Influence of the PSYCHOPATH

INSIDIOUS

The influence of the psychopaths has been going on so long [10s of millenia], and not only have we become inured to their presence [via stories and movies] AND trained to NOT LOOK at or for them, that this influence is often considered as unlikely, untrue, or even a conspiracy theory. 

Just read the psych literature, they exist, and if you have contact with one directly, your visceral reactions will likely be of extreme caution or fear [an 'off' feeling], dread, or if they have a use for you, then the opposite, charmed and flattered, even special to them. TAKE CARE as they ARE different to most of us.  They are intra-species predators and they care not, EVER. If you were charmed and special [e.g. spouse/partner] once their power is asserted or your usefulness over, the apparent care will disappear and often leave you dreading your future.

Someone who observed these at work, an observer and analyst, of the twisting of words, the manipulations, and the secret dealings, NOT* the creator of them, was Machiavelli around the beginning of the 16th century. Here's a modern book for you to help understand what psychopaths have been doing to us: *he's had a bad rap to the point that Machiavellian now means manipulative, and worse! Perhaps it would have been prudent to not tell everyone how to use those techniques, but then how does one counter subtle influences if you know not what is happening? Similarly, Sun Tzu.

Machiavelli: The Art of Teaching People What to Fear, by Patrick Boucheron, translated by Willard Wood 2018

WIRED DIFFERENTLY

2023: signs of the times: feeling used and abused by governments/politicians, business, gouged for money, withdrawal of social services, extortionate medical, food, and general living costs? Why? It's a bit of a story but needs to be told.

Look into the neuroscience of the psychopath and you will find that they are a special breed of us, of humans. Breed in the sense of a [poignant] genetic variation. While there is a nurture [socialization] component to their behaviours, most of their behaviours are vastly different to the rest of us especially WHEN THEY EXPRESS IT UNCHECKED because of heritability. Their 'wiring' makes their Default Mode Network act without the usual emotions first, but as hyper-rational [robotic in a sense], callous, self-serving, willful, and cunning predators. That does not exclude socialization [nurture] as formative, but ONE particular approach that works for most children to control and direct behaviours DOES NOT BODE WELL when used with the psychopathic brain - punishment! This leaves a big social question - how to train children* without punishment? *especially since it's difficult to identify who'll respond poorly during the 2-4yo period [terrible twos]. 

Psychopaths are social predators, intra-species predators, Free Riders prepared to TAKE what they want without earning it. It might be your house, your reputation, your bank account, ...or your life... but certainly a lot of your sanity and freedoms. They can be powerful reputation-destroyers if challenged too [especially the female psychopaths].

CARE: they are also great MIMICS, so beware! What you see is NOT what you get, much more so than the usual personas of people when we put on a social face.

Their capacity to mimic emotions, manipulate, and their callous disregard for others can be well-hidden by about 4* years old and it will take some time for others to notice their real intents/psychology. They learn fast in that regard! Of course, many are exposed during adolescence and end up incarcerated after a spree of [usually] some form of violence or abuse of others. Apparently in the USA, about 93% have been constrained [incarcerated, etc] and/or identified. This seems good; the remainder roam free; free to play their insidious games.  *about 5% of kids show antisocial behaviours during the 'terrible twos'. Most are socialized out of it, but NOT most of the psychopaths. They live on to escalate their practices often starting early with animal cruelty and/or arson, violence, and the like - and NEVER change. This is a big problem - they are the ultimate recidivists so PUNISHMENT DOES NOT WORK.

There has been resistance, a countering pressure*, from their prey [the rest of us] that makes them wary too since the repercussions for harming another or the social group has been for it to get increasingly harsher, finally capital punishment. This has been the case since our hunter-gather days though the 'ultimate treatment' anthropologists found, was usually kept in-house, a secret. Look at the end of 'Calligula', the psychopathic Roman Emperor, for an example - it was no ordinary seeking-of-justice as the courts belonged to the Emperor so 'other means' was used. *this resistance is from our 'normal' sense of fairness that the psychopaths tread on the toes of. Unfortunately, they have often long done their damage. 

