Great post! Metaphysics adds another dimension to this. I was just listening today to your discussions with the podcaster/blogger formerly known as Rolo Slavskyy on the metaphysics of evil (all excellent and insightful discussions, by the way!), and reading this -- well, suppose we grant the possibility that some malevolent spiritual agent is acting upon the psychopaths, it seems reasonable to think that such agent would also seek to coordinate the psychopaths' efforts in order to influence social norms and institutions, with the goal of making them more dysfunctional and detached from reality, which would, in turn, result in both more harm/suffering and more of a camouflage for psychopathy, allowing the psychopaths to drop their mask of sanity and act more openly. Malicious spirits manipulating malicious people manipulating incompetent useful idiots, and the ensuing chaos providing more opportunities and cover for the malicious. A truly vicious cycle!
And, it will continue until the roughly 33.35% of God's Remnant STAND and threaten evil with a return to Hell along with the human souls choosing to host it while on Earth.
Just curious, are you thinking that at the top of the psychopath food chain, people are aware of these malevolent spiritual agents and in a sort of communication? Or are you more thinking these agents exert influence in the same way a large celestial body would exert gravitational pull on a small one? I’m just wondering, on account of people sometimes saying that Hitler had a strong interest in the occult.
Years ago, I passed quickly by an extremely rich Hollywood person in a mall, and I felt like I was hit by a wall of evil. I had never given this person much thought. But it was such a powerful sensation of evil that I was actually scared to tell anyone about it for years, until maybe a year ago when I told a friend. She wanted to know if it was Harvey Weinstein -- it wasn't. She then told me she'd been to a few dinner parties where Harvey Weinstein was present and that he reeked of pure evil. She was quite passionate about her belief that anybody in a room with him absolutely must have known and that it was impossible that they didn’t.
So if you think about it, here’s this man who reeks of pure evil, and all these very well-known politicians and actors and actresses would hang around with him and act like he was a perfectly fine and even wonderful guy. They kept this secret from the rest of the world, or at least from the normies. For this reason, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to me that the “top” psychopaths would know with certainty of a type of evil existing above them, but pretend as if they didn’t.
Those are interesting anecdotes. I've had a few similar experiences and have heard others say the same thing. Of course, I am only speculating as to what the relationship is between the psychopaths at the top and the spiritual evil that uses them. In some cases, people seem to make a series of Faustian bargains that, over time, compromise them and lead to them becoming slaves of evil. Here, I specifically have in mind the rumors about the widespread use of blackmail amongst the very powerful; it seems that those among the upper echelons of power select for people whom they are able to compromise in this way. I suspect the people who are ensnared by blackmail have personality disorders but aren't literally psychopathic, though they may eventually act like psychopaths: they intentionally inflict suffering on others, but not suffering for its own sake, but rather, they do things that give them a feeling of power or that strengthen their standing within the elite cabal or that win the approval of those more powerful than themselves, and in these cases, the suffering of others seems to be almost incidental. On the other hand, there are people who seem to be psychopathic from almost the very beginning of their lives, with stories of them as children torturing animals and intentionally inflicting suffering on others and then enjoying that suffering for its own sake. They don't care if anyone else sees it or knows about it; they sometimes don't even seem to care it they witness it firsthand; they seem driven by a sheer desire to cause suffering for the sake of causing suffering, with no other end in mind. In those cases, they seem to be "organic portals" (Laura Knight-Jadczyk's term) for some kind of spiritual evil that wears them like a hand wears a glove. Of which variety are the people at the top of the cabal running our world today? I don't know, but I suspect they are of the second sort: some spiritual evil practically wears and animates their body, and even their personality, like a hand wearing a glove, and at the same time, the evil within them may also strive consciously to connect with the evil outside them, in much the same way that Christians might talk about someone being "in Christ" or "filled with the Holy Spirit," but with it being evil instead of good.
Dang…very sobering stuff. I remember reading that Solzhenitsyn said at some point we’re going to have to rise to the task of our age. And now here we are.
Sometimes I watch a video of “elites” talking on a panel, and they absolutely talk about the rest of us like we are “secondary things.” It’s unsettling the way they talk as if they are discussing inexorable processes that we will be subject to. I’m sure there have always been those who talk like this. What makes today notable to me is the sense that evil is gaining strength. It could be either “they” are collectively getting stronger in the way Lobaczewski describes (they’ve heard a “siren call” and understand that this is their time), OR someone/something new has entered the room. Or both?? But the way it is getting stronger is palpable. I have a very elderly relative who is partially blind and hardly ever leaves the house, and even she has commented on it and says it’s scary.
