On the one hand it is clarifying to explain what makes these people tick and to classify them. On the other hand: if you try to put a scientific outlook on them, it will serve as another step towards normalization.
I say: Let's call them what they were always called: EVIL. So that it is clear to anyone who likes the good guys to win, what it is they should be opposing.
Like many of your posts, this one is extremely interesting. While you are surprised that many people read you, I'm not surprised. Many of us wonder how the world works, and your analyses provide pieces of the puzzle that are very hard to find elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if you are the only one who has publicly made the connection of these psychological traits with the ruling classes.
Now here is a question. Assuming that you are correct and that the normalization of pedophilia is because the narcissists want to be free from conscience, why now? Why has pedophilia been a taboo for centuries? Wasn't the ruling class full of narcissists 1000 years ago? What prevented them from normalizing it at that time?
I can think of some answers to the above but I'm interested in your perspective.
I think the normalization of pedophilia is happening now because these social forces have reached the necessary weight to do it. If a small part of society tries to do it, it won´t work as well or at all. However, this was a long time coming and there have been both attempted and successful bridgeheads in the past. For example it seems there were barely any French philosophers or intellectuals in the latter part of 20th century who weren't pedophiles - and they really tried to transform their pedophilia into a social force. See for example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petitions_against_age-of-consent_laws
While the sadism thing is, in my opinion, both real and an important part in pushing the changes we're seeing, it's probably not the only one. I have discussed this in at least two other essays focusing on other drivers. One is the move to more 'physicality' which I suspect is fueling the increase in the sexual 'lack of discrimination' we're seeing.
The other one is the possible drop in self awareness or 'consciousness' and the ability of people to analyze and challenge what they're told. I think people are becoming more and more automatic, like they are running on a program - rather than analyzing and questioning things.
I rarely talk about any of this with people I know - but recently I was with a group of people who were discussing Syria. I pointed out to one of them that HTS was just re-branded ISIS/Al-Qaeda. This is an intelligent man but his argument was simple: He just said 'NO!' That was it. No discussion, no willingness to obtain information, no nothing.
He was just running on a script which was 'Assad=bad; non-Assad=good.' There was no reflection or willingness to engage or to learn. Someone like that can be fed almost any script, like 'pedophilia=normal' or 'Russians=subhumans."
I think this has increased in our societies for reasons I discussed in other essays, particularly in people with low self-awareness to begin with. It's like a good part of our populations are becoming more and more like blind drones.
“Narcissistic behavior intended to elevate self-perception has a very wide range. Its mildest and most common forms are basic oppression, such as ‘banning’ others from saying or doing certain things and oppression/manipulation using passive-aggressive behavior and victim mentality.”
Why are these dark triad traits growing more prevalent in today's world?
There must be some common thread that is in motion now, that didn't exist before.
Here's one answer:
There are certain ideologies or religions that take an otherwise normal individual, and incite their innate tendencies towards narcissism. According to your thesis, this would also include incipient sadism. Woke leftism (wokism), fits this description. The wokust ideology solicits potential narcissists, then encourages latent narcissistic tendencies in those who have bought into the ideology. It invites, solicits, exposes, permits, aids, abets, incites, encourages, and exacerbates individual narcissism.
For wokism, it's a special form of narcissism, moral narcissism, that upon joining the wokust cult, automatically elevates the novice into a higher class of humanity than everyone else from her previous life. It supersedes the reasons for her subconscious self-loathing, and obscures them from her day-to-day consciousness, thereby providing relief from mental and emotional anguish. It's a secular religion and a cult, that exposes and exacerbates even more narcissistic behaviors. It infiltrates like a virus into the mind, undermines basic tenets, and totally changes a person's style of thinking, to the exclusion of objective logic and rational decision making. Because of its deceptive moral authority, it has insinuated itself into every aspect of western societies, and subverted the oblivious masses who reside there.
Feedback from objective reality becomes less and less a part of mental processing. Narratives replace reality and take control of the mind. Narcissism coupled with phenomenology creates expectations that magic words can transform the outer world. Symbols become more important than that which is symbolized. Reality can be socially constructed via narratives, memes, and techniques of semantic deception.
This approach to dealing with the world doesn't require reliance on the flawed self to do all the exhausting, failure-prone hard work in the real world. All of this constitutes an assimilation process, pulling away from the exterior real world and towards the internal mental perfection of idealistic delusions. It's a mental fantasyland of idealism. It requires immanentizing the eschaton as ultimate proof of its essential perfection, i.e., the continual destruction of reality because it's intrinsically flawed and will never match idealistic perfection. For the insane, everyone else must submit to the narrative, otherwise those on the outside, who are still involved with reality, can pull others out of the hivemind into which they were assimilated. The wokust mindset requires constant feedback and confirmation from everyone else. If it's not automatically given, the offender will be declared an unbeliever, a threat, and receive some sadistic form of punishment. Don't expect forgiveness, because that's not part of the wokust belief system.
