The trouble with politics

I've been involved in politics long enough to have come to the conclusion that it is systemically pathological in the same way that many people now accept that the big corporations are pathological.

The trouble with politics is that being based on power relationships, it attracts and promotes people who have a pathological need for power over others and thus who are psychopaths in the strict definition of the term.

Dr. Robert Hare [1], professor emeritus in the Psychology department at UBC is one of the world's foremost experts on what he has called psychopathy. According to Hare, psychopaths lack both conscience and feelings for others. They use superficial charm, manipulation, intimidation, and sometimes (but not always) violence to control others and satisfy their own needs.

Psychopaths get what they want by violating social norms and expectations without guilt or regret while their intelligence and social skills enable them to construct a facade of normalcy.

Doesn't that describe the way that politics and many politicians operate?

Psychopaths do well in politics. They are ideally suited to the ruthless, competitive, self-promoting and manipulative power games that dominate party politics.

No wonder so many people intuitively distrust politicians and don't bother to vote. Evasiveness, outright lies and dissimulation are the norm in politics. Like a chameleon's ability to change colour, they are a politician's survival camouflage.

I'm not saying that all politicians are stark raving loony psychopaths who would cheerfully spy on others, order assassinations, sign death warrants, make war on defenseless people, or mercilessly exploit the world's resources for their own gain.

There are many good people in politics for the finest of motives, including a desire to improve the world. But it's a rare person who can endure in politics and keep her or his integrity intact over the years. Principled people soon get sickened by the pathological games and either quit or are reduced to using the same devious, manipulative techniques.

On the other hand, there are enough examples of psychopaths throughout history and in positions of power today to keep the whole Machiavellian pot boiling nicely.

War is the ultimate psychopathy — is not the current “War on Terror” pathological?

We all are psychologically split to a greater or lesser degree — the Zen split that stops us from being completely whole.

We are split from each other in many ways: racism, nationalism, religion, sexism, homophobia, political affiliation, personal hatreds, even failed relationships. We are split from Nature in our cities. Our economies function independent of ecosystems.Our contemporary society is deeply split, it's Koyaanisqatsi [2] — life out of balance.

We ravish Nature as though this small planet has no limits on what we call “resources” to mitigate our societal greed.

We destroy whole species [3] and ecosystems in the belief that they will always recover.We kill animals and other humans without the thought that they too have a consciousness that can experience suffering.

We believe that the universe is a “thing” and not alive, and that only humans have self-consciousness.

No wonder our world is in such a terrible state. Who cares if the truth becomes only a matter of expediency? Or a few species get obliterated? Or millions of third-world poor are killed or starved? Or vital local and global ecosystems trashed?

Certainly not our psychopathic politicians. As long as the money rolls in to subsidize the party for the next election and return the gang to power, all is fair.

Our political system wants to preserve the heedless economic growth that accompanied the Industrial revolution. It is split off from reality.

Politicians call themselves “realists” and accuse critics of being “radical. ” But it is they who are unreal. Their devotion to mindless economic growth radically undermines the very ecosystems that gave rise to and nurtured our human species.

But politics is promoted as most important by a pathological corporate media. Political parties are subsidized by the psychopathic corporations who dominate the global economy. And by the military, and by secret police forces everywhere.

Am I suggesting that our world is being run by psychopaths? You bet! There's no way that I can call what is going on right now as mentally sane or healthy. Our society is sick, and our political systems reflect the deep malaise that afflicts human societies globally. Our pathological society is cut off from life itself. It is anti-life.

That's why it's so important to overcome the splits within ourselves — each one of us — and to recognize that our political system attracts and promotes psychopaths.

The wimpy subservience of the U.S. Democratic Party to its corporate backers or the unmitigated venality and racism of the Republicans, don't surprise me at all.

Nor do the antics of Georgie Boy II, or his puppet-masters Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, or any other the other faceless psychopaths who have ruthlessly clawed their way into positions of power. They all have similar psychopathic personalities.

I don't think politics is going to save the world. I think it's going to continue to destroy it.

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