As one who has had a lifetime experience of Cluster B narcissistic abuse within an abusive family system, I can attest that this is precisely how it is. It plays out the same in the macro of society as in the micro of the family. And for the dynamic to perpetuate, it needs all players from all "sides" on board. Extreme self-sacrifice was drummed into me from a young age and the generation before me, my mother, aunts and grandmother were imbued with the same. So, where the chaos at home was kept all hush-hush only one generation before me, it's now raging out in the public arena. Maybe this is a good thing. For patterns to break, we need to become conscious of them. If the chaos gets loud enough and we are each personally hit over the head by the proverbial two-by-four, people may begin to awaken, just as I did in my own life. Let's hope so.
My focus was more on unmitigated communion, as it is under-studied in the literature, and I think it's a major driver behind the Cult of Nice. These are the people who say things like "Be kind to everyone" as a way to avoid dealing with problems.
Absolutely understood. I was discussing it with my friend afterwards, and it dawned on me that the indoctrination such practioners of thoughtless critical theory subject themselves to invariably instills in them the concept that the power dynamic reigns supreme. I'm theorizing here, I admit, but it's not a big leap, understanding the way that ideology spreads among the impressionable, almost as if it's a virus.
I think there's some truth in what you say, but the hypothesis involves a lot of speculation, especially regarding the underlying motives of the actors. From my understanding, individuals with personality disorders often behave as described. However, aside from genuine psychopaths, they usually harm others unconsciously, driven by intense emotions and through their lack of empathy, impaired mentalization skills, poor impulse control, cognitive distortions and chronic interpersonal dysfunction.
When we consider the outcomes and correlated variables—such as left-wing authoritarianism, mental disorders, virtue and status signaling, tribal behavior, various biases, the desire for meaning and a greater cause, and the wish of young people to belong to a group, develop an identity, and save the world—we don't need psychopathic puppet masters to explain what happens on campuses and at #FreePalestine protests. While it’s plausible that some participants might act with conscious malice, I think it’s rare unless proven otherwise. Additionally, I'm convinced that many activists, including their leaders, genuinely believe their own propaganda. As Hanlon's razor suggests: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" or a lack of impulse control.
While I find the relationship between personality disorders and politics interesting, studying this connection requires extra caution to avoid partisan bias and fundamental attribution errors. It is also important to acknowledge that personality disorders were primarily selected for clinical practicality rather than scientific validity.
My experience , observations, and reading suggests that psychopathic people are not at all rare in these situations. I happen to work in left-leaning environments, and in every instance of abuse and manipulation, people with these disorders exploit the ideology for their benefit. This is actualy what drew my attention to the central problems in Critical Theory and standpoint epistemologies. It's not that these psychopaths created a bunch of puppets; more likely that people with these personality traits are adept at identifying routes to power. There are also lots of historical examples, from Jim Jones to the meltdown at the Evergreen State College in 2017 (there are a handful of Cluster Bs whipping up the students, who aren't equipped to identify the manipulation). Most people involved in these movements are kind and in search of meaning, but they sometimes become complicit in abuse and terror. The book Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes describes "pathocracy" as a condition in which psychopaths move into positions of influence in oppressive regimes. This post is describing a similar phenomenon. I get your point that a focus on LWA can be overly politicized and create the very conditions that people like the author are trying to critique, but the reality until recently is just the opposite; academia is so leftwing that many mistakenly thought that authoritarian personalities were a rightwing trait. I also understand that this blog is written by a psychologist, and this discipline tends to depend heavily on quantification, but observation and pattern recognition are important. Nobody would think to look for, say, Cluster B traits if the pathological behavior patterns that define them weren't already evident in day-to-day experience. In other words, people recognized these pahtological personalities long before the psychological constructs were developed.
This is an excellent overview of the cocktail of personality disorders that are driving left-wing ideological movements, particularly on college campuses. I encourage you to continue researching and writing on the subject.
Hi Dr. Magoon, these are brilliant. My thinking is very closely aligned with yours that ideologies have lost the mediating factor of religion. It seems that our worst proclivities are quickly becoming acceptable. We're the weird ones for noticing how crazy someone is. I also notice how generally uneducated everyone is now. If you can just dismiss history as patriarchial, west-centric, and backward; then why even study it?
