Dark Triad
Psychopathy & narcissism & machiavellianism
There is overlap between psychopathy and narcissism and machiavellianism. It is called the dark triad. They are called "dark" because of their malevolent qualities. The power-hungry power elite are drenched in these dark qualities and combined with their high intelligence they're masters in hiding it from the general public which keeps being deceived and even votes their political puppets with similar traits into office.
Psychopathy
The term psychopathy refers to a personality disorder that includes a cluster of interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial traits and behaviors. These involve deception; manipulation; irresponsibility; impulsivity; stimulation seeking; poor behavioral controls; shallow affect; lack of empathy, guilt, or remorse; sexual promiscuity; callous disregard for the rights of others; and unethical and antisocial behaviors. Psychopathy is the most dangerous of the personality disorders.
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Psychopathy is inborn and immutable *. It is dangerous and it is rampant in the world of human power because psychopaths also tend to be power-hungry and hunt for positions of power.
Psychopaths do not feel emotions.Sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.Out of self-interest psychopaths can fake emotions in order to maneuver others under their control. The latest generation of politicians in the western world grew up in a time without wars in their own countries simply because their wealthy and powerful governments were waging wars in other countries. They are usually from wealthy and powerful families and they haven't got the experiences that common people have so they don't know the struggles common people have and they don't care either. Many politicians are highly educated with high IQ's, but also with low EQ's *. They see people more as numbers than as human beings. People provide return on investment as workers in for-profit industries. Researchers at the FBI saidPsychopathic manipulation usually begins by creating a mask, known as psychopathic fiction, in the minds of those targeted. In interpersonal situations, this façade shows the psychopath as the ideal friend*. See also The Mask of Sanity.
Manipulation almost always involves deception. And manipulators are among the most clever, accomplished liars. They raise lying to nearly an art form. Manipulators don't just deceive you about who they are. They also deceive you about what they're doing and why they're doing it.
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Highminded words can be used by the powerful, the demagogue and the hypocrite, or the merely self-deluded, to arouse passion and prejudice and sentimentality for the wrong reasons in favor of disguised real aims, thus to deceive the people and to lead them by easy stages to sacrifice their own interests in the service of power.
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The psychopaths that make it to the top are highly intelligent and they are masters in psychological manipulation. They use lies and deceit to trick other people into whatever scheme. For example sovereignty of nation states is being taken away under the umbrella of globalization by which the power elite draw ever more power to themselves, away from the people. Globalization is anti-democratic by its very essence. Taxpayer money is used to bail out the world's most criminal bankers. Tax havens flourished under the wings of the power elite while extreme inequality kept growing.In some fields, the more "psychopathic" people are, the more likely they are to succeed. Like predators are found around preys, the most greedy are found where most of the money is andoften those they abuse are only vaguely aware of what is happening to them. The ignorant sheeple are of course easy preys. The global financial crisis is a good example of how destructive and damaging psychopathy can be.Psychopaths working in corporations and in financial corporations have had a major part in causing the crisisandthe behavior of a small group of managers can potentially bring down the entire western system of business.
Narcissism
I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan". And I did. And then God would tell me "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq". And I did... And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East". And, by God, I'm gonna do it.
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A narcissist mightbelieve he has a closer connection to God – but it’s more important to him that other people acknowledge this connection and admire his deep sense of spirituality. For example presidents of the United States have a habit of believing or making believe that they aredriven with a mission from God, in line with the delusional belief in American exceptionalism. For example in 2004 George W. Bush reportedly told an Amish group in Pennsylvania:I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.* If the audiance were different he would have said something else.
In an interview in 2004 Barack Obama saidI think I have an ongoing conversation with God.* In his book The Audacity of Hope he wrote how hefelt God's spirit beckoninghim and he said:I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.He says he prays every day, typically forforgiveness for my sins and flaws, which are many, the protection of my family, and that I'm carrying out God's will, not in a grandiose way, but simply that there is an alignment between my actions and what he would want.In this extremely materialistic world only the best psychopaths make it to the top.
Machiavellianism
If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains.
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It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
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Machiavelli demonstrated thatbehind a veneer of pretended morality, honesty, integrity, and Christian practices and virtues there dwelt another sphere of action, a dark world, dominated by greed, ruthlessness, hypocrisy, lies, intrigue, deception, and even murder.* Machiavellianism is the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct. It is key to understanding human power and corruption. Machiavelli is described as the Galileo of politics, the first political scientist, a realist, a pragmatist, a cynic *. He explained power and politics from the perspective of reality. See also Realpolitik. The power elite do not intervene in other parts of the world in order to bring democracy or to benefit the people there, as they usually propagandize, but they do so to their own benefit.
All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
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Big lies are meant to deceive the masses and to advance an agenda which is usually in disfavor of the people lied to. See also DEMONcracy, IndoctriNATION, Good vs Evil and Conspiracy.
Links...
Sam Vaknin - Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited
Hervey M. Cleckley - The Mask of Sanity
Robert D. Hare - Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
Robert Trivers - Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others
David Limbaugh - Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of President Barack Obama
Erich Fromm - The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
John J. Mearsheimer - Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
Michael A. Ledeen - Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely And Important Today As Five Centuries Ago
Ralph Keyes - The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
Daniel Alman - The Least Transparent Administration in History: 1,375 well sourced examples of Barack Obama’s lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc.
Jack Cashill - You Lie!: The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds, and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama
David Corn - The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception
John Halle - Clinton Lies (Again)
Susan J. Douglas - The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan
Luke Brinker - Ronald Reagan's wartime lies: The president had quite a Brian Williams problem
Taylor Link - Fact-checking the third presidential debate: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton's lies and half-truths
Economist - Post-truth politics: Art of the lie
John O'Rourke - Machiavelli's The Prince: Still Relevant after All These Years
Kevin Dutton - Psychopathy and the Presidents
Jeff Bercovici - Why (Some) Psychopaths Make Great CEOs
Sam Vaknin - Analysis of Barack Obama