In a
diary posted this morning
kobie173 poses a question many of us have doubtlessly asked repeatedly over the last few years: "Don't they care?"
The answer, my friend, is: NO!!!!!
I've been a-musin' and a-ponderin' on this for a while now, and kobie's plaintive question prompts me to post my mental meanderings....
In a recent diary our fellow Kossack
bloomster posted a very to-the-point diary regarding a particular type of dysfunction known as sociopathic/psychopathic personality disorder. This term is most often used to describe individuals who view the world exclusively in terms of their own desires and impulses without regard to the feelings, desires or rights of those around them, and who therefore engage in a variety of behaviors that satisfy the psychopath (or sociopath, to use the more recently adopted term) in his or her quest for fulfillment but that at the same time may be injurious (sometimes in the extreme) to those unfortunate enough to come into contact with these individuals.
The manifestations of this disorder are many and varied, from the petty con artist who hustles the gullible for modest sums strictly for amusement's sake to the serial killer who stalks and kills in an attempt to satisfy a lust for power so extreme that it demands the ultimate power play: the taking of the life of a fellow human being.
I will leave to the more scholarly among us to analyze and explain, where such is even possible, this disorder; I will simply state that, having developed over the years the mere beginnings of an understanding of just how complicated and multi-layered the human personality can be, and taking into account the incomprehensible complexity of the human brain, it's no wonder that some among us are just plain weird!!
Our colleague bloomster, in the diary to which I alluded above, and to which you may all refer here, makes the case that our current president, George W. Bush, is afflicted with just such a disorder, manifesting a number of the characteristics, or symptoms, if you wish, that define this affliction. I will, again, leave it to the psychologists, sociologists, and any other `ologists who may wish to take a crack at him (take a number, please) to effect a definitive diagnosis. My purpose here is to follow this line of thought to an expanded assessment of this pathology with respect not only to President Bush himself, but to his extended family, and further, to the socio-economic stratum that he and his family occupy within our society as a whole.
I've never heard the term "sociopathic elitism" before, so I may well be the one who first coined the phrase to describe the pathological tendency of those in the "moneyed classes" to view the world, its physical contents and all its inhabitants, human or otherwise, as "things" available at any moment to be used by the upper crust of society for any purpose, however self-serving, perverse or absurd it may be.
It is perhaps fortunate that this malady is most often manifest by a lust for material wealth, principally money, of course, but also the accumulation of objects deemed to be precious such as automobiles, real property, jewelry, art, etc. I say fortunate because, were it not for the monetary or material outlet for their passion for domination, they may well be hunting the rest of us for sport. However, this does not eliminate other less direct means for them to cause annoyance to the masses, sometimes to a degree that can be justifiably considered outrageously immoral. The current administration is a case in point: The pursuit of material wealth, in this case the control of Iraq's petroleum reserves, could be considered a laudable enterprise were it not for the fact that they belonged to someone else, and that the sacrifices imposed on the people of the United States in order to finance the Iraqi misadventure are turning out to be considerable, and are being borne not by all, but by (you guessed it) the vast masses of the middle and lower classes. Furthermore, the outrageously unbalanced tax cuts pushed into law by the Bush administration clearly illustrate the point: In the view of the "sociopathic elite", the upper classes are entitled to everything they can possible get their hands on, regardless of the resulting effects on the rest of the citizenry, or, for that matter, the environment, the global economy, or the future viability of biosphere. Increased poverty? Too bad. That's what they get for not being crafty and avaricious like us. Basic health care beyond the reach of millions? Same thing. Lack of quality education? Tough. If they can't afford it they don't deserve it. A degraded environment? Bah! A myth promulgated by intellectual effete quiche-eating cheese-nibbling wine-sipping liberals. And so on and so forth.
Sometimes it seems as if the "I, me, mine" philosophy of life has become engrained in the American psyche, to the extent that it has infected not only the moneyed classes but the middle class as well. California's Proposition 13 is an excellent example of this. When the homeowners of California were offered the opportunity to drastically reduce their property taxes they went for it like a dog for a bone. The result, predictably, was a chronic budget shortfall that has resulted, among other things, in drastic cuts in education spending, infrastructure maintenance and other government programs. And, even with all the problems resulting from chronic budget shortages, no politician, of either party, could be persuaded to advocate an increase in taxes; it's considered "political suicide" and therefore unmentionable. The result is an inexorable erosion of the quality of life for all those unfortunate enough to be part of the non-moneyed classes.
Are the modern-day American aristocrats concerned about the increasing misfortune of their less affluent fellow citizens? Not likely. Like the individual sociopath, the moneyed classes are comfortable in their belief that they are the rightful "owners" of the society they inhabit (do you think it was a coincidence that President Bush used the phrase "ownership society" in his efforts to bamboozle the citizenry as to his motives and intentions?). Their only concern is that the masses remain cowed and intimidated, or at least docile and distracted,
Perhaps we should be thankful that so many of these "aristocrats" don't feel the urge to translate their economic power into overt criminal acts like murder, rape, etc., although in recent years there have been a few notorious cases in which such things did, indeed occur. They do, however, engage in behaviors that cause a great deal of harm to society at large, and, not to give them a break they don't deserve, they probably don't and can't understand why anybody would have any complaints about it.