{"id":49,"date":"2008-12-11T10:30:57","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T15:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/publicizing-personality-disorders-in-power\/"},"modified":"2022-05-08T00:10:30","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T04:10:30","slug":"publicizing-personality-disorders-in-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/publicizing-personality-disorders-in-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Publicizing The Threat of Personality Disorders Among Those in Positions of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"display:block;float:left;padding:5px;\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-2162106478346973\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\";\r\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\r\n\/\/2007-08-03: STBlogPostPage300X250\r\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"6465476065\";\r\ngoogle_color_border = \"EDF1F0\";\r\ngoogle_color_bg = \"EDF1F0\";\r\ngoogle_color_link = \"008000\";\r\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\r\ngoogle_color_url = \"008000\";\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/div>As some of you may know, I often rail about the abundance of <a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/howardssystem-20?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;node=61\">sociopaths<\/a> and people with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/interests\/mind\/narcissistic.shtml\">Narcissistic<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/interests\/mind\/borderline.shtml\">Borderline Personality Disorder<\/a> in positions of power in our culture. There has been ample evidence of this problem in the news recently. Yet rarely do analyses of these cases go beyond charges of corruption to asking the crucial question of whether they involve an actual psychological disorder.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of the recent scandal involving Detroit&#8217;s ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, one of our major local papers finally directly raised this issue in an article entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20081027\/LIFESTYLE\/810270316\/1439\" target=\"view_window\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Politics &amp; personality: Psychologists weigh in on behaviors of the former Detroit mayor&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But, in general, coverage of this issue, so central to the destructiveness of our times, is dangerously and tellingly lacking.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"blagovids\"><\/a>So I was thrilled yesterday, in the wake of the scandal involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, to see Rachel Maddow do a very direct story on this issue, available below.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/22425001\/vp\/28166897#28166897\" width=\"425\" height=\"339\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/center>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was further heartened when CNN also focused on the story in a piece, available below, that includes interviews with psychologists who suggest that Blagojevich &#8220;probably does suffer from some form of psychopathology, some form of psychiatric disturbance, which&#8230;is best captured by a diagnosis called Narcissistic Personality Disorder.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><center><script src=\"http:\/\/i.cdn.turner.com\/cnn\/.element\/js\/2.0\/video\/evp\/module.js?loc=dom&amp;vid=\/video\/politics\/2008\/12\/13\/tuchman.blago.bonkers.final.cnn\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><noscript>Embedded video from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/video\">CNN Video<\/a><\/noscript><\/center>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the most important issues of our time. Keeping individuals with these disorders, which deeply affect empathy and conscience, out of positions of power &#8211; whether that position be governor, CEO or parent &#8211; is one of the key things we can do to protect ourselves and our world from the abuses that are inevitable when they are given such platforms from which to operate. Yet, individuals with these disorders are notoriously able to charm and persuade people. Therefore, only by becoming highly attuned to the existence of these disorders and how they operate can we immunize ourselves to being fooled into continuing to place such destructive people in positions from which they can do enormous harm.<\/p>\n<p>The public desperately needs to become educated on how to better spot these personality disorders and to become skeptical, rather than gullible, in the face of those charmers that psychopath-expert Robert Hare has called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0060837721\/howardssystem-20\"><i>Snakes in Suits<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As some of you may know, I often rail about the abundance of sociopaths and people with Narcissistic or Borderline Personality Disorder in positions of power in our culture. There has been ample evidence of this problem in the news recently. Yet rarely do analyses of these cases go beyond charges of corruption to asking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,16,13],"tags":[180,365,146,198,366,150,367,368,244,80,123,251,137,369,258,370,371,147],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","category-psychology","tag-abuse","tag-borderline-personality-disorder","tag-conscience","tag-culture","tag-detroit","tag-empathy","tag-kwame-kilpatrick","tag-narcissistic-personality-disorder","tag-personality-disorders","tag-politics","tag-psychology","tag-psychopaths","tag-psychopathy","tag-rachel-maddow","tag-robert-hare","tag-rod-blagojevich","tag-sociopaths","tag-sociopathy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.systemsthinker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}