Psychopathic Power Complex

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Man to man wolf

The face of a psychopath is well known to specialists. Psychopathic is spelled out in every detail.

characterology and the effectiveness of psychotherapy with psychopathic personalities is still being discussed. Some specialists develop methods for correcting psychopathic nature, some believe that hard and long work gives only a minimal corrective effect. Fortunately for professionals, psychopaths rarely call for help. They live in spaces at the top of the social hierarchy, where other measures of well-being or are at the social bottom, in isolation of psychiatric hospitals and prisons. In any case, the perception of the psychopath's subjective well-being is not measured by the value of human relationships, but by the amount of power concentrated in his hands.

The main features of psychopathic characterology are cold cruelty, shamelessness, lack of shame and guilt for their actions and any prerequisites for repentance. The psychopath does not admit mistakes and defeats, which is characteristic of people with varying degrees of reflection and responsibility for their actions. If something does not go according to his plan and he meets with an objection, then this is a pretext for acting out in the form of an attack, revenge and the destruction of the enemy. Moreover, these measures may be postponed until the right moment.

"Revenge is a dish served cold."

perfectly characterizes this aspect of the psychopath's personality.

The strong and attractive features of this characterology for some are high survivability, endurance, excellent reaction, resourcefulness, prudence, the ability to play a subtle game, patience, manipulativeness, the ability to subordinate to one's will and rule. The psychopath's charisma, leadership qualities, persuasiveness, fearlessness, the ability to unexpectedly and effectively attack never go unnoticed in his environment, serve as a reason for high ratings and open the way up.

The truth remains that a real psychopath is a predator in human form, and a cold-blooded predator from the world of reptiles. In his soul there is complete disorganization and chaos, from which at a very early age the psychopath is saved through identification with the aggressor. And he himself becomes a predator, tracking down and luring prey into a trap. The personality of a psychopath combines everything that ordinary people associate with danger and evil intentions. Psychopaths are accustomed to live in this because the other is unknown and inaccessible, this is their inner world, governed by archaic energies.

They are not afraid of what is scary for an ordinary person, since the most terrible and unbearable is the deadening empty emptiness and coldness in the soul. The usual signs of living or dead do not suit them, these are vampires who are tormented by an insatiable hunger. And if not in their personal life, then as a phenomenon, psychopaths are really immortal because in the entire history of civilization, people have not been able to overcome the tendency to violence against their own kind.

Without being a psychiatrist or psychologist, anyone can recognize a psychopath by the way he looks - the way he looks out of himself. For the time being, the gaze of a real psychopath can be hidden by well-developed behavior models and staging, but not for long and not for everyone. This gaze evokes a sense of danger, a force devoid of life and warmth shines through it. It is a cold look, studying what you are, who you are to him, an equal predator in strength, a source of threat or a victim to be attacked. Having identified the victim, the psychopath does not look but stares, piercing through, acts hypnotically and paralyzing. Typically, this view is described as suspicious, controlling, compelling, hostile, attacking, dominant. But he can also be empty, aloof, lifeless, sullen, offended, martyred, since the psychopath, through his own childhood experience, is familiar with alienation, humiliation and violence. The psychopath lives his life without being able to know what human warmth, tenderness, trust and affection are. This is both his tragedy and frightening inhumanity.

For the average person, a psychopath is usually a scary, but sometimes in his own way cute character from the cinema:

"Silence of the Lambs" with sequels, "Seven", "Who are you, Mr. Brooks?" House Doctor "," House of Cards "," Sherlock Holmes "and many other films. Psychopaths, by virtue of their energy, are generally the favorite heroes of screenwriters, directors and spectators.

The popularity of such films is primarily due to the fact that observing the main characters at a safe distance like predators in a cage, we come into contact with what we strive so diligently to overcome and contain in our own Shadow. The psychopathic is not only present in the psychopath's psyche, but quite often it also occurs in the quite so-called. normal people. Moreover, the psychopathic dimension may be hidden behind the most attractive and respectable mask. Psychopaths are often extolled in society, occupying a high step in the rank system, becoming objects of worship and envy.

