The Psychopathic Elite
By: Rev. Sheri Heller
Tags: Politics, Power, Wealth, Elites, Psychology

“If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.” — Julius Caesar

Like most people these days I find myself pondering the surreal state of this ‘brave new world’. Corporatized medicine and class warfare has dwarfed basic decency, with the medical cartel frothing at the mouth, eager to capitalize from covid-19 and any other sundry disease or disorder. Bailouts and surging the stock market takes precedence over the needs of the working class. Stock market manipulation and neo-feudalism is giving rise to permanent serf and ruling elite classes. Governmental looting of pensions and savings has begun, devastating retirees and their surviving spouses, while corporate moguls earned 287x more in 2018 than the average wage earner.

Naturally there are pervasive concerns over current and imminent economic devastation resulting in an even greater degree of homelessness. We are anxious about civil liberties violations and have heightened anxiety due to a glaring increase in crime. Imminent ecological collapse is also looming in the consciousness of those who have strong ties to nature and its healing properties. Although The Green New Deal proposed by powerful financial interests (The Rockefeller Foundation, Soros Open Society Foundation, The Ford Foundation, etc.) proclaims they are receptive to changing hydrocarbons, the world’s main source of energy, into renewable forms of energy, oligarchs putting aside corporate economic interests to protect the environment seems like a Trojan horse to many.

Famines and humanitarian disasters and violations of international law infiltrate the globe. Bombing raids and regime changes are routine. War crimes abound in Iraq, Gaza, and Syria. Since the assassination of Khadafy in 2011, Libya, once Africa’s wealthiest nation has become a quagmire of anarchy and the biggest hub for trafficking of arms anywhere. The genocide (aka cleansing) in Yemen, albeit a humanitarian catastrophe, receives little media attention. U.S. led propaganda and harsh sanctions have economically destabilized Venezuela, conceivably as a prelude to establishing a neoliberal government. A $741 billion defense bill gets passed without a hitch, but the stimulus bill to provide relief for struggling citizens does not. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what the priorities are.

These are the harsh realities pervading our collective dread. It has always been this way irrespective of ideology, theology, or philosophy. The brutality of war and suffering are historical realities.

In distress I turn to my chosen field of psychology for answers. I am led to realize that in this geopolitical landscape, driven by the quest for political domination and exploitation of world resources, it is increasingly imperative that the layperson acquires a basic psychological comprehension of human evil, in order for any of this to make a modicum of sense.

Physicist and psychoanalyst Ian Hughes wrote, “A small proportion of people who suffer from psychologically abnormal personalities have, throughout history, had an immeasurable detrimental impact on our societies, our politics and our world. Enabled by their ruthlessness to readily acquire positions of power, they have long dominated the psychologically normal majority of the world’s population.”

In “Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason” philosopher Immanuel Kant makes the claim that evil is innate to the human species. According to Kant, self-conceit is the designated egoistic trait responsible for moral corruption. An extreme propensity for evil has been referred to by psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, in his seminal book “The Mask of Sanity”, as a neuropsychiatric defect which fuels the need to destroy. Cleckley’s psychological perspective identifies a measure for evil as psychopathology.

Wikipedia defines psychopathy as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior. They are conscienceless and calculating, and ruthlessly driven to acquire power and control. Psychopaths command compliance and obedience so as to actualize their agendas. Accordingly, they are encouraged by the absence of critical thought, and the reliance on primitive psychological defenses of those they seek to control. Moreover, research using positron emission tomography (PET) indicates that one of the primary causes of psychopathic behavior is believed to be neurological abnormalities in the frontal lobe of the brain.

Cleckley purports that psychopaths present with a visage of normalcy. According to Cleckley the psychopath has the uncanny ability to conceal this ‘neuropsychiatric defect’.

Cleckley states, “they are disarming not only to those unfamiliar with such patients but often to people who know well from experience their convincing outer aspect of honesty.”

We are deceived, even deluded by, the psychopath’s disguise of virtue, his glibness, ostensible calm, status, and charm. The psychopath’s veneer of normality can be so seamless it becomes implausible to consider the malevolence behind the mask, even for trained clinicians.