George Monbiot: Toxic personalities thrive in toxic environments.
If success within the system requires
psychopathic traits, there is something wrong with the system.
A few years ago, the psychologist Michelle Roya Rad listed the characteristicsof good leadership. Among them were
fairness and objectivity; a desire to serve society rather than just yourself;
a lack of interest in fame and attention; and resistance to the temptation to
hide the truth or make impossible promises. Conversely, a paper in the Journal of Public Management and Social Policy
has listed the characteristics of leaders with psychopathic, narcissistic or
Machiavellian personalities. These include: a tendency to manipulate others; a
preparedness to lie and deceive to achieve your ends; a lack of remorse and
sensitivity; and a desire for admiration, attention, prestige and status. Which
of these lists, do you think, best describes the people vying to lead the
Conservative party?
In politics, almost
everywhere we see what looks like the externalisation of psychic wounds or
deficits. Sigmund Freud claimed that “groups take on the personality of the leader”.
I think it would be more accurate to say that the private tragedies of powerful
people become the public tragedies of those they dominate. For some people, it
is easier to command a nation, to send thousands to their deaths in unnecessary
wars, to separate children from their families and inflict terrible suffering,
than to process their own trauma and pain. What we appear to see in national
politics around the world is a playing out in public of deep private distress.
This could be a
particularly potent force in British politics. The psychotherapist Nick
Duffell has written of “wounded leaders”, who were separated from
their families in early childhood when they were sent to boarding school. They
develop a “survival personality”, learning to cut off their feelings and
project a false self, characterised by a public display of competence and
self-reliance. Beneath this persona is a profound insecurity, which might
generate an insatiable need for power, prestige and attention. The result is a
system that “consistently turns out people who appear much more competent than
they actually are”.
The problem is not
confined to these shores. Donald Trump occupies the most powerful seat on
Earth, yet still he appears to seethe with envy and resentment. “If President
Obama made the deals that I have made,” he
claimed this week, “the corrupt media would be hailing them as incredible
… With me, despite our record-setting economy and all that I have done, no
credit!” No amount of wealth or power seems able to satisfy his need for
affirmation and assurance... read more:
