The Pathocracy...VERY interesting read...

[Triana]

...



The past behavior of a society will be used by the psychopath (or ponerological network) to predict the future behavior of that society. Like an individual player, a society will have a certain probability of detecting deception and a more or less accurate memory of who has cheated them in the past. The society will also have a developed, or not developed, proclivity to retaliate against a liar and cheater. Since the psychopath is using an actuarial approach to assess the costs and benefits of different behaviors, (just how much can he get away with), it is the actual past behavior of the society which will go into his calculations rather than any risk assessments based on any “fears or anxieties” of being caught and punished that empathic people would feel in anticipation of doing something illegal.

Thus, in order to reduce psychopathic behavior in society and in government, a society must establish and enforce a reputation for high rates of detection of deception and identification of liars, and a willingness to retaliate. In other words, it must establish a successful strategy of deterrence.

Since the psychopath is particularly unable to make decisions based on future consequences, only able to focus attention on immediate gratification - short-term goals - it is possible that such individuals can be dealt with by establishing a history of dealing out swift social retaliation. That is, identifying and punishing liars and cheaters must be both immediate and flawlessly consistent, thus predictable in it’s occurrence.

And here we come to the issue concerning real-world human social interactions on a large scale: reducing psychopathy in our leaders depends upon expanding society’s collective memory of individual players’ past behavior. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Any reasonable scan of the news will reveal that lies and cheating are not “covered up” as thoroughly as American apologists would like to think.

Even the less well-informed Americans have some idea that there was certainly something fishy about the investigation into the assassination of JFK. In recent years, the man in charge of the Warren Commission, Gerald Ford, also a former President, admitted to “cheating” on the report when he admitted to changing the placement of one of the bullet wounds in the final report.

Then, there was Watergate followed by the Iran-Contra affair, not to mention “Monica-gate”. Those seem almost naïve compared to the lies of the current people in power. The lies of the Bush gang, from stolen elections, to the 9/11 attacks, and through the infamous weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, have taken the art of lying to heights that would impress Hitler himself. And here we are just hitting some highlights, most familiar to all Americans.

What consequences did the cheaters of society suffer?

None to speak of. In fact, in nearly every case, they were rewarded handsomely with those things of value to the psychopath: money and material goods. If anyone thinks they were shamed by public exposure, think again!


MUCH MORE...

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski_2.htm

[Gabi Hayes]

1. I'm sorry, but...ponerological?

I know many many leaders have behaved ponerologically, but would Clinton be considered poonerological?

http://ponerology.blogspot.com/2006/01/paramoralisms-ponerological-definition.html

[BlooInBloo]

6. Offhand it looks like nothing so much as intellectual-wanna-be's wrapping themselves in big words...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponerology

[Triana]

7. So you disagree that...

...whether by design or evolutionary adaptation, America's unbridled, capitalistic greed, which condones -- rewards even -- manipulative, deceitful, apathetic methods to succeed, has given rise to, largely, a population of psychopaths, ruled by psychopaths . . . incapable of knowing its own maliciousness?

[BlooInBloo]

9. The warnings at the top of the wiki page are a decent summation of what I think...

(and no, I had no hand in those warnings' appearance.)

[Triana]

10. So what is happening right now, in this country, as I described ...

... in my previous question, and which the article refers to, is NOT a "reliable source"?

The sun comes up in the morning. Every morning. Someone can post about that on Wikipedia and the warning can appear that the assertion comes from an "unreliable source". Forget that it happens every day. Right in front of your face. Day after day.

THAT is not a reliable source?

Forget the word 'ponerology' if that's what you're trying to use to distract from the assertion the article makes.

Are we or are we not creating a nation of narcissists and psychopaths and a government in that same disordered image to run the nation-- by our very capitalist, dog-eat-dog way of living that turns people who genetically are otherwise not predisposed to those disorders -- into narcissists and psychopaths in order to survive? AND who chose leaders who will help them perpetuate that way of life so that they can continue to survive? Whether by evolution or by process, it appears that this just might be what is happening - whether the word 'ponerology' (which is a quite apt word for it bytheway) is used or not.

It appears to me that if you read DU much, listen to Keith Olbermann, read Arianna Huffington, are aware of the USAttorney scandal, the lies that got us into Iraq, the Scooter Libby trial, The Enron scandal, gas prices lately, etc. etc. or if you partake of any number of other enlightened sources of non-lamestream news, THAT would be all the "reliable sources" you'd need. It's staring you right in the face.

