Twilight of the Psychopaths

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intersting stuff...

Complete Article

It comes across as a giant rant, with not all that much reasoning.

It could have been an interesting discussion if he substantiated on the claims, and explored the impact of "civilisation" on our animal behaviour.

Human are pretty violent, but chimps are pretty violent too. They just don't have weapons. Chimp groups have strict territorial borders, and fighting happens when groups overlap territory. Humans groups are multiple (we each belong to many types of social groups) and overlap extensively. We make use of each others skills and compete simultaneous on multiple fronts.

You seem to have missed the point, you know the one about psychopaths being in control and everyone else letting them and the fact that their time is coming to an end what have chimps got to do with it?

Even though you didn't think it could happen you are contributing to an interesting discussion thank you.

Yes, psychopaths have often risen to power. And that's pretty much the only thing in this rant that I agree with. I see no evidence that literally every leader and government is inherently psychopathic, nor do I see that nuclear weapons have made war obsolete (he didn't know about the war in Iraq? How diid he miss that?). And there is no evidence whatsoever that there is any sort of "twilight" in the reign of psychopathic heads of state. I'm sure he and I both agree that Kim Jong Il is a psychopath. However I don't think that the world will soon be rid of its Kim Jong Ils nor do I think that war has become obsolete nor do I think that Obama is a psycopath by virtue of being a head of state.

That article is pretty spot on.

Only the mad seem attracted to political power.

Nobility feels they are rightfully "born" to be the leaders. Despots enjoy crushing others to be the leader. In more "democratic" systems, the psychotic are drawn to power like moths to a flame. There are some noble people who do it "to serve their fellow man" but most are soon corrupted by power or they live in a delusional state of mind that government really exists to serve their fellow man. It's a nice concept, but in practice, it rarely stays that way for long.

Sane people want little to nothing to do with politics.

I can accept the fact that there are lots of crazies in the world. But is it a fact that their time is coming to an end? What's to prevent other crazies from taking their place?

Just seems like aimless, unsubstantiated ranting with no evidence to back it up. Much like most other conspiratorial views of human history.

The article uses the word "psychopath" in the same sense as words such as "mad", "violent" and "destructive"; it's not referring to the clinical understanding of the term. In either case, the article's claim that the end of the psychopath is almost here is not based on any reality that I am aware of. In fact, the more realistic idea would be that we are living in the age of the psychopath, in an age where the psychopathic mindset is able to thrive and have more widespread consequences than ever before. The psychopath is here to stay, I'm afraid.

Well, then, shouldn't we consider the whole of human history to be the "twilight"?

Hate to break it to you, but I doubt you can produce one example of human history where men were not conspiring to make what they want to happen.

Nothing happens by chance in politics.

That really seems to me to be a completely illogical argument. If you ask a Christian if Jesus was trying to make what he wanted to happen, happen, then they would say yes. The same is true of Buddha, Confucius, Sir Isaac Newton, and the list goes on. Would you have those in power sit by passively? The same can be said of politicians. Just because you disagree with a politician's ideals doesn't make them a psychopath.

The assumption that liars, thieves, murderers, etc are the ones that gain power is extraordinarily flawed. It relies on the small percentage of people in power that the media focuses on: The corrupt. In actually, it is very difficult for the corrupt to obtain power, or, if they do, to keep it. The media plays an important role in this, but also, unfortunately, plays a role in the belief that all politicians are corrupt. I propose this challenge to you: Find corruption in 10% of the members of Congress, or 10% of the British Parliament. That's 54 in the former, 139 in the latter.

As that is a rather impossible task, you will no doubt attempt to argue that they hide it well, or that the media doesn't report on it, or one of the various other arguments that imply that a politician's life isn't in full view of the media. The assumption that the media doesn't love to find corruption in those in power is a betrayal of all logic and a complete disregard for what the media is: An industry that exists to sell itself, and nothing sells better than corruption. These stories are what pull the media through dry spells. They actively seek out these stories with a passion that few people can muster.

Edit: I'd also like to point out that the assumption that a soldier becomes a soldier because they like to kill is a horrible misrepresentation of the military of many countries. It is an assumption made out of complete ignorance.

OK, wow. I just spent the last 15 minutes looking around Mujca-net, and it's really the kind of thing I would expect from someone writing that article.

Here's a link to his Wikipedia article.

Now, I'm all for obtaining wisdom from a variety of sources, no matter what my views on the person is. However, when a person is ranting, it is important to know where they're coming from to consider the wisdom in their arguments. When a rant comes from the sort of person that Kevin Barrett is, however, you have to wonder the validity of his claims.

Edit: For the record, I did not read past the area where he claimed that soldiers are psychopaths. The ideas in that article are founded in assumptions that don't hold up to real-world evidence and logic.

Trying to claim that all of human history is the result of evil plots by people who just want to hurt others for no apparent reason is quite a leap from the simple observation that people will attempt to further their own interests.

I am not certain about it being their twilight...perhaps just a new breed or new techniques. I recall a member here recently posted a thread about a book on this subject. Political Ponerology, concerning the issue sociopathic leaders creating a sociopathic society. It seems quite plausible to me, but I have not read up on the subject though, so maybe they will come by to comment instead.

A lot. We tend to forget we are still animals, just because we can write rants doesn’t change that fact. Chimps are our ancestors we share behaviour of both chimps and bonobos. We have our own unique behaviours too. Our environment is different, we end up having to creating it. We live together in huge numbers. We fight that is enviable, but in fact if chimps could have and operate weapons there would be probably none left. They are very agressive.

The term ‘psychopath' makes only sense from a societal POV. How we think we behave consciously is irrelevant, what is actually going on is what matters, and this is not so trivial to study given that no one can isolate themselves from self influence.

Yes people are susceptible, and gullible. This is not the whole picture. People can be both susceptible and influential. We are all selfish, exactly what owell said. It is a vast simplification to make out that there are a handful of psychopaths running thing and the rest of us are just drones.

There is nothing profound being said in that rant.

[nitpick]Technically, chimps are not our ancestors, we share a common ancestor with them. More accurate would be to refer to them as our siblings or cousins.[/nitpick]