The Decline of Truth
If there is a defining characteristic of the transition from the Era of Narcissism to the Age of Psychopathy, it is in how we as a society have come to define and interpret truth.
In the Age of Psychopathy, it isn’t only what is and isn’t objective truth that comes into question. Even our sense of what is or isn’t truth has become subject to debate. Typical narcissism with its sometimes over-the-top grandiose individualism has been supplanted by a malignant sociopathy that manipulates and exploits in the name of some ideal or “greater good.”
Reality, facts and truths are deliberately and regularly ignored or obfuscated simply because they get in the way of an agenda.
Whether it is to secure power, anchor political ideologies or to establish a position in a given hierarchy, truth is undermined and tsunamis of destructive events are unleashed, all in the name of supposedly ‘selfless’ interest.
As we have noted, a psychopath is someone with with a deficient conscience, someone for whom guilt is irrelevant and used as a manipulative tool. Far too often today, truth is now being defined by psychopaths.
Let’s look at how psychopathic ideologues use the truth.
Recent ‘research’ reports on the ‘differences’ between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ brains.
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work….
There is a reason this nonsense appeared in the LA Times and not in a single peer reviewed scientific journal: One cannot assign values and meaning at will. For example, one can easily define ‘tolerate ambiguity and conflict’ as ‘wishy washy,’ indecisive and fearful. One can also define less tolerant of ambiguity as loyal, decisive and committed.
Dr Sanity rightly dispenses with the pretense of professional courtesy, and will not grant that honor to a poseur:
I am full willing to believe that there are biological differences in information processing between liberals and conservatives, but I suspect that it has more to do with choosing to give precedence to emotions and wishes far more than those emotions and wishes deserve. The left, to put it bluntly, don’t merely tolerate ambiguity, they worship it– and even deliberately seek it out even in situations where it doesn’t exist! Just listen to those 9/11 Troofers who will not be dissuaded from their conspiracy theories by any rational argument. In a way, ambiguity means never having to face reality.
Narcissists, psychopaths, and paranoids are “tolerant of ambiguity” in pretty much the same way.
Another characteristic of the Age of Psychopathy is that only a select few are held responsible for the consequences to their actions. This is not a byproduct of sociopathy, but rather, it is a foundation upon which sociopathy rests. Psychopaths go to great lengths not feel or endure guilt or shame; nor do they care about the negative consequences of their behaviors. Guilt, shame and facing consequences cause us to reflect and consider our lives, a time consuming and meditative process. For a psychopath, guilt or shame concerning his behavior might make him have to admit the ‘other’ actually exists outside of his own needs and desires.
There were those who professed to love art, music and children with great passion and at the same time were able to turn a blind eye to slavery, the mass murder of millions in the name of Nazism and Communism. Now, as history repeats itself, there are those who would send millions to their deaths in name of a vengeful God and there are the psychopaths who enable and support them.
The Age of Psychopathy places guilt and accountability second in importance to the exercise and acquisition of power. You cannot exercise or acquire power if you feel guilty about how you go about exercising or acquiring that power.
All of us have a deep well of resources to choose from when dealing with guilt. We can magnify guilt or minimize guilt and shame, but in the end, we must deal with both. The psychopath wants to eliminate guilt and shame altogether and therein lies the origin of the rage and hate so prevalent on the left.
Rage and guilt are intimately connected. Rage and hate can bury guilt. It is true that there are times where guilt can overwhelm rage but that is very rare. In the Age of Psychopathy, the first victims of rage are always the feelings of guilt or shame. The process isn’t as hard as one might imagine. Who would want to be shackled and hobbled by guilt? This was a lesson easily learned by the Nazis, later by dysfunctional Arab regimes and now by the leftists of the ‘Bush-Hitler’ variety. Rage and hate carry a spectacular and breathtaking satisfaction. The totality of the rage/hate experience is all enveloping. The psycho-sexual dynamics of rage/hate are hard to miss.
This kind of hate/rage without guilt or impediment is what drives the psychopath.
Imagine an alcoholic or drug abuser coming home after a hard binge. He sees his wife and children and feels guilt and shame, as he should. Notwithstanding the pain and hurt he has caused, the addiction to alcohol or drugs and the feelings of euphoria that alcohol or drugs induce, if left untreated, will draw him back to abuse and the cycle will repeat itself.
His family, the support system that he has come to rely on, will at some point confront him and demand he seek help, he flies into a rage and blames them for his problems, for ‘driving’ him to substance abuse. He wants those who are most affected by his behavior to feel what he refuses to acknowledge- guilt.
It is an objective truth that it is not enough for the alcoholic to understand his condition. At some point, the substance abuser must deal with the reality of the havoc they have caused internally and externally. They need to understand the pain, trauma and devastation that lies at their feet. If they do not engage in that painful exercise, they will not be liberated from the chains of addiction that bind them.
The same applies to the leftist psychopaths that are attempting to redefine American values and realities. At some point, they must deal with the damage their distortion of truth and reality they have inflicted on their neighbors, the nation and the world around us.Their deliberate deceit has given comfort to enemies and has encouraged those enemies to redouble their efforts. The leftists’ deceit embraces falsehoods and failed ideologies, bigotry and hate.