It should be overwhelmingly obvious that woke leftism must be eradicated from society. Otherwise society, especially western cultures, will continue its slide into insanity and evil. This is more than just a political agenda, it's an existential war against everything we hold dear, everything that we automatically expect as the basis for a normal, happy life in a worthwhile community, society, and nation.
I've thought for some time that the attack on the working class was more than just the greed of the "ruling" class, that there's almost a gleeful, vindictive quality to it. As if to say that exploitation isn't enough, there must be actual pain (deprivation) and humiliation.
As I started to read your captivating essay, what came immediately to my mind was "the depopulation project".
Who is inspiring this modern quest for sadistic freedom ? Qui bono ?
You observe the normalization of sadistic acts, even extreme acts that would be traditionally called evil acts. These acts are now performed at a very large scale.
When describing the extent of normalization of sadistic acts, you did not mention the normalization of medically controlled killing, aka euthanasia, that targets old and/or vulnerable people. You did not mention the normalization of transgender surgery that mutilates kids forever. Nor the satanist esthetics in the fashion and show business worlds. Nor the tolerance of the western society to the war with Russia until the last Ukrainian. And so on, and so on.
To me, it is very unlikely that such a normalization, at such a scale, in every western country, comes out of the blue. Darwinism does not explain this trend. It is more likely that this normalization is the result of a concerted effort by a powerful group of people inspired by malthusianism.
The normalization of sadistic acts is an elusive mass destruction weapon.
Fortunately, for now, this phenomenon remains confined to the Western world, despite the global power of Hollywood.
I absolutely agree that this normalization effort is much bigger than what I discussed in the essay. I said in the essay that I was just going to touch upon the social effects - because it would have been 50 pages if I had gone through it all.
In fact, I have several examples in addition to the ones you mentioned.
That would require an entire speculative essay to answer. However, you just gave me an idea. Perhaps it would be possible to analyze all these efforts (I believe there are several) and use them to construct a reasonably rigorous psychological profile (or profiles) for the people behind them.
I thought sociopathy has a 2% prevalence in the population. Its presence must have some survival/reproductive advantage over altruistic behavior. I am clueless on this but it is very interesting
Sin duda, es, como ud. dice, un gran dilema decidir sobre la pena de muerte. Yo mismo me encontrado, en diferentes momentos, en los dos campos, a favor y en contra. Hay argumentos poderosos tanto para uno como para otro. Sin embargo, en algún momento el pensamiento se traduce en acción; la puesta en práctica de cualquier opción es inevitable, como lo son sus consecuencias.
Me inclino a pensar que las mayores y peores consecuencias se trasladan al criminal, en el caso de estar a favor, y, en el caso de estar en contra, éstas las sufre la víctima.
Porque, ¿por qué alguien, que niega y arrebata la única oportunidad a otra persona de tener su vida, debería gozar de una segunda oportunidad para la suya?. ¿No es esto injusto de raíz?
Lo que me inquieta actualmente, es que percibo que gradualmente la balanza se inclina a favor del verdugo. En el afán por comprenderlo, terminamos justificándolo y la víctima pasa a un segundo plano.
Incluso para la rehabilitación o reinserción social me hago esta pregunta. La cuestión no es si es posible, sino merecida por el agresor y justa para con la víctima.
Puedo comprender la puesta en marcha de una legislación penal sin pena de muerte y enfocada a la reinserción, pero cuando de ésta está ausente la cadena perpetua, contiene penas máximas relativamente cortas para crímenes atroces y la reinserción es un programa para todos y todas, incluso los compulsivos, esa sociedad ha puesto el carro delante de los caballos.
Si añadimos, como ud. bien explica, una "educación" sádica para las nuevas generaciones y una determinada política migratoria, sin entrar en detalles, creo que estamos condenados. Como puede ver, somos víctimas. Víctimas de un culto a la muerte.
Me gustaría que tratará ud. el tema migratorio en un ensayo, concretamente en Europa.
Por cierto, estoy seguro de que todos los que le leemos deseamos que sus ensayos sean muy largos.
Celia Farber: The Hidden Hand: Babylonian Radhanite Banksters And The Ancient Roots Of Usury, War, And Human Sacrifice. "These Are Not Jews We're Talking About."
Scapegoating Jews Is A Way To Avoid The True History Of Pagan, Moloch Baal, and Mammon Worshipping Pagan Bankers "The History Of Usury Is The History Of The Demonic World Marching Through History."
