Our Own Personal Boogeyman

In response to another ATS'er mentioning "From what I can gather currently, sociopathy is on the rise." I ended up writing up a piece I've had in mind for a while (and now that I started my flow from that point I dont have time to rewrite the top portion today so here goes)...

No doubt, this decade.

It has a lot to do with social media. But it has only help spread the effects of organized Identity Politick campaigns. This charge would be, in the Western World primarily lead by the SJW hordes (or more accurately the SJW fountainheads [academia, the tech giants, the progressives, Democrat's), and then many likewise yet opposite side of the spectrum forces out there attempting to harness the 'whitelash' of people reacting to be being openly persecuted.

That's whats obvious on the surface, but the forces er human nature behind it all on the individual humans level that's being exploited is quite elusive. But what's its all revealing to us is how profound the reality is of what I call "Learned Sociopathy" or "Learned Psychopathy". Although that's more in tune with the stuff small children have been being targeted with increasingly for some decades now.

This Identity Politicks now, which all strives at the highest grade forms of social manipulation along the lines of Groupthink, all falls more into this thing I've come to call "Group Psychopathy".

And this "Group Psychopathy" I've come to realize is at the core of essentially all of human conflicts, of most human suffering outside of stuff beyond our control. Its this thing were ordinary decent usually non-violent folks with but a bit of "us vs. them" prodding by rulers / leaders / politicians / media-sorts, are ready to see some "opposing" group be completely annihilated; they're even ready to join in on the slaughtering much of the time.

What it is is there's a psychopath in all of us. Just like there's a narcissist in all of us. These two are amongst an array of personality characteristics. Which for a normal person would have them in some kind of even distribution; moderate; at least in our typical states as daily individuals. Then there's always extreme examples out there of people pathologically too nice, or full blown psychopaths. With full blown psychopathy its often asserted the true movie grade serial killer type cases are the result of the 'perfect storm' genetics (nature) growing up in the 'perfect storm' of a childhood 'petri dish' (nurture) that compels the 'darkside traits' to blossom and take total hold over the other core personality traits. This is all everyday 'Developmental Psychology' stuff through this section.

About these 'Dark Passengers' we all seem to naturally act like its only those extreme cases that are those things -the psychopaths, the sociopaths, the pathological liars, etc- and it seems like the psychopath, the liar, etc, inside of us all is in there steering us away from the stuff that would trigger our own self-discoveries about those portions of our own personalities, that if we did face them head on we could 'individualistically evolve' above them. Instead, we see, for example, the pathological liar within us all activate our rewards centers when we lie to ourselves. The stuff of dope fiends:

During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.

The neuroimaging results, however, revealed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning--the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--was quiescent. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in the processing of emotions; the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict resolution; the posterior cingulate, which is concerned with making judgments about moral accountability; and--once subjects had arrived at a conclusion that made them emotionally comfortable--the ventral striatum, which is related to reward and pleasure.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," Westen is quoted as saying in an Emory University press release. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Interestingly, neural circuits engaged in rewarding selective behaviors were activated. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones," Westen said. www.scientificamerican.com...

Note above how I put it above as "seems". That's where all the concepts above it come into play. As the liar, the psychopath, etc, inside of us all is all too ready to be compelled to take control. So se some trusted leader types come at us with an us vs. them scenario of 'we're going to die if we dont kill them first', or whatever, and those other core defining personality traits in the backs of our minds that normally keep the 'darkside' traits in check, well they just hand control over.

Here comes in the 'safety in numbers' instincts, where in a natural primitive setting some hazard comes running in and we our little tribe would group together to defend ourselves. The connections between self-preservation / groupthink are about as profound as anything driving us can be. And this is what those who manipulate us, the chief psychopaths in any society (royalty, politicians, CEO's tend to be this type), spends billions annual on studies to better perpetrate their megalomaniac pursuits of social control / global domination / etc.

They take these instincts, these key parts of our human nature that guide our self-deception, and other key behaviors, and use them against us. And what is inside us helps them do it. Because we're letting the psychopath etc inside us take control when prompted with this kind of discussion, and with other more proper types of 'politics stuff' and so on.

And the sorts of results we see are perpetual aggressive wars of global conquest being routinely rationalized en masse as do-gooder policing the world type stuff, no matter how absolutely barbaric each new conflict seems to one up the one before it.

And we also see it eating out the core of our own societies, such as with the basic concept of "Schadenfreude", where we'll allow the activities of "our team" (or rather the Democrat / Republican Political Party's) completely run roughshod over our own principles as individuals, and as national citizens.

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Politics is one arena where the outcomes of ingroups and outgroups may be so closely linked that an ingroup member might appraise an outgroup setback as directly benefiting the ingroup. Politics is often a kind of ‘‘blood sport” in which party affiliation and partisan instincts carry the day more often than bipartisan sentiments. In the context of a political campaign, particularly as election night approaches, all events (misfortunes or otherwise) may largely become appreciated for their implications for victory or defeat of one’s own party (especially for those who strongly identify with their party) – even though there may be otherwise negative, undeserved consequences for others. For example, a downturn in the economy would seem to have no positive effects for anyone, and yet for partisans rooting for their challenger to defeat an incumbent President, it might be good news indeed. Bad news for the political leader of the outgroup is good news for one’s ingroup. This should especially hold true if the opponent is an incumbent and thus is attributed a certain amount of responsibility for the state of the economy. The ‘‘objective” negative features of the event, whether it is an economic downturn, missing explosives in Iraq (McIntyre, Malveaux, Labott, & Neisloss, 2004), or a national shortage of flu-shots (Sanger & Harris, 2004) may be beside the point, politically. Even if an outcome may be objectively negative for all involved, including the individual, there are times when such an outcome may signal a potential political windfall for that individual’s group looking to gain an advantage – and, thus, produce schadenfreude. psychology.as.uky.edu...