In those early hunter-gatherer times, no-one could effectively survive alone so they, the psychopaths, 'needed' the tribe. Surprisingly, the 'talents' and behaviours of the psychopaths, when directed in the service of his [more are male] tribe, could win the day over the adversary. To this day, their talents have been sought and redirected for the nefarious purposes of espionage and war by the higher psychopaths who like war to accumulate power and make obscene amounts of money on the misery of others.

In more modern times, the psychopaths have well-developed their protective networks and structures to avoid the repercussions that would contain them. They are free to play their power games with humanity as its disposable toys. Harsh? No, read on.

Many of the traits of successful people are shared with psychopaths, just not at clinical levels. So we are not even getting to the anti-social, non-clinical types who share SOME or many of the traits, some of the constellation, of the  psychopath! There are still consequences for mistreating people in the form of [reactive and slow] laws, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

So let's step back a few thousand years... 

WATCHING THEIR BACK

As tribes settled into larger groups as the world warmed and people started growing crops and practised animal husbandry, it became harder to know everyone in your village. Harder to know who was doing the harm and indiscretions against others - the grapevine was failing. Once past a few hundred people in a township the hierarchical divisions and cliques that formed could be used to hide and even protect the psychopath and his misdemeanors. 

IMAGINE now if the psychopath insinuated himself into a position of power - protected by others controlled by him/her [troops or police, and by the sycophants] and free to do what they want. Know this: POWER IS THEIR AIM, not friendships, love, or fun. Power over others is their fun. We focus on the males and we know more about their behaviours and traits but females can be psychopathic at somewhere between 30-70% the numbers of males [and much fewer are incarcerated]. They express their traits vastly differently to men and are not well-known even in the research literature. But, if you look at the histories of families of hereditary royalty, emperors,  and other power lineages, you'll find some females for whom their family members are threats and murdered to secure the throne or power positions.

There were earlier opportunities in pre-history to find a place of power to protect himself, but we'll come back to there.

IDEALISM HIDES TRUTHS

I expect many of you've been triggered by reading this so far. If so, ask yourself why. Don't like the thought that you've been deceived all of your life? Don't include your country, political party, church, or family in the stories - 'it's only the other person's families, etc'.  Nor do I, but to ignore, or worse, pretend that these predators don't exist [i.e. saying everyone is good at heart] is to perpetuate the lie. 

Why talk of idealism now? Because it's usually a simplistic and hopeful view that does not account for the reality. If you can hold an ideal but recognize the reality, then you're ahead of most people.

To discover the reality of humans, of ourselves, we cannot afford any idealism. We need good old dialectics, discussions to mutually find the truth of something. One of the manipulative tools of the psychopath is to disempower truth-finding. In fact, to confuse or have us fighting each other is better as far as the psychopath is concerned. Less effort for them. Using dialectics is coming together through communication to seek truth [e.g. exposing manipulation, etc.]; polarization is creating opposition to truth, embedding a BIG LIE that the harm is from someone just like us but with a different view - us and them - when the real problem is from the sidelines, playing us against each other. See? The game is to get us to behave like psychopaths in a sense. Polarization is just one tool.

Idealism is better formed as a vision or as a direction to some specific goals to aim for. How to tell if idealism has crept in is to look to one's language for absolutism - my way is right; yours is wrong. This is an inflexible path and has no relation to the reality of now or even the future hoped for. Catch yourself and look around, look deeper, ask who instigated the polarization while remembering the puppeteers are not affected by it?

We have to be careful with thoughts of fairness and rights that they don't remain ideals without the pragmatic steps to attain them. Another trap is to think that having the rules is enough [remember that the predators don't care about your rules, only theirs]. Then there's enforcement of the rules. The enforcement has to be sufficient and effective but it's difficult [and perhaps unwise] to be proactive and most enforcement that does occur is AFTER the damage is done - reactive. For most people using enforcement is effective, but psychopaths are recidivists, meaning that EVEN IF you get to apply some punishment [e.g. jail], they will be back at it as soon as they are free [and often more cunning]. In most societies there is an escalating response to 'bad' behaviour - shaming/guilting, ostracism, incarceration, and WAS up to and including capital punishment. The latter being the only real concern of psychopaths but that's off the table now in western cultures. 

