How can those arseholes sleep at night...?

 Do you really want to know...? 

I published this originally in March 2014 and have kept a close eye on the developing science in this field since then. Returning visitors to this post may notice revisions to some of the statistics which reflect newer research findings, as well as a couple of contemporary anecdotes which illustrate the ideas I am discussing. 
 

 Let’s just get one thing out of the way straight up: The powers that be are, on balance, deeply psychopathic.

 

 By this, I mean that the halls of power are populated to a very disproportionate degree by men and women who are in fact, quite insane. And the higher up you go, the more common they get.

 Their influence manifests itself as the collapse of the rule of law and the callous cruelty and black-hearted inhumanity that we are witnessing in the conduct and culture of our corporate and political leaders.

 Many good meaning people subject themselves to a lot of pointless personal anguish and hand-wringing, over the staggering moral bankruptcy which has come to characterize the culture of our leaders.

 How often have you exclaimed, when confronted by the abominations being committed in your name by those in power; “how can those arseholes sleep at night?’

 There is a fatal misconception which underlies this sense of confusion.

 This same misconception is the cause of a bigger problem, which is itself the cause of most of the world’s “Great Evils”.

The Misconception at the Root of all Evils.

 The misconception is that our leaders in politics and industry are reasonable, moral people who can be swayed by a logical dialog or by appealing to their empathy and morals. 

 The problem is that our leaders are not necessarily reasonable, moral people. 

 We can now say with confidence that the condition known as Psychopathic Personality Disorder afflicts the population at a rate of roughly 1:100. 
 As a consequence of the deficits associated with the disorder, the psychopathic mind is less constrained in terms of the options the "sufferer" has when competing with the rest of us.
 They have no function in their moral centers. They are biologically incapable of real empathy. They do not process emotion like the other 99%. This liberates them from the sorts of inhibitions that, for the rest of us, makes certain decisions unacceptable. 
 As is the case in any demographic, some of these deeply broken people are not very bright, others are quite brilliant, while most of them are of merely average intelligence.
 The less bright amongst them end up succumbing to their darker urges  in dramatic ways which take them out of circulation early in life. This low functioning for of psychopath account for about 1:10 in jail populations. 
 Others of "normal intelligence" may or may not become institutionalised later in life but they all leave a wake of misery and destruction wherever they go. We all know or have known a few of these diabolical personalities in our lives and workplaces. They are the brown-nosing, manipulative office bully or the callous, narcissistic and philandering  partner. They are everywhere we look.
 The smartest psychopaths however, are quite special. 
 They learn early how to stay in circulation. 
 They develop a keen, conscious awareness of the subtleties of body language and its application in feigning normalcy. 
 They have the practiced ability read others and to ingratiate themselves to superiors whilst crippling their competition by covert and overt means. 
 The only restrictions to their available options and tactics in competition with others are the laws of physics and any "rule" that they can't get away with ignoring.  

 Game theory dictates that the competitor who is bound by fewer rules will defeat their more constrained opponents. 
 Psychopaths are unbound by the "rules" of morals and ethics and they feel no complicating empathic connection to others. 

 When psychopaths enter into competitive hierarchies they inevitably ascend through the hierarchy with greater ease than their ethically constrained peers.
 This dynamic actively and  reliably concentrates the most highly intelligent and strategic psychopaths, into the uppermost levels of societal governance  and management. 

 As a result of this dynamic, within the executive strata of our most powerful institutions, actual psychopaths are concentrated to a staggering 1:25 of the population, at least four times more numerous than in the general population.

 At the most rarefied strata of our societal hierarchies like senior corporate executive levels and  ministers of government, the ratio can be as high as 1:6, considerably higher than the 1:10 in jail. 

 As long as we treat our pathologically amoral leaders like the rational and ethically informed people we tend to assume them to be, they will continue to pursue their destructive interests with impunity. 

 This is the main driver behind most of the Great Evils in our world.

 From war, to poverty and crime, to Humanity’s systematic assault on Nature, it has been the avarice and the blinding greed of people devoid of moral compass or ethical inhibition that has charted our course through history.

 We habitually fail to recognise and curtail the ascent of dangerously psychopathic candidates for high office. Once in power, their capacity to do harm snowballs as fast as their capacity to insulate themselves from the consequences of the carnage they leave in their wake.

 These personalities have been, and still are, the cause of more misery and suffering than any other single factor, throughout history. 

Wasted time and effort.

 The efforts we invest in trying to rationally debate these felons, are as wasted as the time spent trying to understand them from our own mental perspectives.

 If you are sane, and you try to understand these people from your own morally informed mental perspective, you will fail.

 If you try to debate them into the civilized conduct of their duties, absent the potential for their own personal gain, you will fail.

 In fact, the strategic psychopath who encounters resistance could hope for nothing more convenient than for you to perpetually bash your head-full of ethical opinions, against their wall of appropriate sounding noises. They are more than happy to keep you talking while they fleece you.     

 It’s almost as effective as just making you ... go away.

The Trap.

As these diabolical personalities know all too well, in a messy democracy like ours;

 Change requires consensus.

 Consensus requires certainty.

 Certainty requires clarity.

 And clarity requires communication.

 Communication is now in the hands of the Corporations. 

 The corporate media determines what we know about the world, and therein lays the trap. 

 The corporate priority set has been described as institutionalized psychopathy. This is for a whole host of very good reasons which are readily discoverable after a quick poke around in Google Scholar.

 Truly, if the “Corporation “ really was a “Person Under The Law”, he would have been locked up years ago.  

