anyone? Ed.] Psychopaths, on the other hand, have no such need for public recognition or love. Like narcissists, they lack empathy towards others, feel superior to them in every way, and seek power and dominance at any cost, it's just that narcissists in positions of power tend to want to put a smile face on things. 

 
POLISH psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski called societies such individuals create “pathocracies”, ones that are ruled by the pathologically ill. Having lived in Poland under the Nazis during WWII and in the decades following the war under communism, he experienced first-hand what life is like under such regimes. Taking a broader perspective, he pondered why it was that throughout human history war, strife, cruelty and conflict—what the historian Arnold Toynbee called the "horrifying sense of sin manifest in human affairs,”—always seemed to be present. In his book, “Political Ponerology", which is a study* of such societies, LOBACZEWSKI examines the founders and supporters of oppressive regimes, and “the common factors that lead to the propagation of man’s inhumanity to man [where] morality and humanism cannot long withstand the predations of this evil.”

Simply put, he wanted to understand why evil people succeeded, and yet so many good and moral people seemed to fall behind. The answer is that people who are ruthless and ambitious, and devoid of empathy have an advantage over people who have higher levels of empathy and compassion and, in addition, typically shun positions of power, choosing to develop communal relationships instead, thus leaving those positions of power ripe for the taking by pathologically ill persons. Of course, not every holder of power in politics, in business, academia, the media, prisons/institutions etc., has a psychopathy, but these are the breeding grounds where a greater percentage than the average are found.

ARGUABLY, "pathocracies", when they form, have been the bane of their citizens throughout recorded history. 

 

Ironically, it is the modern age that might be the most favourable for those narcissists and psychopaths among us. During the ages of feudalism and monarchical rule, natural-born psychopaths would have found it challenging to rise into positions of power because societies were highly stratified (feudal) or they were ones that transferred power via a royal lineage (i.e., hereditary succession). Still there were plenty of psychopathic Machiavellis and powers behind the throne to go around.  But it is modern democracies with their greater range of personal freedoms, voting rights, avenues for advancement, exploitable laws etc., that offer narcissists and psychopaths greater access to the reins of power. American foreign policy framers and high State Department officials surely are symptomatic of such a pathology, one that is poisoning American democracy? [And Wall Street?! Don’t get him started! Ed.]

 

OF COURSE, once in power, such pathologically ill people will do everything in their power to eliminate, damage, or neuter the very institutions and people they controlled and manipulated while obtaining their positions. Democracies that are open and participatory for all citizens in a fair and transparent manner are anathema to psychopaths and narcissists because they threaten their hold on power. Such people are found at all strata of society. More men than women tend to develop psychopathy and around 1% of the adult population is estimated to have the disorder to some degree, which means that roughly 1 in 100 people you meet is a psychopath. Heads up!

 

Professor Taylor, in his PT article, suggests one way to maintain the health of society (or university, business, or whatever) is to ensure democratic structures and processes remain secure and vibrant, and to become familiar with the signs and symptoms of the pathologically ill, so you won’t be conned by their false charm and harmful manipulations. He argues for the creation of a board of examiners who would assess contenders’ fitness for political office, weeding out the ones who have psychopathic tendencies, thus protecting society from their despotic impulses. Hmmm? I’ll put a pin in that and circle back later.

 

FOLKS, if we as a collective cannot decide how to build a fair and equitable society based on mutual respect and compassion, then maybe we will need to revisit Steve’s proposal. And not to be too hard on him,  I still think there must be a better way to go about things. Think for a moment: An unelected, anonymous psychiatric cabal body deciding who can and cannot be admitted to the ranks of leadership in society—what could go wrong? (Perhaps Steve should take the test, to play it safe. Just sayin’.)

 

 

Cheers, Jake.

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* “Ponerology” is derived from the Greek word poneros, from the branch of theology dealing with the study of evil.

 

AND how do you protect yourself when you encounter a psychopath, remembering that one in a hundred of the people you meet are potentially psychopathic?  In a lecture given by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, he suggests that the only way to truly combat a psychopath’s abuse (which he calls “malevolence”) is to activate your “inner psychopath”, to accept that part of you--a small part, but it’s there--is exactly like the full-fledged psychopath confronting you, and that you are, indeed, capable of malice and greed, and malevolence just as they are.

Except yours can be held in check, examined, channeled in productive ways, and from a greater awareness about your own potential towards psychopathy, you can better understand the forces that shape and drive the illness, and recognize the coercions, the tricks and lies, the scams and shams, the violence and the need to destroy and dominate that are exhibited by the psychopath, and how you might better defend yourself from them.

 

“In life, you need to be able to withstand tragedy and to withstand malevolence...And the worst snake of all is malevolence.”

“By definition, if someone psychopathic has exploited you, you are too naïve. If you say, well that’s no fault of mine how could I be prepared? Fair enough…[it’s] a perfectly reasonable objection, but it doesn’t solve your problem. Because it’s an internal problem…”

“Without the potential [in yourself] for mayhem, you’re a potential victim of mayhem.” (Peterson, 2017)

 

 

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