Hmm, food for thought. About 10 years ago, when the series "Vikings" was airing, I noticed the series glorifies violence for no higher goal. At some point I noticed the series is being aired on TV. I found that a bit disturbing. I wondered how will the future be, if the people today are viewing such material and enjoying it. 10 years later, let's say I know what the answer to that question is. #blockaders #woke #strugglesession #fierybutmostlypeaceful
As an older person who permanently eschewed TV in the 90s and Hollywood movies not long after, I am appalled by the things people think it's okay to watch on shows. I know a very earnest person who would not touch a food product with palm oil in it, but has no problem with watching the kind of evil violence I will not stain my brain to describe. She has a PhD and thirty years of steady professional growth behind her, and she is a damn fool. It really matters what you let into your head.
But a great read. Learnt a quite a bit... There are absolutes in our moral code... not necessarily religious but born out of the Natural Laws.
Seems like many people today are trying mighty hard to make right and wrong relative.
It amazes me that political elements of our society push so hard for gun control while at the same time they push those TV shows and movies so loaded with violence and guns. It's hypocrisy...
I wonder... Social Media... when I first heard about it around '06 I thought it was ludicrous... "Who thinks I care what they had for lunch?"..... yet, it seems to be a huge push for narcissism, huh?
This article is over my head, at least on the first read. I try to start out simple.
My understanding is that a sociopath has no empathy. He or she has no concern about the mental anguish or physical consequences of his acts of deception, manipulation, control etc. on others.
A sadist I always lumped together with a psychopath. But as you state, a psychopath gets no enjoyment from what he inflicts on people, whereas a sadist does? (Got to re-read- forgive me. I was an orthopod, and a very bitter one at that.) I had interchanged sadism with psychopathy.
My ex, the good doctor, had no concerns that she had lied to me, tricked me, deceived me, used me etc. and planned out her trap over our seven year marriage, with five spent in residency in Albany NY, how she was going to lure me back to her home town in Elizabethtown KY, and then go into professional, marital, and maternal meltdown, even after my having paid off all of her medical school loans. She had never intended to work, take care of the children, or be faithful from the day she entered medical school. I was the chump/simp. In fact, in my memoirs "My Medical Legal Back Pages," Archway publisher, Bryce Sterling pen name, I wrote that my ex had no concerns about what she had done to me. Once I had filed for divorce ( because she was unfaithful, refused to work as a fully licensed, board-certified, double fellowship trained in open heart and obstetrical) MD anesthesiologist, or in the alternative, of her expectations that the court allow her to be a "full time mother," meaning I would be expected to pay alimony and full child support so she would never have to work a day in her life. Yet she refused to take care of our 3 and 5 year olds while she ran around, literally and figuratively, with other men on the 10 K circuit, dropped the children off at third party care all day which I paid for, etc. ) Once I had decided to take action, she had no more use for me and was out to get as much money as she could. She had no more empathy than one would have for the trash that is placed out to the curb. Her psychological profile showed elements (admittedly not full-blown axis) of narcissism, histrionics, and hedonism. Her MMPI was flat- she fudged it. Mine was normal. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what happened to me in KY, and then NC. But she was snickering with a Duper's Delight when she wiped me out in the divorce and left my career in ruins because of a related anesthesia case. Last I heard, she was in anesthesiology pain management as a fully tenured professor at U of Louisville, having duped them as well into taking her.
I'm sorry about your troubles. Your ex sounds like a malicious narcissist. They are a total nightmare to be around. It's also possibly that she's a narcissistic sociopath. It can be difficult to distinguish between those two.
The issue with empathy is that it is a phenomenon which only refers to the ability to read other people's emotions, and to literally feel them. If you feel sorrow, the empath can also feel sorrow. What others feel, they can feel. It is not the same thing as compassion or altruism. High empathy people will tell you it is, but it isn't. Feeling emotions does not equate to being a 'good person.'
If you were to manipulate people emotionally, particularly if you do it often and compulsively, you need to be able to read other people's emotions. You need to understand emotions for that. You don't understand emotions unless you have emotions. The stronger you feel emotions, the better. Strong and clear emotions are necessary for having high empathy. A person with muted emotions can't understand the emotions of others, and obviously has low empathy.
In other words, for emotional manipulation it's necessary to have empathy. The more empathy you have, the better at emotional manipulation you will be.
This is crystal clear. The most emotionally manipulative people tend to be emotionally charged - including sexually. A narcissist is emotionally and sexually charged, and will almost always cheat in a relationship.
A sadist (not the psychopath type) is a like an emotion vampire. He literally feels your pain and humiliation (emotions) and derives pleasure from that. Your pain, which he feels directly, gives him a high. A low-empathy person with muted emotions simply can't do this. You have to have high emotional salience, which is necessary for having high empathy, to be able to be a sadist.
