(Vanity) Mental Illness

None of the above | Now | Me

[TBP]

On O'Reilly tonight, they wree talking about the BTK killer. He was described as a sociopath, someone who has no concern for anyone but himself, a person capable of doing harm with no remorse at all.

By that standards, aren't most politicians sociopaths?

[Salamander]

Does that mean if you know 24 sane people, *you're* it?....:)

[Rockingham]

Genuine sociopaths in American politics are rare because their central trait -- an inability to empathize with others -- tends to be incompatible with repeated success in elections, especially in climbing to higher office. Sociopaths can learn to smile and pretend, but their scariness also tends to leak through from time to time and put off voters. There is a lot to be said for the way that elections put candidates under a microscope.

Appointed office and entrenched incumbency are another matter. Sociopaths love power over others, and borderline sociopaths are hard to detect and weed out while their predatory traits make them adept at gaining and exercising power in bureaucracies and small groups. Entrenched ruling elites and long-running dictatorships tend to become loaded up with various grades of sociopaths.

Nevertheless, there is a profound difference between political dishonesty and sociopathy. In doing opposition research, I have run across thoroughly dishonest candidates and politicians, but they are rarer than one supposes, and borderline sociopaths with a chance of winning are rarer still.

The common combination of personality traits in political figures is a hierarchy of personal ambition, instrumental dishonesty, and political beliefs that are genuine but tailored to useful dimensions and purposes. Think Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Even Lyndon Johnson can be said to be of that type (ambition-dishonesty-belief), although his reflexive dishonesty and personal corruption was so out of control that it undermined his ability to function as president. Essential to his rise, Lyndon Johnson's dishonesty was no longer instrumental when he became president but subverted his ambition to greatness in history.

Alternatively, beliefs may play a larger role in a political personality, making for an ambition-belief-dishonesty hierarchy. Think Truman. Unlike FDR, the self-educated and flinty Truman and many others of that era were genuine believers in the New Deal as a Jacksonian government-serving-the-people program.

Notably, Truman's instrumental dishonesty as President often went wrong, driven by a combination of idiosyncratic belief, political calculation, and misplaced loyalty. In a phrase, Truman was a poor liar.

Scoop Jackson, Zell Miller, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Jesse Helms are also of the ambition-belief type, with but little dishonesty in them and always kept within the conventions of politics. All these men were known for their personal integrity, consistency of political beliefs, and genuine sense of politics as public service.

Here's story about the tension between political conventions and personal honesty. Years ago, soon after Jesse Helms was elected to the Senate from North Carolina, a friend of mine interviewed him at length for a radio talk show.

During a news break, the gentlemanly Helms asked permission first and then lit up a cigarette, with a warning to my nonsmoking friend that cigarettes were a vile habit that he should never take up. An aide comically gasped "Senator! Our tobacco farmers!" Helms grinned sheepishly.

The political subtype that we so correctly despise is the leftist ambition-dishonesty-belief type, combined with a borderline personality disorder with strong narcissistic traits. Think Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson, both of whose dishonesty exceeded even the generous conventions of politics and became self-defeating and destructive to their sense of public duty.

As for Hillary, I think she is of the ambition-belief-dishonesty type, which makes her especially dangerous because her ambition and hard Left beliefs would not be subverted by poorly controlled and self-indulgent dishonesty. As president, instead of Bubba redux or wife of Bubba, we would get Evita. That is a scarier prospect than even the BTK killer on the loose.

[TBP]

Genuine sociopaths in American politics are rare because their central trait -- an inability to empathize with others -- tends to be incompatible with repeated success in elections, especially in climbing to higher office.

But they often can fake it very well, which is all the sheeple look at.

[TBP]

Have you ever encountered a politician who genuinely was concerned for anyone but him/herself? In my experience, there are very few.

[TBP]

There is a difference betwene selfish and self-intersted. I am active in pursuit of my own self-interest, but always with the larger pcture in mind, that the interest of every otehr person must be considered as well and that my self-interest must be tempered by respect froyour legitimate self-interest.

Selfishness is something else again: the pursuit of our own interests, no matter what.

[TBP]

As president, instead of Bubba redux or wife of Bubba, we would get Evita.

I've often said that the parallels between the two are frightening. But both Komrade Herr Bill and Hitlery are congenital liars who lie even when the truth would serve them better. They can't NOT lie.

[Rockingham]

Yes; and contrary to appearances, most of them are decent people -- at least on the Republican side, where I know quite a few personally. But do not think that politicians are bound to "care" for you as a voter any more than the convenience store clerk or department store manager who are not your friends "care" for you as a customer.

Contrary to my assumptions when I was younger, I have found that Democratic politicians tend to be different as people: more often self-absorbed, dishonest, and given over to surly explanations when they are caught doing something they should not be doing.

Being different people and facing a less foolish and forgiving party base, Republican candidates and officeholders tend to worry about things like speeding tickets, prior marriages, and business deals gone sour. Unless the facts are aggravated, those are venial sins if sins at all.

Among Democrats, on a statewide basis researching Democratic legislative candidates, every election cycle I find a least one wife-beater, a bankrupt, and a pothead. The divorces also tend to be messier and the private misconduct seamier.

The virtues of Democrats as people tend to make them saps in picking leaders. Often genuinely caring people who are not especially good at abstract issues, Democrats are inclined to follow people who are good at pretending to be caring. Of course, in doing so, they are like cattle following a Judas goat into the slaughterhouse.

[Old Professer]

Darwin's Dilemma: society militates against his theory.

[Old Professer]

Given your comments I think you would enjoy Sinclair Lewis' works, especially those that focus on the Babbitt character.

[Rockingham]

I read several Sinclair Lewis works in college and they seemed shallow and preachy, which may have been because I was already familiar with their premises; and my taste in fiction evolved after college to favor hard boiled detective novels and Patrick O'Brien's series.

[ShadowDancer]

By all accounts that I have read, he was a really good father to his children (yes, I know, if he were a good father he wouldn't have murdered people but I'm speaking in the clincal definition). Wouldn't that negate the whole concerned for no one but himself side of the diagnosis?

[Old Professer]

But Babbitt is the perfect example of the pompous politician cum social leader, a true champion of the working class.

My favorite Lewis work is "It Can't Happen Here."

Second is "Kingsblood Royal."

[Rockingham]

I ought to take a look at them, as I have exhausted the world's accumulated output of hard boiled detective novels and the current flow of such work is distressingly thin.

[TBP]

Well, Darwin was a bit off too.