[Controversial Topic]Could politicians be considered psychopaths?

NOTE: This topic can cause serious Flame Bait, if it gets out of hand and results in a Flame War I request that a mod lock it or Kill It with Fire.

It has come to my attention that, among Conspiracy Theorists and those who do not understand Real Politik or Grey-and-Grey Morality(or even Black-and-Grey Morality for that matter) that it is very for them to consider the leaders of the world to be totally souless Ax Cazy psycopaths that do everything For the Evulz. However, while this may sound whacked, how much of this is justified? If any at all?

These people even have a facebook page here: www.facebook.com/Psychopaths Rule The World

So what do you think? Could politicians "ideally" be considered psychopaths? Or is this a very blatent form of Acceptable Targets to minimize the world into a black and white worldview? Is this any Truth in Television there?

NOTE: I do not necessary mean dictators or tyrants when I'm talking about politicians that are "psychopaths" here, but every single major and minor politician around the world.

I myself? I disagree? For me, the actual truth is - people who are narcissistic are more likely to succeed in higher level roles of authority (whether corporate, law enforcement, military, religious, etc), however narcissistic is not the same as psychopathic. People who are narcissistic suffer from abnormally low empathy (understanding of others' emotions), but still have a conscience. In other words it's hard for them to put themselves in others' shoes and understanding how their actions affect others - they still "care" about people to the best of their ability, but have a hard time realizing that they are in the wrong, and often assume the other person is at fault. This is similar to people with Asperger's syndrome or higher functioning autism (who sometimes get mis-diagnosed as narcissistic, because they lack social intelligence despite often having above average IQ). People often equate narcissists with psychopaths even though they are two different disorders.

Psychopaths on the other hand lack both empathy and a conscience, in other words, they literally do not care about anything other that getting what they want and have no problem harming people in the process - they are more or less aware that their actions are 'wrong' but simply don't care. People who are psychopathic also lack the self-discipline and willingness to follow authority required to succeed in virtually any normal workforce role (with the possible exception or organizations like the mafia, gangs, or terrorist groups, where you'd have to be a psychopath to be willing to kill people at the behest of a superior) - and they are much more likely to end up in prison than to succeed in any legitimate workforce role - the percentage of psychopaths in the American population is actually 4%, while the percentage of psychopaths that make up the prison population is about 20%.

So people who are clinical psychopaths are probably more likely to be welfare recipients than higher level management, unless perhaps they are extremely intelligent and are able to succeed through little to no effort - or born into a wealthy family and inherit most of their wealth or power through their parents.

In conclusion, while in many ways you can say the world sucks because of the actions of corrupt politicians, they themselves are usually not psychopaths. Instead they are simply incompetent, corrupt or narcissistic that focuses on mostly short-sighted goals at the expense of the rest of the population.

edited 17th Feb '13 1:35:09 PM by xie323

A lot of people in management are sociopaths to some extent. The same qualities associated with leadership are also found in psychopaths.

It stands to reason that some people in the biggest management jobs of all must be sociopaths.

edited 6th Apr '13 9:30:49 AM by JimmyTMalice

"Steel wins battles. Gold wins wars."

As someone who plans to go into politics; I'm gonna have to say yes.

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

A psychopath is basically a person with ASPD with violent tendencies, so no.

As for sociopathy, maybe, but 1) it's an extremely nihilistic and unproven generalisation, and 2) sociopaths are not exceptionally good manipulators (emotion enchances thought process, believe it or not), so it's unlikely a significant percentage of politicians are sociopathic.

They can, however, be narcissists, which is worse.

Sociopathy doesn't mean no emontions, it just means no empathy. You can still get mad, sad, happy, or whatever; you just don't care if your actions hurt other people so long as they benefit yourself.

As for the title question, a lot of politicians would have to be either sociopaths or incredibly ignorant to promote the legislation that they do.

edited 5th Apr '13 5:24:29 PM by RTaco

And that's the key point, right there. Politicians live in a bubble, largely protected from dissenting opinions. The fact that they're all rich really doesn't help.

I would like to dissent with the original opinion. Politicians are no less (no more?) neurotypical than the average individual. Politicians are a broad range of individuals. Saying all - or most - politicians are psychopathic is like saying that all doctors have hearts of gold. Not all doctors do.

And this argument may only be applicable to some polticians. The statement "all politicians are psychopaths" is a very vague and rather insulting question. Some people are in politics because they actually want to help people. Indeed, this argument is based on poor reasoning and lack of understanding of basic psychology. Even if the statement were true (which it is not)... the average lower house of a parliament contains 300 members. Statistical probability would suggest that a sizeable proportion would NOT be psychopaths. Psychopathy is rare in the general populace anyway.

I would say more on this topic, but I feel my point is made enough.

I'd say yes, simply because the way we've set things up tends to put lying and manipulation in an ivory tower. The ones who end up at the top are often those who have the least qualms about doing so.

edited 5th Apr '13 6:54:38 PM by Pykrete

@RT Aco: The thing is, sociopathy is pretty much defined as Lack of Empathy due to to shallow emotions. Sociopaths obviously can still get angry or happy, but only for short and vibrant periods of time. The reason they lack empathy is because higher emotions are out of their reach, and higher emotions just happen to enhance thought processes or even drive them entirely.