No one is asking that differences of opinion or dissent be stifled. In fact, healthy and honest debate has been the engine that has driven this nation to greatness- and that has been lost on those who would replace honest debate and differences with nihilism of the psychopaths who openly declare their intent to do us harm.
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred is the pseudonym adopted by a blogger in North Carolina. He is so busy, he needed three identities. He is a political behavioral analyst, specializing in predicting the behavior of ‘really crazy people.’
Is Nature Neuroscience not a peer-reviewed journal?
It does explain more than 700 burned cars in France, Kent State (they did set somewhere 300 fires), and why the Left is angry about President George W. Bush being the “decider.”
the study you write about is nonsense.
you should embrace it, because this article is nonsense as well.
fortunately neither the authors of the study or this article live in reality. i am glad we are not neighbors
gc blues, what exactly is nonsense? Do you have a point to make- one which will leave readers with the impression you actually comprehended what was written?
While asserting you would not want me in your trailer park is reassuring, your remarks do not highlight any critical thinking skills whatsoever.
‘this article is nonsense as well’
So much for healthy honest debate.
I wonder if any of the psychopaths ever take into consideration that others also live in this country?
Accomplished linguist George Lakoff never looks so foolish as when he attempts to borrow from his prestige in the field of metaphors to attack his political enemies. The LA Times article you quote illustrates the same phenomenon.
Political views are not pathological in themselves. It is the inability to apply objective standards of logic, evidence, and epistemology that is the pathology.
In times past, that pathology has been possessed by conservatives on the right. Presently it is academics on the left whose openness to evidence is terribly, pathologically skewed in one direction.
The best description I have seen of this phenomenon in modern academia, is “academic lobotomy.”
sig,
sweet assumptions, you speak more about yourself than i with them
.
your objections to the study were correct, terms were not definable, they were nonsense.
should i cut and paste any part from your article to show the obvious, that the same is true of your material.
that neither would pass the normal checks prior to publishing in a peer reviewed scientific journal.
i did not question your habitation, or even your ig, i said the obvious. what you wrote is nonsense. your terms are defined exactly only in your own mind.
for example,
It is an objective truth that it is not enough for the alcoholic to understand his condition. At some point, the substance abuser must deal with the reality of the havoc they have caused internally and externally. They need to understand the pain, trauma and devastation that lies at their feet. If they do not engage in that painful exercise, they will not be liberated from the chains of addiction that bind them.
nuff said. pathetic nonsense. is that the contribution you are looking for?
and syn, no worry i do not live in your country, however healthy debate requires a definable proposition. not nonsense.
sometimes sleeping dogs are best left to snooze.
gcblues-
what makes you say Siggy’s statement about alcoholics is “pathetic nonsense”? How many alcoholics and substance abusers have you treated recently? And do you encourage them to continue to cut a destructive swath through the lives of their loved ones and society? Your response “nuff said” is what is pathetic. Obviously you got an A+ in Victimology 101 and clearly have no idea or experience in dealing with substance abusers.
S,C&A -
you would enjoy Eugene Rose’s
“NIHILISM”,if you’ve not yet read it.
a bit long,but good reading:
_______________________
NIHILISM
The Root of the
Revolution
of the Modern Age
by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/
augustine/arch/nihilism.html#4
_______________________
working link here:
_______________________
NIHILISM
The Root of the
Revolution
of the Modern Age
by Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html#4
___________________
OK…this one’s
from the top of the article.
my apologies.
it realy is a good read.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html
DR INSANE,
i have zero experience in treatment of any sort.
the words are nonsense. NONSENSE. they make no sense. read the statement it is stupid.
until abusers fix everything else in there life they will be addicts. good grief. you people have problems.
i have observed that addiction treatment is by and large a court ordered scam helping virtually no one except you self described experts with a lousy track record that reap court ordered payments from victims of the scam.
my original statement stands. the words are spaghetti. stupid nonsense. saying nothing, but covering everything. maybe you have a degree in psYchopathy, but your communication skills are what was pointed out as NONSENSE.
GIMME A BREAK. STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES
gcblues-
Simply repeating your drivel does not make it any more credible.
You are right to say that often, court ordered rehab is a waste of time. That is because rehab in the end, addresses the physical manifestation of addiction and in fact, contains little, if any real therapy.
The reason AA and other 12 step type programs are so effective is because the programs do not cease when the physical manifestations of the addiction are dealt with.
A core part of those programs are ‘making amends’- that is, recognizing and addressing the damage the addict has caused others, the psychological underpinnings that facilitated the addictive behavior remain. These programs have been around a long time and have a tremendous rate of success worldwide.
I am glad to see that you admit that you have no clinical experience and base your remarks on shallow, anecdotal evidence, derived from watching TV. Clearly, that qualifies you as an expert.
You remind me of the morons for whom making the argument that the dysfunctional Arab world is a moral and ethical equivalent to western democracies.