But hey whatever. I hope that rising sun doesn't blind you further while you're still denying that it ever comes up, based on some word someone used to describe its rising that you decided you don't like, or because Wikipedia says it's (whether it happens or not) "unreliable" based on the same word.

In other words, maybe the information isn't as faulty as your methods for parsing it are.

[BlooInBloo]

11. rofl! Yah - my position is JUST LIKE denying that the sun rises! LOLOL!

[Triana]

13. That information isn't faulty either...

...your method of parsing it is, again. By GEORGE you've done it again! Congratulations on making the same mistake twice. Sheesh.

[Raksha]

2. Long, but well worth reading.

I had forgotten what ponerology meant, having seen the word only once before following up a DU link. After the Bush administration (assuming America survives it), I predict we'll have a much better understanding of it than we did before.

[Triana]

4. I agree. And it is a long read but well worth it....

...and I hope it's correct that a pathocracy won't survive. We very much need it not to.

[Wiley50]

3. Yeah, I Guess that's very true. Except that this psychopath

the worst he ever does is drink a beer or two or smoke some pot
and the society he has to snooker
is an ex-wife, who is an ex-wife specificly because she is a fucking nazi
about whether I have have sovereignty over my own life and bloodstream

So, yes I lie
( unless I want to spend the rest of the evening listening to her screaming at me)
and the actuarial tables, as it were
are in my favor
if I blame the beer smell on my breath
on Non- alcoholic beer
(worked this week for Chimpy)

But it's a Goddamn larceny of sovereignty
that I have to do this shit
'cause there weren't enough open-minded women available
for me to have a relationship with
and I had to take a "good German" corporatist
who believes the propaganda of society
even though I've been trying to get it into her thick head
for over ten years now

Like I said, she's an eX-wife
but we get along

sorta

[Raksha]

5. I have to tell you, though: I just had a long look

at the rest of the Signs of the Times site you linked to, and I find it VERY disturbing! While there is a lot of material that is consistent with posts by Octafish and others regarding the BFEE (i.e. about the CIA's black ops), there is also a distinctly anti-Semitic streak. For example: There is a very long three-part article (which I skimmed quickly) about the causes of hostility towards the Jews that absolutely obsesses over Jewish particularism as though it's the root of all evil, somehow worse than all other particularism and ethnocentrism. That's familiar right-wing tinfoil territory, and that's where I get off.

[BornagainDUer]

8. Thanks for the headsup. This is very convoluted stuff, but whenever

racial or ethnic causality is suggested for a pathology it is time to raise a red-flag as you have done. It harkens back to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" crapola that acted as a basis for Naziism.

The fascists are very good at muddying the philosophical waters.

[Triana]

12. Same author cited by Onlinejournal.com

"Yet, the author warns the reader that our own unconscious processes can cause us to block out the “red flags” that may arise in dealing with sociopaths. “Unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time and in scope, which makes many psychological phenomena possible.” (P. 152) Thus the denial that prohibits some individuals from seeing the darkest truths of what a sociopath is trying to promote, i.e., “Our government wouldn’t harm us; our government has our best interests at heart; no president could get away with that; the rule of law is still at work in America; fascism can’t happen here; the U.S. government couldn’t possibly have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks; if 9/11 were orchestrated by the U.S. government, too many people would have been involved for it to remain a secret,” and on and on ad infinitum.

Lobaczewski asserts that every society should teach its members proper thinking skills and how to detect the red flags of sociopathy. Teaching critical thinking skills in the educational process is one step in that direction, but in America’s No Child Left Behind gargantuan dumbing down project, even this first step is overwhelmingly absent.

The author states that “an ever-strengthening network of psychopathic and related individuals gradually starts to dominate, overshadowing the others.” (P. 192) This situation rapidly devolves into a pathocracy or a system wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people. (P. 193) The book’s editor, Laura Knight-Jadczyk, in her footnotes does not hesitate to name Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, under the tutelage of Leo Strauss, as principal players in America’s twenty-first century pathocracy. Tragically, according to the author, “Pathocracy progressively paralyzes everything . . . progressively intrudes everywhere and dulls everything.” (P. 195)"

Political Ponerology is an invaluable work that every human being striving to become conscious, should read, not only for its exposé of the pathology of the individuals currently in control of the United States government, but also the light it may shed on individuals closer to home, some of whom may be friends, fellow-activists, business or civic leaders. The book’s purpose is not to incite paranoia, but to cultivate discernment and buttress our trust of our innate intuition in order to navigate the daunting manifestations of evil that surround us in the twenty-first century.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1763.shtml