National Sociopathy

 

Take a look at this teaser trailer for the forthcoming documentary about the disturbing story of Elizabeth Holmes:

Elizabeth Holmes was once heralded as a business prodigy, a woman who had become a billionairess via the launch of her medical technology company, Theranos. The problem was that the basis of her company and wealth, a magical medical device that could screen for countless medical conditions via a mere drop of blood, was nonexistent.  Holmes and her secret lover, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, had concocted an elaborate hoax around a biomedical device that was impossible to manufacture using contemporary technology. Despite warning signs that many industry experts had identified early on, Holmes was nonetheless showered with awards, including an appointment to the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows and a spot on Time magazine's 100 most influential people list. Holmes also received the "Under 30 Doers Award" from Forbes and received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Pepperdine University. Even Walgreens partnered with Theronos to promote her device, something that would later result in the company having to pay $44 million in a settlement with its defrauded customers (Gregory Wasson, who was CEO at the time, would later himself be a target of an SEC investigation, resulting in a substantial fine and the ever-hapless Walgreens paying yet another substantial legal settlement).

Everyone loves a good scandal, so this story has since enjoyed intense scrutiny concerning how these two individuals fleeced some of the supposed best and brightest minds in the country (Walgreens wasn't fleeced; it was just Walgreens being Walgreens). Many commentators, especially psychologists and mental health professionals, have been especially intrigued by the mercurial personalities of Holmes and Balwani, and have since speculated that both exhibit traits associated with sociopathy. Now, what does that mean? While the term "sociopathy," as with "psychopathy", is often associated with violent killers, the truth is that most sociopaths live non-violent lives (psychopaths, it should be noted, less so).  Dr. Martha Stout, in The Sociopath Next Door, has estimated that as high as 1 in 25 people you meet might be sociopaths.  Most sociopaths are not violent but rather suffer from antisocial personality disorder. What this means is that they suffer from personality traits that render them manipulative, with a pathological lack of empathy for others.  I like to think of them as spiders in human form, people who don't see others as equals with their own hopes, dreams, struggles, etc., but prey - prey to be devoured or prey to be caught in their web and toyed with.  Psychiatrists have commented that Holmes in particular exhibits such tendencies. Indeed, during her years as head of Theronos, many employees would later come forward to describe the hellish working environment she created, one replete with routine emotional abuse (contrary to popular myth, sociopaths are not good business people precisely because of their abusive, untrustworthy nature). Personally speaking, I have often believed that Holmes has the eyes of a spider - just two, mind you, but as wide and unblinking as a predator's (it has also been observed that many sociopaths exhibit this trait because they have not inculcated the many social norms we take for granted, such as it being impolite to stare at someone).

This sordid story has me thinking about the current chaotic geopolitical situation.  Is it possible that nations can become sociopathic?  Political philosophers from Plato to Machiavelli have long observed that nations are, in many respects, just reflections of the people who compose them. So, if a nation-state is composed of sociopaths, why couldn't the nation itself reflect that disorder?

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One of the differences between a psychopath and a sociopath is that a psychopath is born, while a sociopath is made.  That is to say, a psychopath is one from birth, something scientists attribute to the underdevelopment of the part of the brain where empathy is generated. Sociopaths, on the other hand, are made, usually by experiencing a traumatic event in the past that instills an emotional detachment from other human beings. In effect, they stop seeing people and start seeing threats that must be managed.  Indeed, Holmes has been candid about being raped while at university, a traumatic experience that some observers have speculated may have contributed to the negative personality traits she later exhibited.

If trauma can transform individuals into people incapable of seeing others as fully human, I propose that it can produce the same effect on entire societies.

The obvious go-to example here is Nazi Germany. Before the rise of Hitlerian fascism, Weimar Republic Germany was seen as a progressive state. It was home to some of the world's finest universities. While the countryside was stubbornly provincial, its cities, such as Berlin, were very libertine, perhaps even bordering on the licentious. After the First World War, Germany even had a robust democracy, with many political groups jostling for power.  So, how did such a liberal democracy descend into one-party authoritarianism? I am not breaking new ground when I diagnose the terrors of World War One as an obvious culprit. Germany, as did most of Europe, suffered the horrors of a war in which roughly 15% of its military personnel and 4% of its overall population died in four years. And, as we all know, peace did not bring relief, as the Treaty of Versailles imposed staggering post-war economic hardships via war reparations, as well as the national embarrassment of losing territory and forced disarmament.  