We see this schadenfreude going on within essentially any mass scale social groups, that all usually tend to drip with various 'darkside' traits such as Group Psychopathy, Collective Narcissism, brazen hypocrisy, wholesale bigotry towards polar opposite groups, obvious routine self-deception, and so on. In groups, Homo sapiens seem to consistently demonatrate an innate yearning to turn into little Supremacists. Or at least that's how it all appears, but there tends to always be some high grade cabal of psychopaths at the helm of the sort of mass groups that tend to end up trying to wrestle for power or resources with other groups.

These sorts of diabolical leadership elements will continue to manipulate us as long as we try to avoid realziing how this stuff works. But I insist that we look at history, the hundred million plus dead as a result of this ignorance of ourselves that allows 'them' to mainipualte us. Because in the 21st Century if we dont get right with this stuff, and take control of ourselves so that we can unite to push out the forces that seek to explouit us all, either we culturally evolve or there's a near certainy our entire species (for starters) may be lucky to even exist in even small numbers in the 22nd Century.



SEE ALSO:
Dark Mind Sciences: The Cult of PC
Is there a 'Nazi' lurking inside of YOU? [Prologue] human experiments
Human Vs. Nature (Self-Deception & Brutality)
Politics as a Sadomasochistic (BDSM) Spectator Sport
BREAKING NEWS: Everyone is 'Racist'!
Hyper-Tribalism as our most assured route to De-Evolutionary Extinction
Damage Control Via Deflection AKA "Passive Regressive" defensive tactics
CRTL-Left...Alt-Right......ARISE THE ALT-ALT!
Globalism Equals Nationalism Equals Globalism
The "FREEDOM" to Dominate, Exploit, Plunder, Destroy, Rape & Murder
Rethinking Tribalist Societies

Very interesting read. I had to go and take a look at the hyper tribalism link as well. So we have always been like this, but social media has brought it out of the closet and into the keyboard warriors hands. I imagine it must be particularly easy now for the ABC agencies to really compartmentalize everybody and use that info to keep people even further divided.

I must admit, that I sometimes skim articles that are in "opposition" to what I think. It seems that people are programmed to believe a certain way though. Sure, surroundings, experiences and the like can shape a person, but most peeps seems to be hardwired by a certain age...dontcha think? Ergo why most debates end up turning into dualling monologues.

White political thought has undergone massive change in that there is a mandated rejection of the in-group racial preference, it isn't allowed. Minorities are encouraged to identify and act politically as groups. Thus many Whites have joined minority interest groups seeking acceptance and what Ted Kaczynski called "access to the power process", effectively dissolving what was the majority position. White majoritarianism was thus broken.

Much of today's politics is the result of the decline of consumer culture and the rejection of industrial society. The corresponding decline in traditional religion has left people seeking fulfillment both spiritual and communal through other avenues. Politics has inserted itself in to this void and the Left has successfully harnessed the impulse using Utopian ideals that society can be perfected. Emotional appeals play a huge part in motivating the Left at the cost of rejecting inconvenient realities like cost.

In the final analysis partisan politics is a battle of selling a vision of the future. Though completely unrealistic and emotionally-based, the Left has offered a dream of a better world. Conservatives have only offered a meek "we're trying to slow this crazy train down" message. In the battle of the story tellers who is winning here?

Conservatives need to go back to a true Libertarian position of personal freedom and reduction of the parasitic cost and regulation of government if they are to stand a chance in future elections. We all know the status quo has sucked, nobody wants to see it continue. Change is necessary and appealing. Any vision of the future for the Republican party lies there.

I agree, unfortunately the current education that would illuminate self deception, internal bias and the like have been branded either "Politically correct" or stigmatized psychiatry and thus something to avoid at all costs. Both sides of the political spectrum play this role. The pursuit of socialism without personal responsibility will never work, and neither will capitalism without morality. Was a great post, thanks for sharing, and I think your right. Just hard to educate the "masses" when it's encouraged to just use blame to justify our shortcomings. The level of maturity needed to stop division in this way, I'm afraid, is sorely lacking in America today. Although I hope I am wrong.

ATS spooked by their boogeymen.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Is There a Link Between Sociopathy and Social Media?

www.psychologytoday.com...

Mike Mariani, published September 5, 2016 - last reviewed on November 16, 2017

Look at Me Research is beginning to suggest a correlation between the heavy use of social media platforms and the Dark Triad—a cluster of personality traits that includes psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. These traits have existed independent of selfies and status updates for centuries and proving any sort of causal connection remains elusive, but it seems possible that some relationship exists.


It’s important to note, however, that while studies have linked time spent on social networking sites with the dark traits, these personality types are certainly not the only predictors of heavy social media use. Other studies have found that extroversion and openness to experience were also associated with time spent on social media platforms.


Nevertheless, W. Keith Campbell, a psychologist at the University of Georgia, notes that social media have created a great environment for self-obsession to thrive. Although society in general doesn’t condone an individual who is laser-focused on his own appearance, opinions, and achievements, social media platforms are perfect hotbeds for the self-absorbed.


In one study, researchers found that the more socially aversive characteristics subjects possessed, the more time they spent on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Another study, carried out in 2013 by researchers at the University of Michigan, found that tweeting was moderately associated with a sense of superiority, while posting on Facebook corresponded with exhibitionism.

a reply to: Commoner123

Good points. It takes work to discern our own motivations when defaulting to the path of least resistance, that is, joining group think and enjoying its apparent benefits, "logic be damned"