Looking ahead: Humans have taken over the world with their predictive capacities, but it required learning from mistakes and adapting. An ideal is often so fixed that one doesn't even check themselves if what they 'predicted' is actually happening. This not-checking is like the 'faith' of religions where one is taught to not-question. The flexibility needed is pragmatism so that one MUST question the outcomes and adjust one's behaviours to wend one's way [yes, it's a winding path] to the desired outcome. 

Another psychopath tool is to have us thinking in absolutes. Oh, you mean like an ideal? It boils down to thinking in forms of unchecked trust - something IS or IS NOT, true or false, black or white, friend or enemy. Consider the use of 'faith' as an unchecked trust. We are told to have faith i.e. don't check up on the people [sales people, marketers, bankers, politicians, priests] saying it - trust me but don't check. FIAT money is another 'trust' social problem - don't check up on what money really is worth, or how it's valued, just trust us [the government and the banks]... and then the disconnect from reality really happened with the gradual removal of the gold standard late last century. For curiosity, do your research on fiat money and see how it's fared EVERY time it's been attempted. Not good!

In effect, our systemic influences are keeping people childlike in their thinking. Keeping them uninformed, and even mis-informed, and emotionally-subdued. This is useful to have people following orders in a mechanical way, but not so useful to the individual being made dependent - financially, emotionally, and not rational [except in their narrow work domain, perhaps]. We will get to where these systemic influences began.

So, if you have this ideal of everyone is good, think again, 1% are not, at least what we normally think of as good, and they need considering in your greater [society/cultural] existence. Their presence is no longer so hidden as disruption escalates this century.

I'm hoping you will see how dysfunctional behaviours are easily hidden is such arrangements mentioned. Likewise, untruths can be told and are not checked because we are told to trust from an early age, and for most people it's hard work to check because we haven't been taught critical thinking, and because access to trusted information is challenging. Remember that it's easy to follow the crowd, and MOST of the time that's ok, but NOT now when the individual's basic rights and respect is being undermined and misused.

Beware: The contention here is that human behaviour that requires unearned trust, or secrecy, or a one-way power dynamic, unfair [uneven] expectations, and putting some social institution over oneself and especially one's family, is fraught. There are many disadvantages and unfairnesses of life - some are socially-imposed by natural structure* and competitiveness, and some by design**. This is what we are looking into, the design part. This is more dangerous than you might believe because the hard lesson to be learned [one hopes we learn] is far down the track of time and meanwhile the dysfunctional or psychopathic institutions and individuals gain ever more power over you and do their damage. *hierarchies. **e.g. laws that favour the writers of the laws

Any psychopaths in the elite aka governing bodies have had the education for millennia that was denied to ordinary folk. Anything written prior to the general population's ability to check and forestall bad policy and law is suspect as favouring the educated elite. Remember that free [and compulsory] education for the masses only encompassed most of Europe by the late 1800s -  say 140 years ago. Prior to that say 90% of the population may have zero formal education, or IF they could read, it was often only a bible or novel. Access to knowledge didn't exist for them. Check your laws, constitutions, economic principles, education structure and intents that came into play before AND after then! Remember that they, the pinnacle of the antisocial, been playing this game for a long, long time, have sought out power and knowledge [also remembering that knowledge is power] and have had their way unbeknownst to the populace [and even to many rulers/elites]. Sometimes the public face of power is not the real power but someone or a group [the influencers]  such as lobby groups is. Politicians are case in point!

Yes, there has been some resistance against the power groups, but you'll find it was mainly between power groups [with other psychopathic organizations] rather than individual's interest groups. We individuals were unknowing pawns in the game. Some resistance is well-intentioned and has been beneficial but then one has to ensure [hence check] that it hasn't been usurped by nefarious organizers when the resistance gets too much influence [according to the psychopaths]. Once lots of money is involved, lookout for the predators. You know the investigator's adage: 'Follow the money'. 

A QUICK GUIDE

Psychopaths have certain problematic traits [for the rest of us] and here is one way of looking at them - a constellation. A clinically-defined primary psychopath must have each area mostly covered. Many others that seek to and enjoy harming others may be subclinical, aka secondary, predators none-the-less. Remember that the movies and books tell dramaticized stories, not necessarily the hidden truths. 