This is also why sociopaths can't feel guilt or shame: unlike narcissists, they lack emotional attachment, thus they don't feel embarassed.

If I recall correctly, leaders (such as politicians) tend not to necessarily be psychopaths, but frequently have traits commonly associated with them. I haven't read the book yet, but I recall a guest on The Daily Show saying the population of psychopaths*

in Washington and among business leaders is similar to the numbers in prison. Whether that's true or not (or even if I'm remembering wrongly, which is entirely possible,) I dunno.

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?

I would say that politicians aren't sociopaths, but modern politics encourages selfish sociopathic behaviour.

Not Three Laws compliant.

I agree with Hopie and Zen.

I doubt very many of them are psycopaths in any sense.

I could see some psychopathic traits being inherant in politics.

I think everyone forgets politicians do both good and harm to varying degrees and measures.

Who watches the watchmen?

@Wulf: I would be very hesitant with a Daily Show generalization like that...for one thing, it seems unlikely that their guest would be given access to conduct such a study on the leaders of the free world.

edited 6th Apr '13 8:09:58 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Well if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, perhaps it really is a duck.

What Zender says. There are strong selective pressures in politics that reward sociopathic behaviour.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

I'm reluctant to give an actual medical diagnosis to anyone's behavior. I mean, there's this tendency for people to paint large groups with the same brush, and it's both incredibly cynical and obnoxiously lazy of us to do so. Also, none of us are psychologists or therapists, so anything we conclude isn't going to be medically backed anyway.

The rich and the powerful are insulated, by their wealth and power, from the consequences of their decisions. That doesn't make them sociopathic. Chances are that they, on a personal level with people they actually know, are as normally empathetic as any of us are with the people we know. Selfishness and obliviousness, which they have in spades, are not mental disorders.

And even then we can't apply it to all politicians, because plenty of them come from less than wealthy backgrounds (I realize that it's an uphill battle for those that aren't, but it's happened, and our current president does not come from inherited wealth) and run for power specifically because they know what the consequences of the decisions of the rich and powerful are. (Whether they're effective or uncorruptable is another matter.)

Seriously though, saying all politicians have some sort of mental disorder is lazy thinking, and doesn't help to solve anything.

This. I don't care much for most politicians, but I'd never call anyone who hasn't been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder a "sociopath". The term is nauseatingly overused as it is.

Sounds like a gross generalisation to me. Every single politician? Seems no different to me than making up any racial, sexual or whatever stereotype.

I wonder what fuels this view - presumably a combination of being disaffected by the politics in place while justifying making no attempt to change it. After all, if you tried to become a politician you'd become a psychopath, so there, no need to get up off the couch then.

edited 7th Apr '13 3:16:08 AM by betaalpha

But it doesn't mean Politicians can't suffer from mental illness, like Depression or OCD: MPs Charles Walker and Kevan Jones tell of mental health issues.

Keep Rolling On

I do wonder how many politicians suffer from other disorders, like ADD.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

A number of Psychologists have written that many successful business people are psychopaths. Summed up it goes "High Intelligence psychopaths are successful business men, low intelligence psychopaths are criminals."

You could say the same about the top performers in any field: Sports stars often acknowledge the problems they cause their families because of the schedules they have to keep to become the best, yet they STILL keep to these schedules, despite the apologies.

You don't have to be violent to be a psychopath.

List and test

edited 7th Apr '13 4:47:46 AM by LastHussar

Do the job in front of you.

I'd personally think there's way too much negative stigma to psychopathy. Yes, they tend to be manipulative, shallow and can't instinctively feel or care for other people. But, if given the right attention I'm of the belief that they can function just as well as normal people.

I vaguely remember reading an article from a psychopath who was literally taught to care and consider other people when growing up. It was a fascinating read.

Well, first off, nobody's saying every politician. But anyway, saying politicians have disproportionate tendency for sociopathic behavior is not a stereotype at all. It's an observation with considerable evidence.

5 Scientific Reasons Powerful People Will Always Suck

A very good article on this by cracked.

edited 7th Apr '13 5:03:49 AM by CassidyTheDevil

I got the 'Every single politician' bit from from the title of this conversation thread, though that's presumably a mistake on my part. When I read "Could politicians be considered psychopaths?" that sounds like all of them - if you are a politician, you could be considered a psychopath, and that's either all of 'em or none. Assumedly the title really means "Is there a disproportionate number of psychopaths amongst politicians?" Which doesn't read well, I admit :)

Then again, later Xie says, "NOTE: I do not necessary mean dictators or tyrants when I'm talking about politicians that are "psychopaths" here, but every single major and minor politician around the world"

It does sound from Xie's summary that some people (though not Xie him/herself) really do think it's all politicians. And others probably think there's a greater number of psychopaths in the political parties they don't like :)

Politicians will always be considered psychopaths by someone when their actions screw up human beings - even if any other action would have screwed over even more of 'em.

edited 7th Apr '13 5:26:20 AM by betaalpha

Well, look what happens to a politician who owns up to poor behaviour and mental health problems. I remember the "SVEND HIM PACKING" headlines in the Toronto Sun - they demonized this guy. What behaviour do we encourage in our leaders?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.