 When the corporate priority set becomes the guiding principles for the media, the media inevitably play into the hands of the powerful psychopaths at the helm of society. The settlement of anything that requires societal consensus can thus easily be derailed by these powerful interests. 

 There are many ways to do this; like the simple and familiar strategy of perpetuating a fraudulent controversy.

  If people believe there is doubt, they put off forming opinions. This manages public opinion and thwarts the development of the consensus needed for change to occur. Can you think of an example?

 Those who control the opinions of the public, determine who can get away with what, and for how long.

The Rise of the Psycho.

 The works of numerous academics have demonstrated the dynamics of “toxic workplace syndrome”, wherein the office psychopath manages to direct the development of the workplace culture. 

 A psychopath with good skills, will strategically engineer an inner circle as black-hearted as himself by aggressively targeting and replacing colleagues who could thwart their agenda.

 The psychopath will drive from their sphere of influence anyone who presents themselves as not “on message”.

 Colleagues who present strategic advantages to the ambitious manipulator are expertly groomed and charmed. 

 Those who object to the creeping moral bankruptcy permeating their workplace are bullied, sidelined and isolated.

 Others, weak-minded, compromised, or simply as sick as their psychopathic leaders, quickly come to define the organizational culture.

 Checks and balances are attacked, as are any mechanisms which might govern the progress of the coup.      

 Once the means of controlling such people are effectively sabotaged, their power-base can become very secure. It can be nearly impossible to dislodge a well entrenched cabal of this sort.

 Many examples of catastrophic organizational collapse due to such infections are available for your perusal in good academic journals and are the subject of many popular books.

The prevalence of “high functioning psychopaths” in the top offices of the corporate and public world has poisoned society from the top down.

 

 They build their social and professional circles from the pliable and the corrupt.

  In these rarefied social circles, happily lubricated by the corporate free lunch, natural collaborations quickly evolve between greedy, sharp toothed executives as they identify opportunities for mutual gain and personally profitable parasitism.

 They leverage these relationships to build their empires, large and small.

  Shadowy collaborations between power wielders from the public and the private spheres readily develop into insanely profitable and influential cabals. 

  A well acknowledged “revolving door” exists between the biggest companies and government. This interchangeability of personnel ensures that the corporate culture thoroughly infects the institutions designed to serve as opposed to profit.

  It serves to supply the best of the worst to the places where they’re needed most.

 War profiteers can be secretaries of state in our society. Scientifically illiterate and yet science denying hydrocarbon barons can lead the “Free World” at a time of Global Climate Crisis.

 This is what we are facing at the helm of many of the largest, most powerful organisations on Earth. These leaders maintain their positions by delivering on narrow performance metrics, which reflect the narrow and callous corporate value set. To compete in this milieu requires a personal worldview that is psychopathic by definition;

Profit and Dominate. Nothing else matters. 

  It is enshrined in the very texts from which they indoctrinate their acolytes.

 Nicolo Machiavelli, Ayn Rand and the Chicago School of Economics.

 Arguably three of the most profoundly influential and morally bankrupt thought leaders of our century. They represent a savagely psychopathic worldview dedicated almost exclusively to advising the rich and powerful how to advance their particular interests at any cost. Read them. Tell me I’m wrong.

 Our leaders on the right frequently declare their appreciation for these thinkers.

 If you want to know the minds of our nastier, most powerful, leaders, look no further than these three sources.

 Complete your reading with a bit of Sun Tsu and you will have at hand the intellectual parentage of the dominant management paradigm for our Western, industrial society. 

 Some corporations have actually been found actively recruiting, psychometrically evaluated psychopaths into powerful roles, due to the "edge" that their anticipated ruthlessness will provide the organization.

 If we are to have any hope of interrupting this tragically self destructive and self perpetuating societal phenomenon, we need to start seeing these people for what they are.

You just aren’t allowed to drive when you are blind.

 People with Psychopathic Personality Disorder are sick and potentially dangerous individuals. It would be very hard to argue against this position without looking like a bit special yourself.

 They are often easily identified at a young age. They stand out by their complete lack of empathy and a tendency to cause misery for kicks. Brain scans will back up the diagnosis, with clear physical differences in particular brain regions. Trauma and other life events can induce the “acquired” form of the disease with sufferers often being referred to as “sociopaths”.

  We are talking about a biological disorder, not a conscious decision to be “bad”. The difference is, that as a result of their measurably different brain wiring, they can be counted upon to make decisions that will cause great harm.

 There are many examples of medical conditions which preclude the sufferer from certain professions.

 It is sad that not everyone will achieve their dreams. 

 When my narcoleptic mate, Noddy, was told he would never be an airline pilot like his dad, he was devastated.

 I was very sad for him.

 I have to admit though, that I’m quietly comforted by the fact that society has put in place a system which almost guarantees that the pilot of the plane I’m in, isn’t going to spontaneously fall asleep and slump over the stick while attempting to land.

 Likewise, it is regrettable when people lose certain freedoms due to their sexual orientation. When that orientation is towards children however, few would argue against discharging the filthy rock spider from his duties as a school bus driver.

 By the same logic, the unfortunate sufferers of Psychopathic Personality Disorder, must be absolutely precluded from executive office of any kind.

 Society desperately needs to develop a much more sophisticated understanding of this terrible disease. People need to realize that the psychopath is rarely a bug-eyed, axe-wielding maniac. More often, the monster is wearing a suave suit and can charm the knickers off a nun.

We could change the world in a generation if we built into our culture a means of excluding identifiable psychopaths from executive office.

 Let’s start by asking Abbott and his inner circle to take a little psychometric test.