The psychopathic CONSTELLATION [correlated, continuously-distributed, multi-axis spectrum, and latent, i.e. multi-dimensional]:

1.  Interpersonal: superficial charm, manipulativeness, dishonesty, glibness, egotistical [narcissism]

2.  Affective: lack of guilt/remorse or deep connection to others

3.      Lifestyle: easily bored, impulsive* [risky/reckless and irresponsibility], bold and disinhibited. Prefer a parasitic lifestyle. *Sexual predator, also on particular ‘caring’ and probably naïve personalities [especially empaths]

4.  Antisocial: persistent transgressions and violations of law 

• Intouch with reality [more than most and definitely NOT psychotic] and [hyper]rational with risk factor for physical aggression

• Prognosis poor for clinical psychopath UNLESS careful upbringing from 2yo [zero punishment] and they’ll still be psychopathic but perhaps socially-functional [good?] by using their strengths [hyper-rationalism, low affect, cool and calm when needed – CEOs, surgeons, barristers, SAS/marine-style, and spy occupations] but interpersonal difficulties will always be problematic [family-dysfunctional]. 

• They’ll be in it for themselves. All dependent on the constellation mix of how this manifests

• DDx* for sadism, sociopathy [ASPD currently includes psychopathy], NPD, and BPD [*differential diagnosis using DSM IV]

• Can ‘appear’ as an empath as they walk into your head and emotions to build the initial rapport before beginning their manipulations. 

• Machiavellian* and chameleon-like. Can change personas at the drop of a hat, even to changing their lies midstream.

• Proficient liars with few ‘tells’ – an artform and motivating [risk-taking - they like seeing what they can get away with]. 

• Rarely feel psychological problems. So counselling WILL NOT work - they can outmanoeuver the best.

*in some ways an unfortunate [even if familiar] term, since Machiavelli was an observer and writer of political behaviours of the era and NOT the creator of the rules.

MUCH more to come [a detailed list of behaviours soon].  Robert Hare, creator of the PCL-R instrument to qualify psychopaths, is probably your best goto for academic info. Watch his YouTubes too. 

WHATEVER YOU DO, ALWAYS REMEMBER 

• THAT THESE PSYCHOPATHS EXIST. 

• THEY SEEK POWER OVER OTHERS. 

• THEY HAVE NO EMOTIONAL EMPATHY* AND ARE HYPER-RATIONAL. 

• THEY WANT WHAT THEY WANT AND STEP ON OTHERS TO GET IT. 

• THEY ARE SO FAR AHEAD OF MOST PEOPLE IN UNDERSTANDING AND OUTMANOUVERING US THAT IT SEEMS UNREAL.

• THEY ARE HORRENDOUSLY DIFFICULT TO IDENTIFY UNTIL AFTER THE DAMAGE IS DONE.

• WHILE THEY REMAIN HIDDEN OR OBSCURED, WE BLAME** SOME OPPOSITION [OPPOSING VIEW] FOR THE TROUBLES OF THE WORLD instead of the source.

* They know what they are doing and why]. Considered Rational Empaths - they UNDERSTAND what your feelings and emotions are and where they lead you, then play with them. Like a cat playing with a mouse.

**A setup using Divide and Rule. Another setup is Bread and Circuses - provide access to 'enough' food and lots of distractions for the population while they build their power behind the scenes. What YOU SEE/KNOW is minimal to what goes on behind the closed doors. Think Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell as recent examples! Ask WHY the world at large did not see this coming. Keep asking.

SOME READINGS TO KICK YOU OFF:

Almost a Psychopath: Do I (or Does Someone I Know) Have a Problem with Manipulation and Lack of Empathy? (The Almost Effect), Schouten & Silver, 2012 

Demonic males, Wrangham 1996 

Pathological Lying, Curtis & Hart 2022 

Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World, Michele Gelfand [Prof] 2018

Snakes in suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. Babiak and Robert D. Hare 2006

The Good Psychopath… McNab & Dutton 

The Psychopath Factory, Adams 2016 

The Psychopath Inside, James Fallon, 2015 

The Wisdom of Psychopaths…, Dutton 2012 

or movies/shows with realistic psychopaths [NO, not Hannibal Lecter]

Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men" [Actor Javier Bardem] - most realistic psychopath

Malice 1993 [Actors Alec Baldwin &  Nicole Kidman] 

also the 'Wednesday' character

or a movie [international] with rarely-shown consequences

The Ballad of Narayama [1983] – village eliminates a bully family 

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Let's continue...