In any event, clearly, you are ill equipped to make even a ridiculous argument. It is nice to see you have so much self esteem that public displays of stupidity do not embarrass you.
While that kind of attitude may work for you at the Yemen U Graduate School of Behavioral Analysis and Psychiatry but in the real world, the clinical terms of your remarks are ‘idiotic.’
Still, you are entertaining. Please feel free to make an ass of yourself. Weekends are usually slow, anyway.
sig
once again by announcing my ignorance you reveal your own. really you say much more about you speaking of me than your articles. glad i can be of use to you.
i am not arab
i do not watch much tv.
i understand kant, hegal, hayek, aristotle even st augustine, but you, sorry sir, you write nonsense.
i have seen that before, but not mentioned it. however when you accused another phony fiction psycho writer of the same offenses you excel at, i mentioned it. for my offense you have questioned my intelligence, my neighborhood, now my heritage, all while knowing nothing of me at all. which brings me to the conclusion that writing about things you know nothing about seems to be your profession. may i suggest you address the issue possibly rescuing what little dignity remains in your silly life. that the words you write make no salient point and are just silly as the author’s you skewered. that you both equally write in circles covering everything by saying nothing. hence you note a stupid distinction between addiction programs missing that both 12 step and all other programs have high failure rates because while many claim expertise, none have it. there are no addiction experts because no one really understands the intertwined complexity of addiction and the fact that there are too many different personalities for one psycho babble definition to fit them all. you sir pose as a scientist, i pose only as a sensitive human being opposed to NONSENSE. address the nonsense not the nonsense noter and you might begin to save what little prestige you may have left after your pathetic non rebuttals. although i must say, your stupidity is starting to tick me off. maybe you should have quit when first warned. however you were warned, so i give you no quarter. you have graduated from nonsense to pathetic nonsense while at the same time exposing a sick racism not suitable for a professional in any field. get help. speaking of, let me help, my heritage is greek american, i now live in costa rica and nicaragua. i do not live in a trailer, i have a colonial home in Rivas, a small quinta on the beach in playas del coco. possibly you can find something offensive in that. in fact, i am sure you can. as my experience is that people that hide behind insults really only have insults to offer.
Your ignorance is obvious when it comes to psychology, psychiatry, addictions and so on.
That you opine on matters you know little of leads me to believe that you know nothing of Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, Hayek or St Augustine as well. None of them have a reputation for opining on matters of which they know little- something of which you seem most comfortable.
I will concede post modern Marxist talking points have been seared into your brain.
Clearly, you do not even understand the issue you raised. Courts can mandate treatment (rehab) to address the physical issues of addiction. No court however, can force an individual to ‘make amends.’ Further, AA and other similar programs have higher long term success rates than any other problem. To imply that AA is a failure is yet another example of not only your ignorance, but your attempt to deceive readers.
Your responses to my remarks were predictable and expected.
I engaged you here in the comments section to prove my point- that the psychopathy to which I refer is now culturally embedded. By your own admission, you know nothing of psychiatry, psychology or treatment of addiction. Still, that does not preclude you from dismissing AA and concocting absurdities and making spurious claims- all so you won’t have to address a deeply embedded psychopathy Dr Sanity and myself.- each of us having considerable experience in recognizing and dealing with dysfunctional behavior.
In your pathology, the truth of the aforementioned means little. You believe that because you have an opinion on a matter to which you admit you have no experience or insight, that opinion is not only equal to the opinions of those who do have experience, but is superior because it is your opinion.
Your pronounced psychopathy is an example of what I was referring to.
I can only hope you seek help. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your family.
Know what I mean?
In gcblues, we have a specimen of the sort of person this article talks about. To them, there is no greater nonsense than the Truth.
Unless you are aware of some higher Truth gcblues, your allegations of “nonsense” make you look like an idiot. It is only in these “enlightened” past few centuries that fools have successfully challenged the Truth-calling it “nonsense,” what else?-without providing any evidence for their claims.
In short, like other “sensitive” nihilistic fools, your only ability is it to criticize the things that you do not like, completely ignoring that the burden of proof is upon you, not the author, who has some measure of authority in his field. Or do you believe that an emotional rant is enough? Apparently the answer is “yes.”
pch1013 – Nature is peer-reviewed. The claims of the original study were limited and judicious. I was impressed with the lead researcher’s proper caution.
The subsequent claims made by others not connected to the research, sought out by the LA Times, were irresponsible, and that is what is addressed here. Those claims were made in the LA Times, not Nature, for the good reason that the speaker knew that his career would be over if he tried to sell that crap to a peer-reviewed journal. He might sneak it by in the Letters to the Editor. Those irresponsible remarks were made by professionals in the field. There is a profound difference between a professional saying “in my experience, conservatives do not tolerate ambiguity well” and saying “this research shows that conservatives do not tolerate ambiguity well.” The former is quite clearly an assesment, an opinion, subject to the usual constraints of debate about definition, reinterpretation, etc. The latter purports to be a statement of fact and is subject to stricter criteria. By those criteria, it fails miserably.