To be fair, the vast majority of people talk the same way about people living in poverty, demostically or globally. Generally speaking, all humans are bad, the particulars vary according to their situation.
We are indeed in the middle of a competence crisis, for those with demonstrated good judgment and general competence, it is amazing and troubling to observe. Btw more people need to understand the Pareto Dist, and while the 80/20 is a good way to explain it and understand it, in reality its often more extreme, your 6 and 94 is also Pareto.
Cool. Pareto IS very interesting, I am used to using it professionally in engineering, but Jordan Peterson gives lots of social science examples, where like 1% of the criminals commit like 50% of all crime, kinds of things. Its a natural law that basically means there are always small groups of people with outsize characteristics.
Its a good question - Not only do we have to ask the question A) what is good judgement, and how is it acquired, but then the corollary B) who HAS good judgment and what markers are there for said good judgment. I would answer thus: Over the long term, everyone makes daily and even more frequent decisions, and over time, those decisions add up, and the more good decisions someone makes (and by inference has good judgment) the more successful they are, in a whole variety of ways. I would say success is measured in social respect/status, wealth, professional success, happy relationships. So I would say that someone who is middle aged, happily married with kids and some wealth and career success would, almost by definition, have good judgment.
Well, I reckon those on the bottom, both domestically and globally, are there as a consequence to a non-trivial degree of the collective decisions of the people you are referring to, at least as far as the United States is concerned.
Well I was referring more to individuals, and regardless where you sit on the socio-economic ladder, every individual has a decision making skill level that ends up affecting how they end up. But there is also a collective decision making process, kind of the aggregate of the entire society, and that decision making of everyone ends up reflected in the success of that society. You could say that if the aggregate decision making is really bad, you end up with a failed state. Its clear that a lot of western states are currently experiencing a collective decline in decision making ability and this reflected in many socio-economic stats going into decline.
This bias and resulting discrimination in family court and divorce have brought about a suicide crisis for middle age men. 75% of divorces are initiated by women. Men are often left alone, broken and financially bankrupt. If you have kids, just imagine that one day a judge tells you that you get one weekend every two weeks to see your own children. They are often turned against you by your ex-spouse.
You lose the home you worked hard to buy while some other man is living in it. All the while you're expected to continue paying. Essentially, you are being replaced by another man and you have no control over it. A horrible nightmare. No wonder 75% of divorces are initiated by women. It's sad but understandable that a man would be devastated.
I can't emphasize enough that this is a generalization. 25% of divorces are initiated by men. Also, some women who initiate divorce have good reason. Most of all it's no picnic for them either. My point is that the judicial system needs to change. It's broken and has been for a very long time. Women can do a lot to speak out for fairness. I think that's what it's going to take to make positive changes.
Yes, absolutely, but the appellation serves only as a marker. In one very real sense, it's a distraction.
It's the other side of the coin that is the pathologization of everyday eccentricity. Another outcome of therapy culture that is neither therapeutic nor cultural.
Psychopaths are, as you so astutely point out, embedded within every strata of society. As a practical matter, labeling them as evil is how the average low-information person obtains some slight protection from the malevolent acts of the psychopaths among us.
Fine essay, by the way. Looking forward to your further explorations of the mechanism of action by which incompetence breeds malevolence.
I find this article very well-written. Is it the start of a new approach in your writing? For me, it is certainly more to the point, as it shows us the way to remedial actions that can be taken.
Hubbard is quoted that he found about 2-1/2% of the people he worked with to have "suppressive" or "criminal" personalities. Elsewhere he is quoted that about ten times that number are actively connected to such people and cause most of the problems in society. You have stated this in a similar way. The psychopath "targets" others in his vicinity and attempts, essentially, to drive them crazy.
He started out calling such people "accident prone," and developed a test for them which is still in use. Later, when he developed his Suppressive Person theory, he began to call them "Potential Trouble Sources" (PTS). You will find these terms in his literature - particularly his writings on Ethics and Justice - if you ever get a chance to look these over.
An extension of this is his Third Party Law, which is available on the Scientology streaming channel as a narrated video. The "Third Party" is a Suppressive Person (psychopath) who is working to create conflicts between people, preferably violent conflicts. Because of this, wars and other violent conflicts will seldom fully resolve because the Third Party has not been located.
Courtney Brown, while unaware of Hubbard's work in this area, has discovered the existence of "bad ETs" who "get in the heads" of their targets and give them misinformation in order to cause trouble. Human third parties must resort to rumor mongering or "whispering campaigns" to accomplish a similar outcome.