THE VELVET ROPE - GATEWAY TO THE TOP of the dirty game in town

There is a positive version of life and social systems too but remember that we are investigating the dysfunctional aspects - especially since it's manifesting so much in recent decades - a sign of the times - the meteoric expansion of the psychopath's reach. So while mentioned a little elsewhere ibid, let's look at the constraints to power. 

You could look at power here as control over one's destiny, but know that power from a psychopath's mind is a callous POWER OVER OTHERS.

The Gervais Principle. 

There are 3 diagrams below [best download them]: Cycle through them. Read them with the VJ* and its colours in mind. This framework is like MacLeod's and others before and after, and the detail will show the means to control the movement of people through the system, especially to the top - to the elites aka to the capitalized layer of wealth and power. *Values Journey ibid

At the bottom, we are born and enter The Atrium at different stages. Cycling through iterations of school, church, any social structure but think of it for now as if you are entering the work space - after high school or uni. A number of opportunities arise - a number of 'doors' or paths to FUNNEL our social energies. Some people are socially-aware and can play the game from the get go - so they think. HOW they think has a lot to do with their upbringing by now.

They might know where they feel that they belong [many don't] - some safe job, or process-oriented, or highly-structured area, like a learning/teaching or technical environment. This funnel is full of basic Blue. Seeking [the illusion of] calm, safety, no stress, regular and long-term work for security in return for their faithfulness and conformity [with simple rules to follow]. They often downplay their capacity and social status so they don't show up their compatriots [capability masking by deficit signalling*]. *this is virtue signalling - the virtues as seen by their group - fit in, be kind, follow rules. 

Others are up for a challenge. Perhaps they are competitive in sports or other ways - chess champion, academic award winner, innovator. They would generally* choose the riskier environment, trusting in their ability to win, at least enough compared to the risk. This Orange Funnel is typical of the business-minded - the makers/creators, havers, and doers of life. Their ingroup virtue is surplus signalling meaning showing off [even enhancing] your signs of success - I won <whatever>! *competitive women may still choose Blue especially if they have making a family in mind [even subconsciously] for 'family security'.

The above categories are focussed on their respective social roles.

To the left are the Cool Kid groupies having fun and creating their pretend success status but oblivious to their survival needs within the current society. There is likely a large narcissistic mindset here - 'Look at me, aren't I good'. Quite shallow. They didn't read about Ikigai! 

To the right, well, the Geek Kids are watching the games or ignoring them for totally different reasons. They are likely internalizing or stuck in their head, trying to understand life or something of interest. Or else they may have been up one of the funnels and dropped back [Checked out] to rethink their strategies. Notice the use of thought! Interestingly, some from this group can have interesting talks with the elites [bosses?] if they see what's going on, i.e. there is some awareness even if they don't wish to be involved so much. This group [of non-elites] has the best chance or seeing through the quagmire of human behaviour and often have very narrow concepts of success and belonging. BTW: entrepreneurs* often originate here as they 'choose' a social path that gives them opportunity to express their individuality without being sucked into the vortex of the other way to 'success' - suck up. They might bypass, in effect, the Clueless stratum. *entrepreneurship is a risky strategy [lots of failures to get a success] and can be likened to the trials and tribulations of artists of all kinds regarding financial success.

Which brings us to the Will-to-power* passage. Notice it is in red. The blood is boiling with raw energy and drive. They want what they want... and now! Show me how. It can come with a brutal competitiveness and cunning. How similar to the psychopath's urges is that!!! They could easily be of Orange origins too IF they are willing to get down and dirty. At the top of this passage [funnel?]  are the gatekeepers. Think bouncers at a popular night club: the pretty girls are let in, the wealthy, and the known. Everyone else has to jump through the hoops. The gatekeepers are like talent scouts - observing potential players and possibly offering some test of entry. This time think of Street Gangs: IF you kill, rob, beat up <xyz> you can join. It's a test of courage and proving worth in another virtue** signalling way - tough, courageous, and brutal and loyalty to a fault fits in this group to the point of you can NEVER LEAVE except through dying. Essentially you are never truly trusted. *always remember that we are talking about a very small minority who have this propensity, NOT the general population. **remember that virtue, in this sense, is seen as something highly-valued by the group, NOT as in Virtue Ethics.

