Reply #151: The Psychopaths Among Us

[RonPaulFan]

Thanks for the replies. I'm a Dennis Kucinich fan, too, if that helps (I don't see the role of government the same way he does, but he is not corrupt, and it is corruption and corruptibility that is our common enemy).

@EOTE: Psychopaths are only about 1% of the population, that's true. A book which helped me to understand the role of psychopaths in shaping our world was Prof. Robert Hare's "Without Conscience" (and also his "Snakes in Suits," which focuses on psychopaths in the workplace, and how their lack of shame, regret, etc. gives them a substantial advantage in scaling the greasy ladder of business and political hierarchies). Hare, a retired Canadian professor of psychology who spent most of his career at Berkeley, is one of the world's experts in psychopathic personality disorders. I find it difficult to look at many of our political elites on TV now without seeing the traits in them of the psychopath -- and guess what, according to Hare, are the two fields psychopaths most often seek careers in? Politics and finance. Completely un-shocking, isn't it?

@Be Free: It's hard to know about Obama. I suspect JFK was, as another poster posited upthread, a flawed but essentially good person who was going to try to change the system from within and got whacked for it. Obama may be the same way, or maybe he rationalizes his participation in an evil system by saying "better me than someone else; I'll produce as much change on the margins as I can in this system." Difficult to say, but what is more clear to me is that one person, even at the top, can't do this alone. There has to be widespread understanding and outrage at these evil institutions (central banks, the military-industrial complex, crony capitalism) before we can get rid of them and replace them with something humane and rational.

PS -- here is an excellent essay by Prof. Kevin Barrett called "Twilight of the Psychopaths" that makes these points cogently.

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/02/02073.html