The added dimension of ET involvement in life on Earth is an unsettling complication. But whether the Third Party, SP, or psychopath is a regular human or an ET with psychic powers, the handling is similar.
The general public has to be made aware that such personalities exist, as well as the mechanisms they use to cause trouble. Each individual can then endeavor to rid themselves of their own mental weaknesses that cause them to get attracted and attached to such personalities; or develop some other form of safeguard. The therapy required to "proof" oneself against psychopaths does not come cheap, so most of us - for now - must rely on personal or social (legal) mechanisms for detecting and avoiding such "bad" people. An obvious target for education is lawyers and legal scholars. I do not expect this, though, to be an easy job. My church, with all its people and money, is having a very difficult time of it.
"Is it the start of a new approach in your writing? For me, it is certainly more to the point, as it shows us the way to remedial actions that can be taken."
I always thought this was the fundamental flaw in the movie Idiocracy: the assumption that stupid people are benevolent and willing to defer to smarter people if given the chance. Anyone with even a little life experience knows it's the opposite.
Harrison, did you see the latest Jordan Peterson interview with Schellenberger, apparently he is writing a book called "Pathocracy", and the Political Ponerology book gets a lot of airtime...
In a way we can use Tolstoy to peer deeply into the issue but it is a leap - Tolstoy said history would be a wonderful thing if only it were true. We who live in a Fallen World know that Jesus Christ is true and many Christians are not Christian despite Baptism and church attendance. And this simply is observational. Old Adam lives each generation, and the civilizing encounter with Faith has I believe curbed the worst in us but it is a Fallen World.
There is a man somewhere who makes swords that are ridiculously large and heavy, and actually they are to scale of the ones in the Final Fantasy games. I doubt even Wilt Chamberlain or Shaquille O’Neal would be able to properly hold one.
Great post! Metaphysics adds another dimension to this. I was just listening today to your discussions with the podcaster/blogger formerly known as Rolo Slavskyy on the metaphysics of evil (all excellent and insightful discussions, by the way!), and reading this -- well, suppose we grant the possibility that some malevolent spiritual agent is acting upon the psychopaths, it seems reasonable to think that such agent would also seek to coordinate the psychopaths' efforts in order to influence social norms and institutions, with the goal of making them more dysfunctional and detached from reality, which would, in turn, result in both more harm/suffering and more of a camouflage for psychopathy, allowing the psychopaths to drop their mask of sanity and act more openly. Malicious spirits manipulating malicious people manipulating incompetent useful idiots, and the ensuing chaos providing more opportunities and cover for the malicious. A truly vicious cycle!
This is very close to what I think is going on.
And, it will continue until the roughly 33.35% of God's Remnant STAND and threaten evil with a return to Hell along with the human souls choosing to host it while on Earth.
Just curious, are you thinking that at the top of the psychopath food chain, people are aware of these malevolent spiritual agents and in a sort of communication? Or are you more thinking these agents exert influence in the same way a large celestial body would exert gravitational pull on a small one? I’m just wondering, on account of people sometimes saying that Hitler had a strong interest in the occult.
Years ago, I passed quickly by an extremely rich Hollywood person in a mall, and I felt like I was hit by a wall of evil. I had never given this person much thought. But it was such a powerful sensation of evil that I was actually scared to tell anyone about it for years, until maybe a year ago when I told a friend. She wanted to know if it was Harvey Weinstein -- it wasn't. She then told me she'd been to a few dinner parties where Harvey Weinstein was present and that he reeked of pure evil. She was quite passionate about her belief that anybody in a room with him absolutely must have known and that it was impossible that they didn’t.
So if you think about it, here’s this man who reeks of pure evil, and all these very well-known politicians and actors and actresses would hang around with him and act like he was a perfectly fine and even wonderful guy. They kept this secret from the rest of the world, or at least from the normies. For this reason, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to me that the “top” psychopaths would know with certainty of a type of evil existing above them, but pretend as if they didn’t.
Anyway, great (scary) comment!!