From the trauma of that war, I would argue, a portion of the German population began exhibiting traits analogous to sociopathy.  Brutalized by war, they themselves became brutal, seeing enemies everywhere who must be eliminated for Germany to survive and prosper.  The parallels are difficult to ignore. Much as a sociopath ceases to see other people as having the same worth they do, Nazi ideology reduced entire populations to obstacles, parasites, or threats. Empathy was replaced by utility. Human beings ceased to be individuals and instead became categories to be managed, exploited, expelled, or destroyed. Such thinking would ultimately culminate in history's greatest industrialized atrocity.

Can the same process of trauma metastasizing into sociopathy be observed elsewhere?

I believe it can.

In the wake of the horrific Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023 - something that must not be allowed to be minimized or justified by the contentious history of Israel and its neighbors since 1948 - Israel is itself now accused by numerous observers and organizations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, of engaging in genocidal conduct in Gaza.  Even the International Court of Justice found the allegations serious enough to warrant ongoing proceedings and provisional measures. 

What is more, Israel has since expanded its war to other neighboring states, including occupying parts of the West Bank and Lebanon in what Israel's current far-right coalition refers to as the Greater Israel project, a policy of forced expansion eerily similar to Nazi Germany's call for Lebensraum. In addition to this, Israel has launched a war against Iran, with American assistance, using dubious claims of a nuclear threat as justification for a military operation that is now estimated to have killed at least 1,700 to over 3,400 Iranian civilians, with the war now spreading to the larger Middle East and grinding into its eighth month for an operation President Trump assured all was going to be merely a matter of weeks (please revisit my post where I predicted this was going to play out as well as Hitler's hoped-for quick war with the Soviet Union did).  

It is stunning to see a state born out of bloody-minded conquest and genocide now reproduce those very crimes in its own behavior. Traumatized by Nazi sociopaths, Israel has now itself succumbed to the same toxic disorder by seeing every other nation, every other people, as threats to be managed or manipulated.  

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To this list of nations transformed into sociopathic behavior by trauma, I would also add the United States of America.  How did a nation that once defined itself by the noble demand for "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" become a hotbed of xenophobia in a mere decade? How did a nation that once prided itself on possessing a Department of Defense morph into one where it now (nominally) has a Department of War? And how did a once great political party defined by the high-minded ideals of a liberty-loving Ronald Reagan, a man who defined "the flourishing of liberty, democracy, and constitutional government" as the goal of his administration, become entirely devoured by an authoritarian who now declares that the Constitution allows him to do "whatever I want as president"?

Trauma. Specifically, the trauma of 9-11.  That was the moment that set a significant portion of the American electorate on a path toward what I would call national sociopathy. When jihadists forcibly reshaped the New York City skyline, killing over three thousand Americans in the process, as well as nearly demolishing a portion of the Pentagon, I believe a portion of the American people, somewhat understandably, lost their minds.  Traumatized by monsters, they themselves decided on a political homeopathy where the cause of the disease would now become the cure. When George W. Bush stated that "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," he was ratifying this dangerous turn where violence would beget violence. America would, as a matter of policy, abandon the Golden Rule and return to the older logic of Lex Talionis: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

What followed would be a decade of war that would result in over 7,000 dead American personnel, around 300,000 dead Iraqis, and 170,000 dead Afghans.  What is more, America would turn inward, seeing its own people as potential threats, resulting in abuses of civil liberties such as warrantless surveillance and secret courts. Out of the trauma of 9-11 came the Department of Homeland Security, a name that some critics remarked sounded less like an American institution than something borrowed from a frightened security state. DHS would eventually oversee agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose increasingly aggressive tactics have become a source of intense controversy. In recent years, ICE has faced accusations ranging from unlawful detentions (at latter-day concentration camps where nearly 60 inmates have already died) to the use of deadly force, including against two unarmed protesters who were shot and killed in cold blood.

Just as the Israeli response to October 7th cannot be understood apart from the trauma of the Holocaust, modern American politics cannot be understood apart from the trauma of September 11th. A nation that once saw itself as a beacon of liberty increasingly came to see itself as a besieged fortress, justifying what was unjustifiable. 