Sociopaths have emotions and they can be extremely manipulative. They, however, have limited or no compassion because they don't have the specific emotions necessary for it. This contradictory combination is what makes sociopaths so hard to understand.
Psychopaths have no empathy because they have no emotions, apart from the basic ones. They don't have any compassion either.
Back to your ex. If she is a malicious narcissist, she is highly emotionally charged and with high empathy, and a compulsive need for emotional manipulation. But she is so massively self-important that you simply didn't matter to her as a human being in comparison. Any compassion was therefore suppressed/rationalized away.
What is hard to understand is that a narcissist can love you and absolutely despise you at the same time. People generally can't wrap their heads around something like that. They simply can't believe that people like that actually exist.
Sometimes, rarely, my ex could appear very emotional, eg, after making her father's last wish list trip to Custer's Battlefield with me, her, her mother, and her father who had pancreatic cancer and just weeks to live. He died a few days after returning to KY. My ex and I returned to Albany NY after that and attended a church service. I felt very sad as it all hit me, but she was crying. So your comments are very intriguing.
I had considered her a narcissistic sociopath as she loved appearing in the news, getting articles written about her, collecting trophies running 10K races against sedentary housewives so as to hang up on the wall along with all of her degrees to impress people. But it was the manipulation, the constant manipulation! Even friends who had just met her were immediately turned off by it. You would have to always be on guard. "Now what does Laura want? She's talking to you because she wants something."
I was very angry and this divorce brought the worst out in me. But my ex tried to keep me from seeing the kids so as to solidify her position as the caregiver who deserved total all out support and wouldn't have to work. She immediately remarried and moved 2 hrs away- and moved in with an extremely sheepish, passive guy, an accountant who was a runner whom she met at the starting line of a race. The only time my daughter and I saw each other after 15 years was when she needed money, ( but after I had ponied up $200,000 and wouldn't give her any more, she stopped communicating. The first thing out of her mouth was "there's no love" between her and Stan. They have an open marriage. My daughter, raised exclusively by this passive guy (a spineless jellyfish who could be controlled from the get go) and my ex wound up having two children out of wedlock, addicted to oxycontin, later had a felony conviction for embezzling her employer, and had even been criminally charged by her mother and jailed for stealing her jewelry and giving it to her boyfriend to fence for drug money. Daughter was very intelligent, with an IQ of 131, but manipulative and a pathological liar. My ex was also a hoarder; jewelry and clothes. Many duplicates. Had to build an extension onto Stan's house to keep all her clothes -if that offers any clues. But indeed, this is very confusing in so many ways
Thank you for such clear thinking. Now that you have defined the problem, I would be interested in 1) how you might quantify the problem and 2) how you would suggest we greatly reduce the problem.
Nice try, to come over the road from narcisism. This makes it personell, if not individuell. But there are structures of power behind the trend, to normalize Sadists. Please, reader, try to read some parts of Will Zoll's substack (https://prussiagate.substack.com/p/table-of-contents) or look at the books (V, Gravitys Rainbow) by Thomas Pynchon - more clarity guaranteed.
But thanks, Gaius, I save all your substack-artikles for doubble reading!
A good question. I have to admit that I'm not much of an expert on pedophilia as such. I've tried to understand it but it's an unpleasant subject matter to think about - particularly if you try to get into their minds. It is far easier to explore the mind of a murderous psychopath than a pedophile. Anyway, I'll try to answer.
A lot of pedophiles do not see their actions as sadistic. They even see them as consensual and good for the child, or as 'love' or something like that. When we are talking about someone who is a narcissist+sociopath+pedophile, we are talking about an amazing ability to rationalize. Just because the pedophile can rationalize his actions doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy them and that they aren't sadistic.
However, there is a large group of people who have narcissistic tendencies with massive ability to rationalize who are frankly off the reservation sexually - and who may see this as normal - and have no sadistic intentions. In that case we come back to the question of definition. When does narcissistic behavior graduate into sadistic behavior? I don't think there's a clear cut-off for that.
Also, there are more 'types' of people than these with all kinds of problems, and we can't assume we have described everybody by applying these definitions.
On the one hand it is clarifying to explain what makes these people tick and to classify them. On the other hand: if you try to put a scientific outlook on them, it will serve as another step towards normalization.
I say: Let's call them what they were always called: EVIL. So that it is clear to anyone who likes the good guys to win, what it is they should be opposing.
Like many of your posts, this one is extremely interesting. While you are surprised that many people read you, I'm not surprised. Many of us wonder how the world works, and your analyses provide pieces of the puzzle that are very hard to find elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if you are the only one who has publicly made the connection of these psychological traits with the ruling classes.
