Editorial – 15 Janaury 2012

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The Real 1% – The Human Predators Amongst Us

by James Fairbairn – Chief Editor, Open Your Eyes News

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”

Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”

- Author Unknown, circa 3rd Century BCE

In all human cultures children are taught from a young age that “there is a little bit of good in everyone”. The teachings of all the world’s major religions rely on this principle with their moral and ethical codes that are based around The Golden Rule – Do unto others as you would have others do unto you – a “reciprocal” relationship between one’s self and others that involves both sides equally and in a mutual fashion. The inconvenient truth is however that this is the cultural equivalent of humanity burying its head in the sand. Most of us will base our assessment of external situations on how we would empathetically respond. However there are some amongst us who are not ruled by this moral compass.The reality is that there are, and has always been, two groups of human’s living side by side.

For those of us who make up around 99% of the population,  we will all feel empathy for our fellow man, albeit to a greater or lesser degree – statistically spread across the usual bell-curve of distribution. However living amongst us is a very different group who feel no empathy at all, and who will not reciprocate unless it is in their specific interests. Their brains react to stimuli differently to our own. To them a human suffering is simply an opportunity, a sign of that individuals weakness. Clinically they are called psychopaths, but a another way of  understanding them is to view them as human predators.

According to the world’s leading authority on the subject, Dr. Robert D. Hare, in his books Psychopathy: Theory and Research, Without Conscience and Snakes In Suits  around 1% of the human population is a psychopath  - statistically there are around 70 million of them based on a current global population of 7 billion. Yet beyond that alarming enough figure their dark and pervasive influence over human affairs is completely disproportionate, and ever more dangerous for the well being of our species. Though some will be obvious, such as crazed dictators or corrupt company directors, most will not be. To them the country, corporation or group to which they belong is just a vessel to be exploited. If it should be destroyed in the process of their actions, then so be it as long as they thrive. In a traditional moral/ethical framework they are seen as evil – in their own eyes they are just doing what they need to do in order to survive and prosper.

Mentally unable to feel empathy for others, psychopaths display superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity, manipulativeness, grandiosity, exploitativeness,  stubbornness and dictatorial tendencies. They will also display a refusal to take responsibility – does that sound familiar when looking at some political or corporate actions? Clinical studies indicate that psychopaths cannot be taught or trained to feel empathy. Psychopaths can be merely confined by societal rules, laws and controls which make the risks of societally harming behaviour too high.

In addition Hare, and his colleague Dr Stephen Porter (University of British Colombia), discovered that the evidence for a hereditary genetic anomaly exists in the psycopath, in that in studies their brains have been found to possess a smaller amygdala (the area that controls emotion) than in other human’s. As Hare says in Snakes In Suits, “just remember they (psychopaths) are fundamentally unlike the rest of us. Psychopaths are programmed to prey on and humiliate others. They can’t help it. Don’t reason with them (you can’t) and above all, don’t engage in a battle with one, because a psychopath always needs to win and will use every tool in his or her arsenal to accomplish this.”

Attracted by fast-paced, high-risk, high-profit environments, their brains are wired to seek rewards, no matter the consequences. In lower intelligent individuals this will often result in a life of violence and crime, as seen by the simple but startling fact that according to a number of studies they make up around 20 – 25% of the prison population. However it must be recognised that evil deeds can, and are, carried out by non-psychopaths too, and all criminals are not psychopaths, just as as all psychopaths are not criminals. However should they choose that path their mental makeup will enable them to rationalise their deeds impassively.

Popular culture portrays psychopaths as exceedingly rare killers along the lines of the fictional Hannibal Lecter or the very real Jeffrey Dahmer or Fred West. In reality though all psychopaths feel no empathy, even for the loss of human life, the vast majority are – luckily for us all – risk averse enough to never follow these examples and take life. The danger is that this popular culture picture – and use of the word psychopath – blinds us to just how many exist, and how embedded their influence is into our day to day lives.

For it is with the higher intelligent psychopaths where their influence over all of our lives is felt most. Naturally gravitating to, and thriving in,  high risk/reward environments, they are to be found in significant numbers in areas such as high finance (eg: Investment Banking or Stockbroking) or the media or politics. It is a lot easier to be able to live with your actions that may result in unemployment and poverty for many, or to send soldiers to their potential death in warfare, if you feel no empathy at all for their possible suffering.

Some studies have shown that up to 50 per cent of business managers could have psychopathic or similar tendencies such as Sociopathy – do feel empathy, but are conditioned by societal influence to commit abhorrent acts – or Narcissism – again can physically feel empathy but inflated self-importance, egoism, vanity, conceit, indifference to the plight of others. In areas such as high finance or politics, studies have shown that this figure may be even higher.

In the book “What Would Machiavelli Do? The Ends Justify the Meanness“, satirist Stanley Bing counsels aspiring players: “Crush them. Hear their bones break, their windpipes snap” – In their eyes the empathy displayed by the majority – and at least felt by the 99% –  is nothing but weakness. A weakness that the psychopath is able to prey upon.

It is in a psychopaths instinct to exploit the weak. Psychopaths will use your sense of fair play against you. Because we don’t harm others, we assume others won’t harm us. This makes us easy prey. Depending upon their position this could be an individual, a group or even another nation. They can get away with it due to a combination of our innocent belief that their actions are, like our own would be, guided by a moral compass that will do what is best for others too. When it becomes obviously that this has not been the case we intellectually apply cognitive dissonance in order for us to square the intellectual, and morally uncomfortable, circle. In addition psychopaths naturally protect their position by surrounding themselves with sycophants or sociopaths who are either blinded by their charisma, or who will turn a blind eye due to the rewards on offer.

Our society is becoming ever more their play ground, and the risks to the 99% become ever greater by the day. For  transnational global corporations are growing ever more powerful in world affairs daily, and consequently governments become more subservient to them, and less scrutinising of their actions. With a high proportion of psychopaths becoming the business leaders, their psychology is matched by that of the legal entity we call the corporation. For those on the receiving end this combined lack of empathy is deadly as their actions directly or indirectly can – and do – have adverse effects on human beings and the society in which we live. The fox is increasingly in control of the hen house.

In a Darwinian universe ultimately these two predators combined have the very real potential to destroy mankind itself in their never ending predatory pursuit of rewards. However unlike in the natural world there is no inevitability that this  will end in a Malthusian collapse, because the 99% are not (all) sheeple – they can wrest power back, and thus pull humanity away from the brink. We do not have to be the frog in the fable, and likewise we don’t need to be scared of the scorpion, but we must not be so to naive to think that he doesn’t have the ability, or drive, to sting you.

Though psychopaths cannot be taught to feel empathy,  we can at least protect ourselves through the law and through our actions against their predation. The first step is for us to recognise that there is not “good” in everyone. We must acknowledge that we have two groups of human living side by side, one feels empathy, the other does not and is predatory in nature. Once we acknowledge that they exist beyond the realm of Hollywood bogeymen, we will be able as a species to recognise the traits of the 1%, and through our democratic institutions – before they are completely subjugated to supercapitalism – inoculate ourselves from their predatory vices, whether it be as individuals or through the corporate entities that they lead, by holding them to account and standing up for the rights of individuals through our non-cooperation with immoral decisions. We must not follow blindly their proclamations but instead stand firm and oppose what we know is morally wrong, thus not succumbing to cognitive dissonance.

The longer we ignore psychopaths very real and very influential presence amongst us, the greater the danger to our own survival. In the words of Edmund Burke, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’