Are power, greed and (self-) deceit the real defining features of humanity

take everything

Apologies for the mealy-mouthed thread title.
But reading again of yet another "scandal” that will have no bearing on anything, the Panama files, i ’m starting to think that these traits are the defining features of what it means to be human. To a greater or lesser extent, these seem to be the features that are most adaptive if you want to get in in life.

I personally have never really understood the impetus for wanting a few more million if you already have a hundred million in the bank or the need to dominate over others or the lengths that people will compromise their own integrity to hide this to themselves and others (the saying one thing about tax-havens and doing another in the case of the Panama files). Maybe because I'm strange or because I don't have much to begin with but I'm intrigued by the psychology that drives this nonetheless.

And wonder If it's not just the elite but more widespread and even is adaptive evolutionarily.
I suppose it has to be. Psychopathic traits survive. Are all these elites just psychopathic and serving as an example to people below them that psychopathic behaviour "works".

Without sounding trite, the world does seem to be going that way.
Just wondering what ye think about the psychology behind the elite. And is this healthy.

Pat Mustard

take everything wrote: »

I personally have never really understood the impetus for wanting a few more million if you already have a hundred million in the bank

Arnold Scharzenegger claims to agree with you:

Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50m, but I was just as happy when I had $48m.

Although the comfortable life that he leads probably makes him happy, beyond a certain point of wealth/comfort, I can't see how the additional accumulation of wealth would make a person happier. So, although his words were delivered tongue-in-cheek, I think that there is truth behind them.

That said, I think that Arnold Scharzenegger's accumulated wealth can be measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.

seamus

take everything wrote: »

Without sounding trite, the world does seem to be going that way.

The world has always been that way.

The main mistake often made is assuming that the people who accumulate massive amounts of wealth at the suffering of others are the norm. That everyone would be one of these people if given half a chance.

In reality these people represent a negligible proportion of the overall population, but because their approach to life lands them in high-profile positions, they seem far more numerous than they are in reality.

Do people at an individual level desire to become wealthy? Generally, yes. Why? So they don't have to stress about paying bills and have the freedom to buy what they want when they want.

Do they all desire to become billionaires? No. Because that's far beyond what they'd ever need.

One aspect of the modern world is how free market capitalism has caused something of a crumbling of the traditional aristocracy. Where previously someone became rich and powerful by being born into it or willing to do anything to become rich and powerful, free market capitalism has created lots of incidentally rich and powerful people. People who never set out to be extraordinarily rich, but instead did so by doing what they love doing.

What these people don't have is the same self-centred psycho- or socio-pathy that would have been characteristic of the traditional elite through the ages. People like Bono or Bill Gates, who recognise the power of their wealth as a force for good. Unlike traditional "elites" like Trump, who see the good in others as an opportunity to gather wealth and power.

Permabear

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take everything

The emergence of what you might call self-made individuals like you mention is the only glimmer of hope for me in any disruption of the status quo.

Maybe that's naive that such people are inherently different. Is Gates' and Buffett's philanthropy fundamentally a different way of doing things. I would love to think it is.

But the idea that these qualities seem to be inherent in leaders (elected again and again by the people) is quite depressing. No leader seems to buck the trend. Or if they do, they do not succeed (Obama might be an example that springs to mind. Again maybe I'm naive with this example and he's no different).

Permabear

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edward2222

For me wealth and integrity can co-exist.

Many rich people get that way through hard work, taking extraordinary risks, or providing a product or service that is of great benefit to the world.

Many rich people are also quite generous, donating to charities and setting up foundations to help those in need.

But, greed is an entirely different beast.

Normal wants and desires are like a campfire to dook food while greed is a blazing inferno that consumes a forest.

Greed is dangerous and destructive it is desire out of control.

I will never fall on this destructive desire again because for once, i've been there.

fly_agaric

seamus wrote: »

What these people don't have is the same self-centred psycho- or socio-pathy that would have been characteristic of the traditional elite through the ages. People like Bono or Bill Gates, who recognise the power of their wealth as a force for good. Unlike traditional "elites" like Trump, who see the good in others as an opportunity to gather wealth and power.

Thats a bit of a pollyanna-ish view of the "self made" man. Money in the bank is a measure the world uses for ones success, worth in the eyes of others (as well as self-worth & and validation); irrespective of where it seems to come from.

So I'd say the modern wealthy can be just as greedy as any born to the manor aristocrat in chasing their next superyacht (or something else less selfish that their money can do for them) by hook or by crook. The massive tax avoidance industry for the super wealthy we got a little glimpse behind the curtain of recently suggests so.

I don't think Trump's family were from the "elite", just wealthy upper middle class. Do very many billionaires actually spring up out of the blue from real poverty - somehow I doubt it - looking at education (as a sort of "class" measure) suggests not anyway

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35631029

Torakx

This is the easiest way I can think of to explain what I want to say, without writing a whole load of text.

A video about Nietzsche's "will to power".
https://www.youtube.com/watch…

I use this to understand people and all living things, at their most instinctual/fundamental levels.

To summarize on the "will to power" and my main point.
Without Ying and Yang, or apposing forces, there would be nothing to overcome. No growth or progress, either way.

Consider then, if a species becomes so powerful, that it has nothing left to overcome, but itself.
This is leads me to consider what Nietzsche said about "the last man" in his book "Thus Spake Zarathustra".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGK8Z_PERpc



This greed and power grab you see in people, is to me an expression of the "will to power".
Generations of bored and powerful elite families, wielding power over nations, because they can and they simply are too engrossed in themselves to understand their own direction.
When you think you can rule the world with some "friends" and have nothing better you can think to do...

Nietzsche also did some good writing on slave and master morality, which would add some more light to the situation, between the morality of the elites and the plebs.

Every now and again down through history, the ruling class and the ruling structure, get too centralized and powerful. The whole system implodes and grows out again.
The "last man"( a symbol of decadence and non growth) as it were, comes and goes. Like mini episodes.
It's possible it will be more chaotic during each implosion and more secular with each new form of tyranny, as the human race evolves and becomes exponentially more and more conscious of the universe.

The real "last man" Nietzsche writes about, is the one which represents human society at it's most decadent point in it's whole evolution.
A very long way from where we are.
We would first have to master our "dionysion" and "apollonian" sides to reach that point.
See Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy", for more on symbolic meaning of Dionysus and Apollo.
Basically Dionysus represents our chaotic, artistic side.
Apollo represents our secular, scientific side.
We could also refer to these things generally as the left and right brain dominant sides.

As you can see, I am a bit of a Nietzsche fan

MaxWig

fly_agaric wrote: »

Thats a bit of a pollyanna-ish view of the "self made" man. Money in the bank is a measure the world uses for ones success, worth in the eyes of others (as well as self-worth & and validation); irrespective of where it seems to come from.

Hit the nail on the head.

Leaving greed aside, the desire to accumulate wealth fits into our fundamental imperative to be held in esteem by those around us.

It is a symbol of something else, setting us apart. Making us special.

These are not trivial considerations. They drive our economy.

People do not want iPhones simply because they are a 'good' phone.

They provide status.

So too does a yacht, albeit at another level.

But the dynamic is the same.

lazybones32

OP, an Irish psychologist wrote an interesting book on the psychology of power and how it actually changes people. I read it a few months ago but will find the name for you. It deals pretty much with everything you've listed and should make an interesting read for you.