The major irony here, of course, is that we're ostensibly more educated than ever. Coming from Australia, we have embedded within our Higher Education Act the imperative to make tertiary education accessible to all (I'm sure this is not pushed by the universities on the grounds that the government effectively loans money to every single person who deigns to attend university, allowing the universities to hike up their prices - I digress). I see this as a major issue, and I believe most people have no business in university. I suspect most people are here for a piece of paper so they can get on with their chosen career, and would be better served by some form of traineeship, cadetship, internship or similar. Academia has undermined itself as an enterprise, and it's done so in large part because institutions got greedy. Widely accessible subpar education is not better than extremely exclusive and discriminatory high-quality education, and it constantly boggles my mind that we behave as though it is.
This is exactly in line with my own observations and experiences, except I initially came at it through the literature on psychological dogmatism (which eventually leads to the recent measurements of left-wing authoritarianism). For example, in this paper I review the experimental methods for changing minds on climate issues up to 2014 - https://www.academia.edu/34296020/Disarming_the_Dragons_of_Inaction_Enabling_Pro_Environmental_Volition
In recent years, I have looked at narcissism specifically. The dynamics discussed in this article are spot on. I see them currently playing out in the Canadian medical system, for example, and it is a major problem leading to the collapse which is happening within it.
It's funny how the manipulative instrument of psychological labeling only gets rolled out against 'left practices when those practices adversely affect Zionist jews.
Israel isn't a democracy. No one familiar with political practice in Israel would call Israel a 'democracy'. It's a racial state pure and simple.
The specific targeting of Israel while the rest of the Middle East is treated with kid gloves is absoultely a phenomenon worth investigating. I'm not sure how you can call them a radical state, they're not the ones in the area beheading people or denying women basic human rights.
As one who has had a lifetime experience of Cluster B narcissistic abuse within an abusive family system, I can attest that this is precisely how it is. It plays out the same in the macro of society as in the micro of the family. And for the dynamic to perpetuate, it needs all players from all "sides" on board. Extreme self-sacrifice was drummed into me from a young age and the generation before me, my mother, aunts and grandmother were imbued with the same. So, where the chaos at home was kept all hush-hush only one generation before me, it's now raging out in the public arena. Maybe this is a good thing. For patterns to break, we need to become conscious of them. If the chaos gets loud enough and we are each personally hit over the head by the proverbial two-by-four, people may begin to awaken, just as I did in my own life. Let's hope so.
Could've subtitled it "Psychological underpinnings of the left's focus on power," or something similar.
My focus was more on unmitigated communion, as it is under-studied in the literature, and I think it's a major driver behind the Cult of Nice. These are the people who say things like "Be kind to everyone" as a way to avoid dealing with problems.
Absolutely understood. I was discussing it with my friend afterwards, and it dawned on me that the indoctrination such practioners of thoughtless critical theory subject themselves to invariably instills in them the concept that the power dynamic reigns supreme. I'm theorizing here, I admit, but it's not a big leap, understanding the way that ideology spreads among the impressionable, almost as if it's a virus.
I think there's some truth in what you say, but the hypothesis involves a lot of speculation, especially regarding the underlying motives of the actors. From my understanding, individuals with personality disorders often behave as described. However, aside from genuine psychopaths, they usually harm others unconsciously, driven by intense emotions and through their lack of empathy, impaired mentalization skills, poor impulse control, cognitive distortions and chronic interpersonal dysfunction.
When we consider the outcomes and correlated variables—such as left-wing authoritarianism, mental disorders, virtue and status signaling, tribal behavior, various biases, the desire for meaning and a greater cause, and the wish of young people to belong to a group, develop an identity, and save the world—we don't need psychopathic puppet masters to explain what happens on campuses and at #FreePalestine protests. While it’s plausible that some participants might act with conscious malice, I think it’s rare unless proven otherwise. Additionally, I'm convinced that many activists, including their leaders, genuinely believe their own propaganda. As Hanlon's razor suggests: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" or a lack of impulse control.
While I find the relationship between personality disorders and politics interesting, studying this connection requires extra caution to avoid partisan bias and fundamental attribution errors. It is also important to acknowledge that personality disorders were primarily selected for clinical practicality rather than scientific validity.