I believe it was precisely that 9/11-induced trauma that set America on the path that would eventually lead to MAGA and many of its xenophobic and authoritarian tendencies. If outsiders are seen not as people but as threats, then the only logical response, from a sociopathic perspective, is to manage those threats. Trade is curtailed or heavily tariffed. Alliances are abandoned. Borders are militarized. "Foreigners" are rounded up and imprisoned. Enemies are attacked and their resources seized. Sound familiar?

As with my preceding examples, America, traumatized by monsters, becomes monstrous. 

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If sociopathy is the disease, what is the cure?  Treatment for antisocial personality disorder is difficult and often requires years of intensive intervention aimed at restoring empathy, encouraging self-reflection, and teaching healthier ways of relating to others. Perhaps the same is true of nations. A traumatized nation cannot bomb or bully its way back to psychological health.

The first step, as ever, is to get them to admit there is a problem. This, I believe, is already occurring in America as the Trump administration's polling numbers begin to hit historic lows and former MAGA supporters take to social media to denounce the movement they once cheered on.  That is an important first step, but it is only that: a first step.

I suggest subsequent steps will need to get to the fundamental roots of the problem. For example, it is no coincidence that MAGA was most popular with what Trump himself once referred to as "the poorly educated." Such movements thrive among populations that are frightened, disoriented, and searching for simple explanations. Conspiracy theories and demagogues flourish in these environments because they offer clarity where reality offers only uncertainty.  With a proper understanding of civics and history, those most susceptible to national sociopathy will have the tools to understand that not every bad event is part of a conspiracy targeted at them but merely the ebb and flow of a fallen world, and that the solution to such traumatic events is not more traumatizing behavior.   Instead, citizens must learn to trust again, to see strangers as people rather than threats, and to confront its wounds honestly rather than letting them fester.

What is more, the culture needs to be examined with a close eye. (It should come as no surprise that this former conservative would be a culture hawk, but some habits die hard! Unlike the false fire of William Bennett, I still believe that politics is downhill from culture.) For example, in recent years, a military fetishism has set in where nations, especially Israel and America, are repeatedly told that there is no problem that a few bombs or well-trained soldiers can't solve. Such a belief is hardly new. Former General and President Dwight Eisenhower warned of similar dangers when he cautioned Americans about the growing power of the post-war "military-industrial complex." The notion that military strength and good government are synonymous is poisonous to both a competent military establishment and a functioning republic, and it must be addressed.

Finally, traumatized nations must learn the difficult art of self-reflection. Just as a sociopath often rationalizes harmful behavior as necessary or deserved, nations are prone to wrapping their own failings in myths of righteousness and necessity. Germany could not recover without confronting the crimes of Nazism. America cannot honestly assess its place in the world without examining the legacy of slavery, imperial adventures, the excesses of the War on Terror and, now, the rise of MAGA and Donald Trump's brand of toxic masculinity filtered through white Christian nationalism. Nor can Israel hope to find lasting peace without grappling with the consequences of its treatment of the Palestinians. Healing begins when nations stop asking only what was done to them and begin asking what they themselves have done to others.

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The above is merely a theory of a man cosplaying as a psychiatrist. I readily admit to the shortcomings of my analysis. For example, no discussion of American trauma can be called comprehensive without discussing the trauma inflicted by the Civil War, an event that continues to echo across the American South.  What is more, an analysis of the rise of Nazi Germany cannot be considered complete without examining the ramifications of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict so brutal that parts of Europe still bear the scars, particularly in Germany. I omitted such discussions for practical reasons: it would have inflated this already overly long post into a treatise that wouldn't be complete until sometime next year! 

Having said that, I believe the ideas presented here are at least worthy of consideration.

Be that as it may, in a mere twenty-six days, Americans will once again be asked to confront their national id. Will it choose to address the sociopathic elephant in the room, or will it choose to continue to blame others for its problems? Polls suggest that perhaps, after a two-year nightmare of paranoid delusions and sleepless nights haunted by enemies both real and imagined, an admission that there is a problem will dominate electoral results. We shall see. Mental illness is not easily conquered; less so on a national scale.  One can only hope that the road to healing begins this November.

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