Those are interesting anecdotes. I've had a few similar experiences and have heard others say the same thing. Of course, I am only speculating as to what the relationship is between the psychopaths at the top and the spiritual evil that uses them. In some cases, people seem to make a series of Faustian bargains that, over time, compromise them and lead to them becoming slaves of evil. Here, I specifically have in mind the rumors about the widespread use of blackmail amongst the very powerful; it seems that those among the upper echelons of power select for people whom they are able to compromise in this way. I suspect the people who are ensnared by blackmail have personality disorders but aren't literally psychopathic, though they may eventually act like psychopaths: they intentionally inflict suffering on others, but not suffering for its own sake, but rather, they do things that give them a feeling of power or that strengthen their standing within the elite cabal or that win the approval of those more powerful than themselves, and in these cases, the suffering of others seems to be almost incidental. On the other hand, there are people who seem to be psychopathic from almost the very beginning of their lives, with stories of them as children torturing animals and intentionally inflicting suffering on others and then enjoying that suffering for its own sake. They don't care if anyone else sees it or knows about it; they sometimes don't even seem to care it they witness it firsthand; they seem driven by a sheer desire to cause suffering for the sake of causing suffering, with no other end in mind. In those cases, they seem to be "organic portals" (Laura Knight-Jadczyk's term) for some kind of spiritual evil that wears them like a hand wears a glove. Of which variety are the people at the top of the cabal running our world today? I don't know, but I suspect they are of the second sort: some spiritual evil practically wears and animates their body, and even their personality, like a hand wearing a glove, and at the same time, the evil within them may also strive consciously to connect with the evil outside them, in much the same way that Christians might talk about someone being "in Christ" or "filled with the Holy Spirit," but with it being evil instead of good.
Dang…very sobering stuff. I remember reading that Solzhenitsyn said at some point we’re going to have to rise to the task of our age. And now here we are.
Sometimes I watch a video of “elites” talking on a panel, and they absolutely talk about the rest of us like we are “secondary things.” It’s unsettling the way they talk as if they are discussing inexorable processes that we will be subject to. I’m sure there have always been those who talk like this. What makes today notable to me is the sense that evil is gaining strength. It could be either “they” are collectively getting stronger in the way Lobaczewski describes (they’ve heard a “siren call” and understand that this is their time), OR someone/something new has entered the room. Or both?? But the way it is getting stronger is palpable. I have a very elderly relative who is partially blind and hardly ever leaves the house, and even she has commented on it and says it’s scary.
To be fair, the vast majority of people talk the same way about people living in poverty, demostically or globally. Generally speaking, all humans are bad, the particulars vary according to their situation.
We are indeed in the middle of a competence crisis, for those with demonstrated good judgment and general competence, it is amazing and troubling to observe. Btw more people need to understand the Pareto Dist, and while the 80/20 is a good way to explain it and understand it, in reality its often more extreme, your 6 and 94 is also Pareto.
Yeah, after a few minutes of thinking about it I realized I was just reinventing Pareto, but whatevs! ;)
Cool. Pareto IS very interesting, I am used to using it professionally in engineering, but Jordan Peterson gives lots of social science examples, where like 1% of the criminals commit like 50% of all crime, kinds of things. Its a natural law that basically means there are always small groups of people with outsize characteristics.
Who are you referring to with demonstrated good judgment and general competence?
Its a good question - Not only do we have to ask the question A) what is good judgement, and how is it acquired, but then the corollary B) who HAS good judgment and what markers are there for said good judgment. I would answer thus: Over the long term, everyone makes daily and even more frequent decisions, and over time, those decisions add up, and the more good decisions someone makes (and by inference has good judgment) the more successful they are, in a whole variety of ways. I would say success is measured in social respect/status, wealth, professional success, happy relationships. So I would say that someone who is middle aged, happily married with kids and some wealth and career success would, almost by definition, have good judgment.
Well, I reckon those on the bottom, both domestically and globally, are there as a consequence to a non-trivial degree of the collective decisions of the people you are referring to, at least as far as the United States is concerned.
Well I was referring more to individuals, and regardless where you sit on the socio-economic ladder, every individual has a decision making skill level that ends up affecting how they end up. But there is also a collective decision making process, kind of the aggregate of the entire society, and that decision making of everyone ends up reflected in the success of that society. You could say that if the aggregate decision making is really bad, you end up with a failed state. Its clear that a lot of western states are currently experiencing a collective decline in decision making ability and this reflected in many socio-economic stats going into decline.
Who are some individuals with objectively good judgment?
I know lots personally, you wouldn't know them.
This bias and resulting discrimination in family court and divorce have brought about a suicide crisis for middle age men. 75% of divorces are initiated by women. Men are often left alone, broken and financially bankrupt. If you have kids, just imagine that one day a judge tells you that you get one weekend every two weeks to see your own children. They are often turned against you by your ex-spouse.
You lose the home you worked hard to buy while some other man is living in it. All the while you're expected to continue paying. Essentially, you are being replaced by another man and you have no control over it. A horrible nightmare. No wonder 75% of divorces are initiated by women. It's sad but understandable that a man would be devastated.