Now here is a question. Assuming that you are correct and that the normalization of pedophilia is because the narcissists want to be free from conscience, why now? Why has pedophilia been a taboo for centuries? Wasn't the ruling class full of narcissists 1000 years ago? What prevented them from normalizing it at that time?
I can think of some answers to the above but I'm interested in your perspective.
Thank you for your kind words.
I think the normalization of pedophilia is happening now because these social forces have reached the necessary weight to do it. If a small part of society tries to do it, it won´t work as well or at all. However, this was a long time coming and there have been both attempted and successful bridgeheads in the past. For example it seems there were barely any French philosophers or intellectuals in the latter part of 20th century who weren't pedophiles - and they really tried to transform their pedophilia into a social force. See for example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petitions_against_age-of-consent_laws
While the sadism thing is, in my opinion, both real and an important part in pushing the changes we're seeing, it's probably not the only one. I have discussed this in at least two other essays focusing on other drivers. One is the move to more 'physicality' which I suspect is fueling the increase in the sexual 'lack of discrimination' we're seeing.
The other one is the possible drop in self awareness or 'consciousness' and the ability of people to analyze and challenge what they're told. I think people are becoming more and more automatic, like they are running on a program - rather than analyzing and questioning things.
I rarely talk about any of this with people I know - but recently I was with a group of people who were discussing Syria. I pointed out to one of them that HTS was just re-branded ISIS/Al-Qaeda. This is an intelligent man but his argument was simple: He just said 'NO!' That was it. No discussion, no willingness to obtain information, no nothing.
He was just running on a script which was 'Assad=bad; non-Assad=good.' There was no reflection or willingness to engage or to learn. Someone like that can be fed almost any script, like 'pedophilia=normal' or 'Russians=subhumans."
I think this has increased in our societies for reasons I discussed in other essays, particularly in people with low self-awareness to begin with. It's like a good part of our populations are becoming more and more like blind drones.
“Narcissistic behavior intended to elevate self-perception has a very wide range. Its mildest and most common forms are basic oppression, such as ‘banning’ others from saying or doing certain things and oppression/manipulation using passive-aggressive behavior and victim mentality.”
Why are these dark triad traits growing more prevalent in today's world?
There must be some common thread that is in motion now, that didn't exist before.
Here's one answer:
There are certain ideologies or religions that take an otherwise normal individual, and incite their innate tendencies towards narcissism. According to your thesis, this would also include incipient sadism. Woke leftism (wokism), fits this description. The wokust ideology solicits potential narcissists, then encourages latent narcissistic tendencies in those who have bought into the ideology. It invites, solicits, exposes, permits, aids, abets, incites, encourages, and exacerbates individual narcissism.
For wokism, it's a special form of narcissism, moral narcissism, that upon joining the wokust cult, automatically elevates the novice into a higher class of humanity than everyone else from her previous life. It supersedes the reasons for her subconscious self-loathing, and obscures them from her day-to-day consciousness, thereby providing relief from mental and emotional anguish. It's a secular religion and a cult, that exposes and exacerbates even more narcissistic behaviors. It infiltrates like a virus into the mind, undermines basic tenets, and totally changes a person's style of thinking, to the exclusion of objective logic and rational decision making. Because of its deceptive moral authority, it has insinuated itself into every aspect of western societies, and subverted the oblivious masses who reside there.
Feedback from objective reality becomes less and less a part of mental processing. Narratives replace reality and take control of the mind. Narcissism coupled with phenomenology creates expectations that magic words can transform the outer world. Symbols become more important than that which is symbolized. Reality can be socially constructed via narratives, memes, and techniques of semantic deception.
This approach to dealing with the world doesn't require reliance on the flawed self to do all the exhausting, failure-prone hard work in the real world. All of this constitutes an assimilation process, pulling away from the exterior real world and towards the internal mental perfection of idealistic delusions. It's a mental fantasyland of idealism. It requires immanentizing the eschaton as ultimate proof of its essential perfection, i.e., the continual destruction of reality because it's intrinsically flawed and will never match idealistic perfection. For the insane, everyone else must submit to the narrative, otherwise those on the outside, who are still involved with reality, can pull others out of the hivemind into which they were assimilated. The wokust mindset requires constant feedback and confirmation from everyone else. If it's not automatically given, the offender will be declared an unbeliever, a threat, and receive some sadistic form of punishment. Don't expect forgiveness, because that's not part of the wokust belief system.
It should be overwhelmingly obvious that woke leftism must be eradicated from society. Otherwise society, especially western cultures, will continue its slide into insanity and evil. This is more than just a political agenda, it's an existential war against everything we hold dear, everything that we automatically expect as the basis for a normal, happy life in a worthwhile community, society, and nation.
Wokism delenda est!
