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Not all of them. But I do think it takes a special kind of person to seek power, and our system rewards those who can appeal to the lowest common denominator. But not all elected officials are psychopathic or corrupt.
Just think about it... that firm would have a department or office with a group of vicious, utterly self-centred, amoral clinical psychopaths working "together". I think if it's true, it's really a nitwitted idea on a great many levels. A psychopath won't act for the public good. Nor would they act in the business' best interests.
Psychopaths typically have little or no feelings for other people. If you want to make a lot of money fast, you will probably have to lie, cheat and steal. For a financial institution that is only interested in making money, hiring psychopaths makes a lot of sense.
A friend of mine got a job with Sears home improvements selling windows, new roofs, etc. She would tell me about some of the salesmen who would rip off widows all the time. They would often double and triple the price because they found widows easy prey. In their sales meeting they would brag about how they ripped people off and the sales manager would give them a big atta boy!
The salesmen made a nice commission but Sears got the bulk of the money. So hiring psychopaths was a win-win for the employee and the company. (My friend quit BTW.)
You see people who make it onto Forbes' richest list. Then you find out they are paying their employees peanuts and and denying them benefits. They know their people can't live on what they pay them but they don't care. It's how they became billionaires.
Politicians stand up there making campaign promises they have no intentions of keeping. They do whatever they have to do to get elected. They don't care about the people who vote them in. They just want the power that comes with the office so they can get rich off that. Of course we vote them in knowing all this. I wonder what mental disorder that is?
No, because there is no way that ALL or even a majority of bosses and politicians could have been "surveyed." Sounds a lot more like talk-radio fear-mongering and armchair diagnosis to me.
Agreed. And even Robert Hare himself stated that a non professional using a checklist to diagnose someone is impossible.
Professional diagnosis aside, to aspire to be a leader usually requires one to have little or no compassion for their fellow man. We see these people who stand at the podium promising us whatever they think we need to hear to get us to vote for them. History has shown that, once in office, they pretty much take care of themselves. And money, not empathy or compassion or a desire to help others, is what drives most all of their decisions. It's like this in practically every leadership role. Money and power are the driving forces and if some people have to suffer, so be it. You have to have some psychopathic tendencies to be this way.
The fact most people are aware of this and do little or nothing to change it must mean most are okay with it.
Professional diagnosis aside, to aspire to be a leader usually requires one to have little or no compassion for their fellow man. We see these people who stand at the podium promising us whatever they think we need to hear to get us to vote for them. History has shown that, once in office, they pretty much take care of themselves. And money, not empathy or compassion or a desire to help others, is what drives most all of their decisions. It's like this in practically every leadership role. Money and power are the driving forces and if some people have to suffer, so be it. You have to have some psychopathic tendencies to be this way.
The fact most people are aware of this and do little or nothing to change it must mean most are okay with it.
This is absolutely not true.
You can't just make stuff up based on watching Donald Trump on the nightly news.
Plenty of people every day "aspire to be a leader" purely out of compassion for their fellow man. If you had ANY up close, real-life experience with the process of being a leader in a small town OR a company, you would know that it is very difficult and quite often a thankless process. A motive to help would have to be at the core of it or no one would do it.
The FACT is that the world is run by all kinds of people, and not all of them are saints. But your sweeping generalizations have ZERO merit.
Psychology can be a useful tool when wielded by a knowledgeable professional. In the laymans hands, it is more likely a dull weapon. I would be foolish to try to diagnose all of the powerful with this syndrome. There are a couple psychological tenets that I do have absolute faith in. One of those is jealousy. People often lose all reason and restraint when they are jealous. Are they jealous of the powerful? Good chance.
But the question is "Is the world run by psychopaths?". Which becomes the question, "Who runs the world?". It is either corporations, politicians, or international financiers. My most influential professor of global ecopolitics presented that international financiers compose the "power elite" and pretty well do run most of the world.
Are international financiers psychopaths? Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and "The SHOCK Doctrine:The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". Then make a decision.
I'm not just talking about the crazy leaders we read about all the time, I'm talking about all leaders, from bosses to world leaders. Psychopaths aren't just serial killers or those who murder, torture and maim. You don't have to do physical harm to be a psychopath.
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R) lists 20 traits to consider when trying to determine if someone should be diagnosed for being a psychopath. They are:
Revocation of conditional release (such as parole)
Criminal versatility
The last three are related to criminal activities but the rest can be found in non-criminals. To determine if someone is a psychopath, you score 2 points for definitely true, 1 point for somewhat true and zero for not true. A score of 30 or more qualifies that person for diagnosis as a psychopath.
If you have ever worked for a crazy boss, you may have said your boss was a "psycho". And you could have been right. If you check your local politician against that list you may start to wonder. The Atlantic published an article a few years ago titled, "The Startling Accuracy of Referring to Politicians As "Psychopaths". They made a good case.
When you look at the traits of bosses and other leaders and compare that against the PCL-R, do you think there is any validity to the question?
I think there are many people out there who are just afraid. Fear makes people do a lot of dumb, insensitive stuff. A lot of the traits you mention are indeed psycho traits, but they are also traits of people who are afraid to show vulnerability for fear of being exploited emotionally, mentally and physically. They puff themselves up (similar to the puffer fish) to make it seem like they are tougher than they really are (to ward off perceived enemies), but that is a clear sign of fear.
From The Atlantic article: In his landmark book on psychopathy, The Mask of Sanity, researcher Hervey Cleckley theorized that some people with the core attributes of psychopathy -- egocentricity, lack of remorse, superficial charm -- could be found in nearly every walk of life and at every level, including politics. Robert Hare, perhaps the leading expert on the disorder and the person who developed the most commonly used test for diagnosing psychopathy, has noted that psychopaths generally have a heightened need for power and prestige -- exactly the type of urges that make politics an attractive calling.
We don't have to limit our knowledge of those in power by simply watching news. Articles are written about them. Books are written about them. I don't know how many articles, books, etc have been written about Trump or how many TV pieces have been done but with all that information, I believe one could get an inkling as to if Trump could be a candidate for the honor.
I'm not saying every leader is a psychopath and never intended to. But there are certainly leaders who could qualify.
I don't know how many articles, books, etc have been written about Trump or how many TV pieces have been done but with all that information, I believe one could get an inkling as to if Trump could be a candidate for the honor.
Trump is most likely a narcissist, and he may even carry the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But we can only speculate.
When you look at the traits of bosses and other leaders and compare that against the PCL-R, do you think there is any validity to the question?
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Oh, yes, it's a very valid question. And yes, there are definitely a lot of psychopaths at the top of the power structure. There's an old saying about how power corrupts. But it's inverse is also true: The corrupt seek power.
The problem the rest of us have is we can't imagine this because we would never act in such a way, so we believe "They wouldn't do that". Oh, yes, "they" would and "they" do all the time.
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