I guess that you may have already come across the controversial tweet by an actress that has stirred the political hornet’s nest.
The provocative tweet as reported by the Quartz [“You are a psychopath”: An actress’s post on Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has gone viral, October 9]
“First of all, no one is trying to fight you. As a matter of fact, you’re the one who’s picking a fight. Secondly, the country where you are elected as president by 16 million out of 100-plus million is Third World. You talk as if the Philippines is a superpower. Excuse me, we don’t want to go hungry. If you want, you do it yourself. Leave us out of it. So many people have nothing to eat, and yet you’ll starve us even further… Third, I know a psychiatrist. Get yourself checked. You’re not bipolar. You are a psychopath.”
Although I sympathize with the above, this has been emblematic of what I call personality based politics.
Personality based politics is where political leaders, as ramification/s of their actions or statements, are critiqued "ethically" based on their individual character rather than the “unseen” contextual substance or message. The template: Leader X did or said Y, hence he/she is moral/immoral.
Let us put the alleged mental malady tweet into perspective.
Mr. Duterte had been a “psychopath” prior to the elections (cursed the Pope and the US ambassador), yet got elected by 16 million or close to 40% of the voting population. At the end of the first 100 days in office, media reported a +76% trust rating, according to polls—even after having exhibited sustained psychopathic behavior!
You see, the problem has even been more than Mr. Duterte as a “psychopath”.
Instead, the crux of the problem has been that a significant segment of the Philippine populace has been enamored or mesmerized by Mr. Duterte’s manifestations of mental disorder. It would rather seem that de rigeur politics can be described as biased in favor for “psychopaths”.
The lesson here: Mr. Duterte’s actions are a symptom of populist politics (the superhero syndrome)
Or the Philippine politics has drifted to the politics of psychopathy.
And because of the high trust ratings, the administration even expressed confidence to pursue such “psychopathic” path: (GMA October 12) “This will further motivate his administration to continue what he started in his first 100 days--fighting illegal drugs and crime, combating terrorism, curbing corruption, and sustaining the momentum of economic growth,” Andanar said.
Let me add that the tweet has rather been charitable to Mr. Duterte because it described the Philippine leader as a “psychopath” which is defined as (dictionary.com) amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.
The more cogent behavioral description should be “sociopath” or “advanced psychopathy”. A sociopath signifies (dictionary.com) a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
How do you call a person who bears an obsessive compulsion to see arbitrary mass killings in the name attaining utopia (nirvana fallacy)?
As far back in December 2015, when Mr. Duterte’s popularity began to surge, I wrote about the Strongman Bubble: (Before It’s News used to republish my blog articles so you read it here)
Financial Bubbles which are the belief in something out of nothing, can traced to have spilled over to the du jour politics in the form of the strongman rule.
The strongman rule bubble evinces of the desire to solve social economic and political problems with the arbitrary use of force.
The strongman rule bubble believes that such arbitrary use of force will serve to benefit the populace.
The strongman rule bubble believes such arbitrary use of force will be applied platonically on perceived popular moral grounds.
The strongman rule bubble believes in the oxymoron that the democracy, a government by the people, is inferior to and should be substituted for a reign of absolute power—dictatorship. Essentially people who adore the strongman rule bubble have really been against democracy. Not only have they have been incoherent, they must be petty tyrants.
The strongman rule bubble believes everyone has to conform with strongman’s values, preferences, tastes, perception and priorities.
In the same December post, not only did I warn that this would lead to undermining of the currency, I even pointed out that psycho-sociopathic is the NATURE of dictatorship or tyrants (regardless of the political ideological leanings).
The free market academic field has even proposed three models for why dictators are essentially sociopaths: namely, the Acton (Power corrupts) model, the Hayek (Worst Gets to the Top) model and the Eugene Richter (Born Bad) model. Back to my December post [bold added]
For one, the strong man bubble depends on a leader, which for Lord Acton (John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton) will be corrupted by power or “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”.
Another, dictatorship depends on leaders whom are unfettered by social compulsion such that the great FA Hayek says that the “Worst Get on Top”.
Such totalitarian leaders will take on the task that are “ruthless ready to disregard the barriers of accepted morals can execute”. Such task essentially attracts sociopaths, sadists and morally insensitive people.
Third, Eugen Richter a German politician saw totalitarians as “born bad”. Why? Economist, author and Professor Bryan Caplan explain:
Richter: they are idealists, but their ideal is totalitarian. Deluded zealots who sincerely believe in their cause but their cause from the outset is one that involves doing terrible things to people. Consistent with Lenin, Castro, people who you could have believed and many did believe were idealists and altruists, but they were quick to destroy and kill. Very often people assume that if you are not corrupt, then you are good. So Stalin, for example, by all accounts lived an extremely modest life, slept on a cot; but he murdered millions of people.