I've thought for some time that the attack on the working class was more than just the greed of the "ruling" class, that there's almost a gleeful, vindictive quality to it. As if to say that exploitation isn't enough, there must be actual pain (deprivation) and humiliation.
Reading this made me update my internal moral framework. Owning a woodchipper now seem like a moral imperative and a command from God.
Maybe paint St Michael the archangel on it
As I started to read your captivating essay, what came immediately to my mind was "the depopulation project".
Who is inspiring this modern quest for sadistic freedom ? Qui bono ?
You observe the normalization of sadistic acts, even extreme acts that would be traditionally called evil acts. These acts are now performed at a very large scale.
When describing the extent of normalization of sadistic acts, you did not mention the normalization of medically controlled killing, aka euthanasia, that targets old and/or vulnerable people. You did not mention the normalization of transgender surgery that mutilates kids forever. Nor the satanist esthetics in the fashion and show business worlds. Nor the tolerance of the western society to the war with Russia until the last Ukrainian. And so on, and so on.
To me, it is very unlikely that such a normalization, at such a scale, in every western country, comes out of the blue. Darwinism does not explain this trend. It is more likely that this normalization is the result of a concerted effort by a powerful group of people inspired by malthusianism.
The normalization of sadistic acts is an elusive mass destruction weapon.
Fortunately, for now, this phenomenon remains confined to the Western world, despite the global power of Hollywood.
I absolutely agree that this normalization effort is much bigger than what I discussed in the essay. I said in the essay that I was just going to touch upon the social effects - because it would have been 50 pages if I had gone through it all.
In fact, I have several examples in addition to the ones you mentioned.
So, qui bono ?
That would require an entire speculative essay to answer. However, you just gave me an idea. Perhaps it would be possible to analyze all these efforts (I believe there are several) and use them to construct a reasonably rigorous psychological profile (or profiles) for the people behind them.
I just realized that you already started in your "SCIENCE-FICTION GLOBALISM: HOLLYWOOD’S DESTRUCTION OF EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING" essay...
I thought sociopathy has a 2% prevalence in the population. Its presence must have some survival/reproductive advantage over altruistic behavior. I am clueless on this but it is very interesting
Who is inspiring this modern quest for sadistic freedom ? Qui bono ?
I wonder this, as well.
Gracias por responder.
Sin duda, es, como ud. dice, un gran dilema decidir sobre la pena de muerte. Yo mismo me encontrado, en diferentes momentos, en los dos campos, a favor y en contra. Hay argumentos poderosos tanto para uno como para otro. Sin embargo, en algún momento el pensamiento se traduce en acción; la puesta en práctica de cualquier opción es inevitable, como lo son sus consecuencias.
Me inclino a pensar que las mayores y peores consecuencias se trasladan al criminal, en el caso de estar a favor, y, en el caso de estar en contra, éstas las sufre la víctima.
Porque, ¿por qué alguien, que niega y arrebata la única oportunidad a otra persona de tener su vida, debería gozar de una segunda oportunidad para la suya?. ¿No es esto injusto de raíz?
Lo que me inquieta actualmente, es que percibo que gradualmente la balanza se inclina a favor del verdugo. En el afán por comprenderlo, terminamos justificándolo y la víctima pasa a un segundo plano.
Incluso para la rehabilitación o reinserción social me hago esta pregunta. La cuestión no es si es posible, sino merecida por el agresor y justa para con la víctima.
Puedo comprender la puesta en marcha de una legislación penal sin pena de muerte y enfocada a la reinserción, pero cuando de ésta está ausente la cadena perpetua, contiene penas máximas relativamente cortas para crímenes atroces y la reinserción es un programa para todos y todas, incluso los compulsivos, esa sociedad ha puesto el carro delante de los caballos.
Si añadimos, como ud. bien explica, una "educación" sádica para las nuevas generaciones y una determinada política migratoria, sin entrar en detalles, creo que estamos condenados. Como puede ver, somos víctimas. Víctimas de un culto a la muerte.
Me gustaría que tratará ud. el tema migratorio en un ensayo, concretamente en Europa.
Por cierto, estoy seguro de que todos los que le leemos deseamos que sus ensayos sean muy largos.
Long essays are fun and instructive. Not a problem indeed, actually the inverse.
How do we solve the problem? I'd think the old Movie Rating, or something like that, should come back.
We have, in the USA at least, Freedom of Choice. This however seems to be debasing into Libertinage.
And yes, anyone engage in pedophilia deserves a tree and a rope like they did in the American Old West.
Thank You, Gaius. I read it thoughtfully, all the way through, though it was difficult.
I will pair it with this in the blog post I am composing: https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/the-hidden-hand-babylonian-radhanite
Celia Farber: The Hidden Hand: Babylonian Radhanite Banksters And The Ancient Roots Of Usury, War, And Human Sacrifice. "These Are Not Jews We're Talking About."
Scapegoating Jews Is A Way To Avoid The True History Of Pagan, Moloch Baal, and Mammon Worshipping Pagan Bankers "The History Of Usury Is The History Of The Demonic World Marching Through History."
Hmm, food for thought. About 10 years ago, when the series "Vikings" was airing, I noticed the series glorifies violence for no higher goal. At some point I noticed the series is being aired on TV. I found that a bit disturbing. I wondered how will the future be, if the people today are viewing such material and enjoying it. 10 years later, let's say I know what the answer to that question is. #blockaders #woke #strugglesession #fierybutmostlypeaceful
As an older person who permanently eschewed TV in the 90s and Hollywood movies not long after, I am appalled by the things people think it's okay to watch on shows. I know a very earnest person who would not touch a food product with palm oil in it, but has no problem with watching the kind of evil violence I will not stain my brain to describe. She has a PhD and thirty years of steady professional growth behind her, and she is a damn fool. It really matters what you let into your head.
A depressing read.
But a great read. Learnt a quite a bit... There are absolutes in our moral code... not necessarily religious but born out of the Natural Laws.
Seems like many people today are trying mighty hard to make right and wrong relative.
It amazes me that political elements of our society push so hard for gun control while at the same time they push those TV shows and movies so loaded with violence and guns. It's hypocrisy...
I wonder... Social Media... when I first heard about it around '06 I thought it was ludicrous... "Who thinks I care what they had for lunch?"..... yet, it seems to be a huge push for narcissism, huh?
Two words to you, sir: Thank you.
This article is over my head, at least on the first read. I try to start out simple.
My understanding is that a sociopath has no empathy. He or she has no concern about the mental anguish or physical consequences of his acts of deception, manipulation, control etc. on others.
A sadist I always lumped together with a psychopath. But as you state, a psychopath gets no enjoyment from what he inflicts on people, whereas a sadist does? (Got to re-read- forgive me. I was an orthopod, and a very bitter one at that.) I had interchanged sadism with psychopathy.
My ex, the good doctor, had no concerns that she had lied to me, tricked me, deceived me, used me etc. and planned out her trap over our seven year marriage, with five spent in residency in Albany NY, how she was going to lure me back to her home town in Elizabethtown KY, and then go into professional, marital, and maternal meltdown, even after my having paid off all of her medical school loans. She had never intended to work, take care of the children, or be faithful from the day she entered medical school. I was the chump/simp. In fact, in my memoirs "My Medical Legal Back Pages," Archway publisher, Bryce Sterling pen name, I wrote that my ex had no concerns about what she had done to me. Once I had filed for divorce ( because she was unfaithful, refused to work as a fully licensed, board-certified, double fellowship trained in open heart and obstetrical) MD anesthesiologist, or in the alternative, of her expectations that the court allow her to be a "full time mother," meaning I would be expected to pay alimony and full child support so she would never have to work a day in her life. Yet she refused to take care of our 3 and 5 year olds while she ran around, literally and figuratively, with other men on the 10 K circuit, dropped the children off at third party care all day which I paid for, etc. ) Once I had decided to take action, she had no more use for me and was out to get as much money as she could. She had no more empathy than one would have for the trash that is placed out to the curb. Her psychological profile showed elements (admittedly not full-blown axis) of narcissism, histrionics, and hedonism. Her MMPI was flat- she fudged it. Mine was normal. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what happened to me in KY, and then NC. But she was snickering with a Duper's Delight when she wiped me out in the divorce and left my career in ruins because of a related anesthesia case. Last I heard, she was in anesthesiology pain management as a fully tenured professor at U of Louisville, having duped them as well into taking her.
I'm sorry about your troubles. Your ex sounds like a malicious narcissist. They are a total nightmare to be around. It's also possibly that she's a narcissistic sociopath. It can be difficult to distinguish between those two.
The issue with empathy is that it is a phenomenon which only refers to the ability to read other people's emotions, and to literally feel them. If you feel sorrow, the empath can also feel sorrow. What others feel, they can feel. It is not the same thing as compassion or altruism. High empathy people will tell you it is, but it isn't. Feeling emotions does not equate to being a 'good person.'
If you were to manipulate people emotionally, particularly if you do it often and compulsively, you need to be able to read other people's emotions. You need to understand emotions for that. You don't understand emotions unless you have emotions. The stronger you feel emotions, the better. Strong and clear emotions are necessary for having high empathy. A person with muted emotions can't understand the emotions of others, and obviously has low empathy.
In other words, for emotional manipulation it's necessary to have empathy. The more empathy you have, the better at emotional manipulation you will be.