So, after working your way up the passage you will be stopped by gatekeepers of the Velvet Rope where you have to earn your rite-of-passage in the final stage - acceptance by the elite. In a 'good' aka light version this would be via competence judged by some leader [ideally there would be no ceilings/ropes per se]. Here in the 'dark' version of the Gervais Principle though, you have to be able to demonstrate secrecy, commitment to the power-holders, and ability to perform whatever they ask, without question. As with the gangs, there WILL be some form of bending or breaking the rules of 'proper' society. That is mandatory. Remember the callous disregard for others [except members of this elite group] must be demonstrated. If you are psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, or sociopathic by nature, this will be easy enough. Everyone else has to sell their soul to the devil, so to speak. 

It's a very small pool at the top so few make it through this level and they are usually very well-connected already [society family, big business, wealth managers/bankers, politics/backroom power, etc.]. It's a long and probably impossible road for all but the most determined and ruthless. One would have to ask if it is worth it. If you hold the values of the psychopath, it is! Remember that you could be in the elite via historic means - family inheritance [royalty, family] - and not psychopathic, but there is a definite trained-in and entitled* antisocial element to the position [I'm better than you because of my incidental status, not necessarily because I have any competence]. *narcissistic

Note the descriptions to the right in the diagram. According to the top Antisocial layer, everyone else is Clueless [drones, slaves, people to be used] or Losers. Though losers are seen as socially-low, most of the Geeks wouldn't care, and the Cool Kids would be offended if they had a clue [they are truly the clueless]. Losing here means not noted as socially-successful by others. The Performers & Conformers don't realize [are clueless to] the limits to their particular competence in this form of dysfunctional society where the unspoken game of the psychopath is the real game in town. They are played like concert violins to do their best for a system that isn't really in their interest. There are benefits, UNTIL there aren't - short-term vs long-term view. One could work their whole life only to find out this sad state of affairs, but most never awaken to [or want to see] the harsh reality - denial at its best. Discovering the value [or not] of one's participation can be ego-shattering [well, persona first, then ego, but that's another story].

But with all this, I hope to show how we were and continue to be set up to accept this social structure. There are other ways of living* and creating societies, such as seeking and following demonstrated competence like the ways of the tribes in how they learned to survive in nature. In fact, this is probably why the Industrial Age was so successful - competence was given free-reign. Competence is how we as humans got to this point overall since we originated but the dark side was once partially constrained. Now we are more so being required to survive while fighting against our own - the divide and rule concept - while behind the scenes and appearing like our own but in reality are the predators aka Free Riders aka psychopaths and the lesser sociopaths. *read about Transition Towns for some insights

First step - open your eyes, gain awareness of the methods used, maintain hope, learns counter-skills, persist.

THE GOOD NEWS, ERRR, WELL...

One study mentioned that most psychopaths [a whopping 93%] in the USA are in incarcerated, jail, remanded, or on probation, etc, i.e. known to the system. That leaves a measly 0.07% of the population who are uncaught psychopaths. If those figures extrapolate, then in the world, nearly 6 million [yes, you read that correctly], and in the US only 240 thousand or so FREE PSYCHOPATHS running around creating mayhem!!! HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. Somewhere. 700 psychopaths per million people. How many at the top in your town, community, government, religion?

Ask what POWER positions will they be in? And you think that small number [even if an approximation] doesn't count now? 7 per 10,000; 1 per 1,400 people. Once humans have groups/tribes over say 100*, we lose connection with the big picture, the relationships, the nuances, and the psychopaths can hide in the cracks or more usually in plain sight with the appearance of being beneficial to society to the point of being granted benefice**. *an interesting size! Tribe? Comedy gigs start 'working' once the audience gets to around 80-100+ & can fall flat under that. **a word of ancient origins - look it up. Supporting the parasitic lifestyle [the psychopath's favourite].