In a modern dictatorship where you have to fight to get to the top, those who get to the top have to kill; whereas in a hereditary monarchy, you actually do eventually have a chance of getting lucky. King Leopold situation: one dividing line people make between sociopaths and simple murderers is that sociopath doesn’t mind doing horrible things to people who are well known to him. Stalin a sociopath in this sense; Hitler really was not. Stalin enjoyed putting the wives of people he worked with in prison. Hitler, while he was willing to do things to millions of strangers, with people he knew, he really had to work himself up. The decision made to kill Ernst Roehm, he spent several hours trying to convince himself it would be all right. Probably similar for King Leopold–easier to kill people far away.
In short, dictatorship depends on leaders who are largely malignant narcissist, who would not hesitate to “kill, murder, hurt anyone who gets into their way”—to please their egos.
Again the above shows why I empathize with the actress’ gripe, although our difference is that instead of being seen as a character defect or anomaly, sociopathy are manifestations or evidences of tyrannical behavior
And again I have repeatedly pointed out here, Mr. Duterte’s supposed mental disorder should be seen asdeliberate expressions or a thespian political act (social signaling) designed to entrance the populace [Phisix 7,580: Media "Cries Uncle" as the Maginot Defense Line Caves In! September 11, 2016]
Anyone who dares criticize on his supposed mandate to use extrajudicial means to his pet project the “war on drugs” will be subjected to ad hominem politics through intimidation, expletives and threats at the very least. The idea is to paint himself as sincere, steadfast in commitment, and morally upright to his followers
And such acts have done exactly what it has been meant for: to captivate his desired audiences to the point of establishing a halo effect. The Halo effect is a cognitive error which (Wikipedia) influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that entity's character or properties. This Halo Effect syndrome seems to have been so successful as to even subvert formerly entrenched traditional values/beliefs, such as the Catholic faith and the affinity for the US, in favor of Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs founded on the judge, jury and executioner or the implicit policy of murder.
The point of all these has been that the public fails to appreciate that socio/psychopathy has signified a tool for the "Transforming the consciousness of society" in order for society to embrace socialism or the Philippine version: Ochlocratic leftist dictatorship
And as proof, because the actress who made the tweet, has been subjected to intense social media mob lynching, Mr. Duterte responded to this with ironic and uncanny “civility” to even cite the actresses' "constitutional rights" (Philstar October 12). Although, a senator appears to have taken up the cudgels in favor of the embattled actress. (Rappler October 12)
And because of high trust ratings, the war on drugs will now be expanded to include the war on smoking or cigarettes and eventually to the war on alcohol (Rappler October 10)!
If you haven’t noticed all these have signified as a slippery slope to curtail people’s property rights and civil liberties. And in order to secure such goals, interventions will beget interventions (eventually monitoring will have to be done on a household basis, so the government will keep expanding to ensure controls at household levels).
And burgeoning interventions will lead to the point that we would be told what to eat, what to wear, the allowable things to watch to read, who to associate with or more…
Furthermore, the tweet also argued that "picking a fight" leads to hunger. Yet another important attribution of the socialist political economy is that they operate on the premise on self-sufficiency (autarky). And to achieve this, the socialist political economies reduce private sector participation, be it internally and externally.
In short, socialist political economies are basically closed economies. And this is why socialist political economies implement either direct ownership of the factors of production (basic socialist template) or indirect ownership of the factors of production through economic fascism (limited privately owned firms but are government directed or the Nazi blueprint). So “picking up fights” signifies as an intuitive socialist behavior because the aim is to CLOSE the economy or to eventually attain autarky.
The reported throng of 400 businessmen who will flock to China to accompany Mr. Duterte’s state visit looks likely a symptom of this shift. (Inquirer October 13)
In essence, if politics is to determine a nation’s economic path, then the fickleness of the political environment would lead to tremendous volatility or dislocations from regime uncertainty (uncertainty over property rights). So business people will have to cozy up with the leadership to generate privileges for them to become key economic agents /cronies of the government.
And if Western businesses are to be eschewed and substituted for Chinese-sourced business today, then not only will there be a huge adjustment period, there will be an enhanced risk of dependence, and more importantly, discontinuity. By the risk of continuity, think of this way, all things being equal, (or if there will be no change in the constitution), just what happens at the end Mr. Duterte’s term if he is to be replaced pro-West anti-Chinese leader? Then what happens to all these? You see, this shows why there is a powerful incentive to change the constitution. Mr. Duterte will have to see it to it that there will be continuity to this socialist evolution process.
At the end of the day, this attraction to economic and political-superhero syndrome bubbles (short term orientation) ensures that the Philippines will remain, sorry to say, a third world country.
Popular opinion will shape political trends, as the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote, (Bureaucracy p 115)
The aim of the popularization of economic studies is not to make every man an economist. The idea is to equip the citizen for his civic functions in community life. The conflict between capitalism and totalitarianism, on the outcome of which the fate of civilization depends, will not be decided by civil wars and revolutions. It is a war of ideas. Public opinion will determine victory and defeat
The tweet only has revealed how Philippine democracy has morphed into the politics of sociopathy!
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