I can't emphasize enough that this is a generalization. 25% of divorces are initiated by men. Also, some women who initiate divorce have good reason. Most of all it's no picnic for them either. My point is that the judicial system needs to change. It's broken and has been for a very long time. Women can do a lot to speak out for fairness. I think that's what it's going to take to make positive changes.
"Personality disordered?"
Yes, absolutely, but the appellation serves only as a marker. In one very real sense, it's a distraction.
It's the other side of the coin that is the pathologization of everyday eccentricity. Another outcome of therapy culture that is neither therapeutic nor cultural.
Psychopaths are, as you so astutely point out, embedded within every strata of society. As a practical matter, labeling them as evil is how the average low-information person obtains some slight protection from the malevolent acts of the psychopaths among us.
Fine essay, by the way. Looking forward to your further explorations of the mechanism of action by which incompetence breeds malevolence.
I find this article very well-written. Is it the start of a new approach in your writing? For me, it is certainly more to the point, as it shows us the way to remedial actions that can be taken.
Hubbard is quoted that he found about 2-1/2% of the people he worked with to have "suppressive" or "criminal" personalities. Elsewhere he is quoted that about ten times that number are actively connected to such people and cause most of the problems in society. You have stated this in a similar way. The psychopath "targets" others in his vicinity and attempts, essentially, to drive them crazy.
He started out calling such people "accident prone," and developed a test for them which is still in use. Later, when he developed his Suppressive Person theory, he began to call them "Potential Trouble Sources" (PTS). You will find these terms in his literature - particularly his writings on Ethics and Justice - if you ever get a chance to look these over.
An extension of this is his Third Party Law, which is available on the Scientology streaming channel as a narrated video. The "Third Party" is a Suppressive Person (psychopath) who is working to create conflicts between people, preferably violent conflicts. Because of this, wars and other violent conflicts will seldom fully resolve because the Third Party has not been located.
Courtney Brown, while unaware of Hubbard's work in this area, has discovered the existence of "bad ETs" who "get in the heads" of their targets and give them misinformation in order to cause trouble. Human third parties must resort to rumor mongering or "whispering campaigns" to accomplish a similar outcome.
The added dimension of ET involvement in life on Earth is an unsettling complication. But whether the Third Party, SP, or psychopath is a regular human or an ET with psychic powers, the handling is similar.
The general public has to be made aware that such personalities exist, as well as the mechanisms they use to cause trouble. Each individual can then endeavor to rid themselves of their own mental weaknesses that cause them to get attracted and attached to such personalities; or develop some other form of safeguard. The therapy required to "proof" oneself against psychopaths does not come cheap, so most of us - for now - must rely on personal or social (legal) mechanisms for detecting and avoiding such "bad" people. An obvious target for education is lawyers and legal scholars. I do not expect this, though, to be an easy job. My church, with all its people and money, is having a very difficult time of it.
"Is it the start of a new approach in your writing? For me, it is certainly more to the point, as it shows us the way to remedial actions that can be taken."
I guess so!
Like that Koehli’s battle-axe!
Excellent article Harrison!
Thank you. I have to agree with fellow commentator Daniel regarding the metaphysical.
The psychopaths all march to the beat of the same drummer ultimately.
I always thought this was the fundamental flaw in the movie Idiocracy: the assumption that stupid people are benevolent and willing to defer to smarter people if given the chance. Anyone with even a little life experience knows it's the opposite.
Another fundamental flaw: stupid and smarter are only so on a relative scale, but they are perceived to be absolute.
Harrison, did you see the latest Jordan Peterson interview with Schellenberger, apparently he is writing a book called "Pathocracy", and the Political Ponerology book gets a lot of airtime...
No, I didn't see that yet! I'll check it out ASAP. Thanks for the heads up, Gary.
In a way we can use Tolstoy to peer deeply into the issue but it is a leap - Tolstoy said history would be a wonderful thing if only it were true. We who live in a Fallen World know that Jesus Christ is true and many Christians are not Christian despite Baptism and church attendance. And this simply is observational. Old Adam lives each generation, and the civilizing encounter with Faith has I believe curbed the worst in us but it is a Fallen World.
Dang it. Why did you have to add another item I don’t need to my wanted list?
Occupational hazard!
There is a man somewhere who makes swords that are ridiculously large and heavy, and actually they are to scale of the ones in the Final Fantasy games. I doubt even Wilt Chamberlain or Shaquille O’Neal would be able to properly hold one.
Have You pondered the influence of money systems on the prevalence of psychopaths in control on Our planet?
Why Does Money Promote Psychopaths? (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/why-does-money-promote-psychopaths