Photo By: Stewart Brennan - http://sfbrennanart.blogspot.ca/
By: Colin
Todhunter
Source: Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/psychopathy-politics-and-the-new-world-order/5334458
When attempting to analyse what is
happening in the world, it is important to appreciate past economic, social and
political processes that led us to where we are today. Understanding the
tectonic plates of history that led certain countries towards fascism,
communism or capitalist liberal democracy, for example, is essential (1) (2).
At the same
time, however, it can become easy for us to push aside the individual as we
focus on theoretical perspectives that refer to the ‘underlying logic of
capitalism’ or some other notion that draws heavily on theory. It can get to
the point where individual motive or intent (agency) is airbrushed from the
narrative because human action is deemed to have been shaped by the dead weight
of history or forces beyond our control.
While not
wishing to understate the role that such constraints have on human action, I
wish to draw attention to researcher Stefan Verstappen who provides valuable
insight into how individual agency has shaped and continues to shape society
(3).
While Machiavellianism
has long been associated with politics and public conduct, Verstappen shifts
focus somewhat by arguing that people with psychopathic personalities have for
thousands of years tended to grasp power and impose their views and deeds on
the rest of us. In order to get power, he concludes that people cheat, kill or
lie their way to the top. Whether it has been due to the butchery or lies of
royalty, religious leaders, politicians or corporate oligarchs, nice guys have
tended to finish last.
What leads
him to conclude this?
Psychopathy is a personality disorder identified by
characteristics such as a lack of empathy and
remorse, criminality, anti-social behaviour, egocentricity, superficial charm,
manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and a parasitic lifestyle (4).
With that
definition in mind, look around: the criminal, parasitic activities by bankers
that have plunged millions into poverty; the destruction, war and death brought
to countries in order that corporations profit by stealing resources; the
dropping of atom bombs on innocent civilians in 1945 or the use of depleted
uranium which again impacts innocent civilians; and the many other acts, from
the use of death squads to false flag terror, that have brought untold misery
to countless others just because powerholders wanted to hold onto power or to
gain more power, or the wealthy wanted to hold onto their wealth or gain even
more.
Based on
these terrible deeds, it becomes easy to argue that the people ultimately
responsible for them do not adhere to the same values as ordinary people. It
may be even easier to conclude that it’s not the cream that rises to the top,
but, in many cases, the scum.
Now such a
scenario might seem awful enough, but the people who tend to control the world,
the ones responsible for these acts, try to impose their warped world view and
twisted values on everyone else. Hollywood films, commercials and political
ideology are all engaged in forwarding the belief that it’s a dog eat dog
world, war and violence abroad is necessary, competition and not cooperative is
what counts, aggression and not passivity is the key to ‘success’ and that
success equates with amassing huge amounts of personal wealth and lavish
displays of conspicuous consumption.
“A person
with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial
behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal
relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.” - definition of a psychopath from
Dictionary.com
Again,
bearing this definition in mind too, the acts mentioned above are not those of
properly functioning social beings that contribute to a sense of communality,
altruism, love or morality; quite the opposite in fact.
Yet this is
the type of stuff that is rammed down our throats as constituting normality
every day. Whether it’s the ‘Big Brother’ TV show or ‘The Apprentice’ show,
these values are promoted day and night. The ‘Big Brother’ winner is the one
who can survive and outdo the competition in terms of the duplicity and
backstabbing involved along the way. The winner of ‘The Apprentice’ must be
more aggressive, more duplicitous, more devious and cunning and more willing to
trample over everyone else. And the winner is judged as such by a multi-millionaire
who himself was cunning and ruthless enough to have made it to the top of the
pile and has amassed millions for his own personal benefit. These are the role
models to be admired and emulated!
These are
the measures of success, of sanity, of normality.
“It is no
measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu
Krishnamurti
Apprentice
competitors are highly driven individuals: not driven by a need to help
humanity, but by egocentricity and greed. And, ultimately, these are the values
that many mainstream opinion leaders, senior politicians and their corporate
masters hold dear.
These
values of egocentricity, aggression, competitiveness, duplicity and greed are
not confined to some TV show. There are part of a much more sinister process.
They are inextricably linked to and underpin the actions that resulted in the
killing of half a million children in Iraq for geo-political gain (5) and the
sending in of military forces into the jungles of India to beat, rape and
dispose of a nation’s poorest people because they stand in the way of profit
and greed (6). From Congo and Libya to Syria and beyond, we witness the outcome
of a terrifying mindset that is nurtured and encouraged throughout society.
Too many
people have become “well adjusted to the values of a profoundly sick society,”
whether residing in middle England, middle America or the gated communities of
south Delhi or Mumbai. Humanity is being beaten down to be neurotic, vicious
and to regard these traits as constituting normal, acceptable behaviour. Thanks
to the media, this becomes engrained from an early age as comprising ‘common
sense’, and those who question it are merely sneered at or ridiculed by a
system that promotes a mass mindset immune to its own lies.
Whether this
is all due to psychopathy, narcissism or ‘Machiavellian personalities’ is open
to debate. Moreover, as implied at the outset, historical and sociological
factors often compel usually decent people to act in terrible ways. The debate
within academic sociology between structure and human agency is after all a
very long one (7). Whatever the underlying reason, however, as a global
community we are being force fed a diet of perverse values and destructive
actions, all spuriously justified on the basis that ‘there is no alternative’
and ‘needs must’.
Corporate
capitalism, consumerism, the new world order, a war on terror (or drugs or
poverty, take your pick), neo-liberalism – call it what you will, but it’s all
based on the filthy lie that those in control have wider humanity’s interests
at heart. They don’t. By any means possible – war, murder, torture or
propaganda, they seek to convince people otherwise. What price human life? None
whatsoever for such people.
---------------------------------------------
About the author:
Originally
from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India.
He has written extensively for the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald, New Indian
Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in many
other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest site is at: http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com/
Notes
1) Robert Brenner (1976), “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic
Development in Pre-industrial Europe”.Past and Present 70
2)
Barrington Moore (1993) [First published 1966]. Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: lord and peasant in
the making of the modern world (with a new foreword by Edward
Friedman and James C. Scott ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.
4) Polaschek, D. L. L., Patrick, C. J., Lilienfeld, S.
O. (15 December 2011). “Psychopathic
Personality: Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Evidence and Public Policy”. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 12 (3): 95–162.
5) Reuters report (2000), UN Says Sanctions Have Killed Some
500,000 Iraqi Children: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072100-03.htm
7) Colin Hay (2001), What Place for Ideas in the Structure-Agency
Debate? Globalisation as a ‘Process Without a Subject’: http://www.criticalrealism.com/archive/cshay_wpisad.html
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