Looking forward to hearing what you think.
My experience , observations, and reading suggests that psychopathic people are not at all rare in these situations. I happen to work in left-leaning environments, and in every instance of abuse and manipulation, people with these disorders exploit the ideology for their benefit. This is actualy what drew my attention to the central problems in Critical Theory and standpoint epistemologies. It's not that these psychopaths created a bunch of puppets; more likely that people with these personality traits are adept at identifying routes to power. There are also lots of historical examples, from Jim Jones to the meltdown at the Evergreen State College in 2017 (there are a handful of Cluster Bs whipping up the students, who aren't equipped to identify the manipulation). Most people involved in these movements are kind and in search of meaning, but they sometimes become complicit in abuse and terror. The book Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes describes "pathocracy" as a condition in which psychopaths move into positions of influence in oppressive regimes. This post is describing a similar phenomenon. I get your point that a focus on LWA can be overly politicized and create the very conditions that people like the author are trying to critique, but the reality until recently is just the opposite; academia is so leftwing that many mistakenly thought that authoritarian personalities were a rightwing trait. I also understand that this blog is written by a psychologist, and this discipline tends to depend heavily on quantification, but observation and pattern recognition are important. Nobody would think to look for, say, Cluster B traits if the pathological behavior patterns that define them weren't already evident in day-to-day experience. In other words, people recognized these pahtological personalities long before the psychological constructs were developed.
This is an excellent overview of the cocktail of personality disorders that are driving left-wing ideological movements, particularly on college campuses. I encourage you to continue researching and writing on the subject.
My take on the subject is here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/where-does-ideology-come-from
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/radical-ideologies-feast-on-mental
Hi Dr. Magoon, these are brilliant. My thinking is very closely aligned with yours that ideologies have lost the mediating factor of religion. It seems that our worst proclivities are quickly becoming acceptable. We're the weird ones for noticing how crazy someone is. I also notice how generally uneducated everyone is now. If you can just dismiss history as patriarchial, west-centric, and backward; then why even study it?
The major irony here, of course, is that we're ostensibly more educated than ever. Coming from Australia, we have embedded within our Higher Education Act the imperative to make tertiary education accessible to all (I'm sure this is not pushed by the universities on the grounds that the government effectively loans money to every single person who deigns to attend university, allowing the universities to hike up their prices - I digress). I see this as a major issue, and I believe most people have no business in university. I suspect most people are here for a piece of paper so they can get on with their chosen career, and would be better served by some form of traineeship, cadetship, internship or similar. Academia has undermined itself as an enterprise, and it's done so in large part because institutions got greedy. Widely accessible subpar education is not better than extremely exclusive and discriminatory high-quality education, and it constantly boggles my mind that we behave as though it is.
This is exactly in line with my own observations and experiences, except I initially came at it through the literature on psychological dogmatism (which eventually leads to the recent measurements of left-wing authoritarianism). For example, in this paper I review the experimental methods for changing minds on climate issues up to 2014 - https://www.academia.edu/34296020/Disarming_the_Dragons_of_Inaction_Enabling_Pro_Environmental_Volition
In recent years, I have looked at narcissism specifically. The dynamics discussed in this article are spot on. I see them currently playing out in the Canadian medical system, for example, and it is a major problem leading to the collapse which is happening within it.
I plan to write more on this. Here's my first dip into it on Substack: https://andywearspants.substack.com/p/why-are-victims-of-abuse-often-seen
Excellent
Brilliant 💥
It's funny how the manipulative instrument of psychological labeling only gets rolled out against 'left practices when those practices adversely affect Zionist jews.
Israel isn't a democracy. No one familiar with political practice in Israel would call Israel a 'democracy'. It's a racial state pure and simple.
The specific targeting of Israel while the rest of the Middle East is treated with kid gloves is absoultely a phenomenon worth investigating. I'm not sure how you can call them a radical state, they're not the ones in the area beheading people or denying women basic human rights.
I'm sure the people who have been murdered by Israeli and American weapons would question the were treated with kid gloves.
Are you a jew?
Not 'radical state,, *racial state*.