© Anthony Freda
New research has exposed, shall we say, the root of the problem. Pathocracy is its flower.
Definition: pathocracy (n). A system of government created by a small pathological minority that takes control over a society of normal people (from Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski).
A small minority of people are born psychopaths; they inherit a genetic deviance linked to certain structural abnormalities of their social brain.
The physical dynamic that exposes psychopaths is a reduction of gray matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is able to image this deviation fundamental to psychopathy. Potential benefits to humanity are immense; imagine something like a TSA screening (without the bureaucracy, groping and humiliation) to keep psychopaths from boarding the flight to power.
Psychopaths enjoy a perverse advantage over normal people in ascending pyramids of power. Unfettered by conscience, empathy, morality...some might say, without the weight of a soul, psychopaths readily rise to the top in a society turned upside down by pathocracy. Lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing - without remorse, psychopaths can claw for power in ways that make a person with a conscience recoil.
It's not so much that power corrupts as that the corrupt seek power.
Politics and investment banking are prime waters for psychopaths to school. If people enjoying great power over others were screened for social-brain deviations with an MRI scan, and the psychopaths were weeded out, renaissance might occupy Capital Hill and Wall Street. Judging from our current state of politics and financialization, there certainly would be many vacancies to fill in such a furthering of the humane.
It truly is right in our hands, an opportunity we may never see again.
But...possessing the means of physically detecting psychopathy and correcting the blight of psychopathic "leadership" may be irrelevant in the face of pathocracy fully entrenched. Psychopaths in power would never volunteer to have their social-brain deviations revealed, would never allow legislation regarding a brain MRI as a prerequisite to holding any elective office.
Perhaps it's true, "where there's a will, there's a way". Technology offers us the way - the key to identifying the human brain's physical roots of psychopathy. The question becomes whether or not the American public has the will to force holders of great power over others, and seekers of such power, to bare their soul...or lack thereof.
Legislation requiring some "newfangled, junk-science" brain scan for leaders could only be forced from below. But our influence down here in the 99.99% is withering toward nothing but voting for a red psychopath, or a blue one, in elections controlled by unlimited corporate cash, and fraud.
And there's: "Either with us, or against us". Criminalization of dissent is plodding toward any questioning of entrenched pathocracy becoming "domestic terrorism".
A most insidious aspect of psychopathy: It's in the genes. Not only can moneypower be passed on through progeny, so can genes for psychopathy. The elite are shameless in pronouncing their gigadeath plans (95% reduction of human population) with such as Agenda 21, Georgia Guidestones, Denver airport...though they are elusive about how billions of humans will be eliminated....
When human population is reduced to 500,000,000, will the elite in absolute control be psychopaths across the board?
Perhaps an easy way to consider our potential is a simple MRI scan: Imagine...Dick Cheney was screened from ultimately becoming, for eight years, the de facto president of the greatest military power Earth has ever suffered.
Imagine that 9/11 never happened.
Everybody must get scanned (Dylan paraphrased); I'll go first.