This is crystal clear. The most emotionally manipulative people tend to be emotionally charged - including sexually. A narcissist is emotionally and sexually charged, and will almost always cheat in a relationship.
A sadist (not the psychopath type) is a like an emotion vampire. He literally feels your pain and humiliation (emotions) and derives pleasure from that. Your pain, which he feels directly, gives him a high. A low-empathy person with muted emotions simply can't do this. You have to have high emotional salience, which is necessary for having high empathy, to be able to be a sadist.
Sociopaths have emotions and they can be extremely manipulative. They, however, have limited or no compassion because they don't have the specific emotions necessary for it. This contradictory combination is what makes sociopaths so hard to understand.
Psychopaths have no empathy because they have no emotions, apart from the basic ones. They don't have any compassion either.
Back to your ex. If she is a malicious narcissist, she is highly emotionally charged and with high empathy, and a compulsive need for emotional manipulation. But she is so massively self-important that you simply didn't matter to her as a human being in comparison. Any compassion was therefore suppressed/rationalized away.
What is hard to understand is that a narcissist can love you and absolutely despise you at the same time. People generally can't wrap their heads around something like that. They simply can't believe that people like that actually exist.
Sometimes, rarely, my ex could appear very emotional, eg, after making her father's last wish list trip to Custer's Battlefield with me, her, her mother, and her father who had pancreatic cancer and just weeks to live. He died a few days after returning to KY. My ex and I returned to Albany NY after that and attended a church service. I felt very sad as it all hit me, but she was crying. So your comments are very intriguing.
I had considered her a narcissistic sociopath as she loved appearing in the news, getting articles written about her, collecting trophies running 10K races against sedentary housewives so as to hang up on the wall along with all of her degrees to impress people. But it was the manipulation, the constant manipulation! Even friends who had just met her were immediately turned off by it. You would have to always be on guard. "Now what does Laura want? She's talking to you because she wants something."
I was very angry and this divorce brought the worst out in me. But my ex tried to keep me from seeing the kids so as to solidify her position as the caregiver who deserved total all out support and wouldn't have to work. She immediately remarried and moved 2 hrs away- and moved in with an extremely sheepish, passive guy, an accountant who was a runner whom she met at the starting line of a race. The only time my daughter and I saw each other after 15 years was when she needed money, ( but after I had ponied up $200,000 and wouldn't give her any more, she stopped communicating. The first thing out of her mouth was "there's no love" between her and Stan. They have an open marriage. My daughter, raised exclusively by this passive guy (a spineless jellyfish who could be controlled from the get go) and my ex wound up having two children out of wedlock, addicted to oxycontin, later had a felony conviction for embezzling her employer, and had even been criminally charged by her mother and jailed for stealing her jewelry and giving it to her boyfriend to fence for drug money. Daughter was very intelligent, with an IQ of 131, but manipulative and a pathological liar. My ex was also a hoarder; jewelry and clothes. Many duplicates. Had to build an extension onto Stan's house to keep all her clothes -if that offers any clues. But indeed, this is very confusing in so many ways
Thank you for such clear thinking. Now that you have defined the problem, I would be interested in 1) how you might quantify the problem and 2) how you would suggest we greatly reduce the problem.
Nice try, to come over the road from narcisism. This makes it personell, if not individuell. But there are structures of power behind the trend, to normalize Sadists. Please, reader, try to read some parts of Will Zoll's substack (https://prussiagate.substack.com/p/table-of-contents) or look at the books (V, Gravitys Rainbow) by Thomas Pynchon - more clarity guaranteed.
But thanks, Gaius, I save all your substack-artikles for doubble reading!
Though you do not state this explicitly, your essay could be interpreted that you say "all pedophiles are sadists". Do you really think so?
A good question. I have to admit that I'm not much of an expert on pedophilia as such. I've tried to understand it but it's an unpleasant subject matter to think about - particularly if you try to get into their minds. It is far easier to explore the mind of a murderous psychopath than a pedophile. Anyway, I'll try to answer.
A lot of pedophiles do not see their actions as sadistic. They even see them as consensual and good for the child, or as 'love' or something like that. When we are talking about someone who is a narcissist+sociopath+pedophile, we are talking about an amazing ability to rationalize. Just because the pedophile can rationalize his actions doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy them and that they aren't sadistic.
However, there is a large group of people who have narcissistic tendencies with massive ability to rationalize who are frankly off the reservation sexually - and who may see this as normal - and have no sadistic intentions. In that case we come back to the question of definition. When does narcissistic behavior graduate into sadistic behavior? I don't think there's a clear cut-off for that.
Also, there are more 'types' of people than these with all kinds of problems, and we can't assume we have described everybody by applying these definitions.