We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Why Sociopaths Win & Why, No, You Don’t Want to Be One of Them

by Kathy McMahon from her blog, Peak Oil Blues. 

This is a fairly lengthy essay on the characteristics of sociopaths and I think it contains a lot truths. However, I think because she deals as a therapist with individuals, her essay seems to suggest that the ills of our society are primarily caused by the sociopaths among us.

My view is that the system, the capitalist system, by its very nature--its obsession with individual pursuit of wealth and a system designed to favor those with wealth--is sociopathic. Hence it attracts those people among us who are morally weak and succeeds in making most of them into real social pariahs. So, once again to paraphrase Bill Clinton, "it's the social-economic system, stupid!" 

(A note on word usage: "sociopathy" and "psychopathy" are often equivalent terms. The former mostly used in the US, while the latter in English speaking countries outside the US. I'm not sure, but I think the word sociopathy was created sometime in the 1960s by one of the professional associations in the US to distinguish abnormal behavior that is due to socialization from such behavior caused by brain dysfunctions. I think that such a distinction is useful.) 
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