Genius and villainy, as you know, are quite compatible, but genius is generally a rare phenomenon, and genius villains, again, are more likely literary and cinematic characters. The mental abilities of a real psychopath are rather described by the phrase "cunning is an animal mind", intelligence at the level of a reptilian brain, serving territorial claims, the need for domination, the ability to intuitively anticipate dangers and opportunities. And here the psychopath has no equal. It is clear that the greatest social problem is presented by psychopaths, endowed with power and capable of using other people's energies to implement their plans - the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, the power of money, the energy of the masses.

To understand the degree of your own psychopathism, it is enough to listen to the response in your soul to famous politicians, public figures, successful businessmen and businesswomen, the authorities of the criminal world, rapists and murderers. For some, they cause strong envy, for others, fear and fearful respect, for others a feeling of disgust. In all these cases, something of our own that we may not want to deal with resonates and vibrates in the unconscious.

Before psychopathic characterology became the subject of professional study, it was described in detail in the literary works of Russian and foreign classics. Portraits of modern psychopaths are presented so far only in political journalism and forensic science. To create full-fledged artistic images requires a temporary distance and, of course, a writer who does not fear for his life.

Portrait of a Psychopath - Emperor Nicholas

Let us dwell on the historical description of the psychological portrait of Emperor Nicholas I by L. N. Tolstoy in the story "HAJI-MURAT".

“Nikolai, in a black frock coat without epaulettes, with half-epaulets, was sitting at the table, throwing back his huge waist, tightly pulled over his overgrown belly, and motionless with his lifeless gaze looked at those who entered. The long white face with a huge sloping forehead protruding from the smoothed temples, skillfully connected to the wig that covered the bald head, was especially cold and motionless today. His eyes, always dull, looked dimmer than usual, the compressed lips from under the curled mustache, and the fat, fresh-shaven cheeks supported by the high collar with the regular sausages left behind, the sideburns, and the chin pressed against the collar gave his face an expression of displeasure and even anger. The reason for this mood was fatigue. The reason for the fatigue was that the day before he was in a masquerade and, as usual, walking in his cavalier helmet with a bird on his head, between the crowd crowding towards him and timidly avoiding his huge and self-confident figure, he again met the mask that in the past the masquerade, having roused in him with its whiteness, beautiful build and gentle voice, senile sensuality, disappeared from him, promising to meet him in the next masquerade ….

“No matter how accustomed Nikolai was to the horror he aroused in people, this horror was always pleasant to him, and he sometimes liked to amaze people who were thrown into horror by the contrast of gentle words addressed to them. This is what he did now.

“Well, brother, you’re younger than me,” he said to the officer numb with horror, “you can make way for me.

The officer jumped up and, turning pale and blushing, bent over, silently left the box behind the mask, and Nikolai was left alone with his lady.

The mask turned out to be a pretty innocent twenty-year-old girl, the daughter of a Swedish governess. This girl told Nicholas how from childhood, from her portraits, she fell in love with him, idolized him and decided at all costs to get his attention. And so she achieved, and, as she said, she did not need anything else. This girl was taken to the place of Nikolai's usual meetings with women, and Nikolai spent more than an hour with her.

When he returned to his room that night and lay down on the narrow, hard bed of which he was proud, and covered himself with his cloak, which he considered (and said so) as famous as Napoleon's hat, he could not sleep for a long time. He then recalled the frightened and enthusiastic expression of this girl's white face, then the mighty, full shoulders of his usual mistress Nelidova and made a comparison between the one and the other. The fact that the debauchery of a married man was not good did not even occur to him, and he would be very surprised if someone condemned him for it. But, despite the fact that he was sure that he did what he should, he still had some kind of unpleasant belching, and in order to drown out this feeling, he began to think about what always calmed him: about how he was. great person….

“Nikolai was convinced that everyone was stealing … The quality of officials was to steal, his duty was to punish them, and no matter how tired he was, he faithfully performed this duty.

“Apparently we have only an honest man in Russia,” he said.

Chernyshev immediately realized that this only honest man in Russia was Nikolai himself, and smiled approvingly.

“It must be so, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Leave it, I’ll put down the resolution,” Nikolai said, taking the paper and placing it on the left side of the table.

After that, Chernyshev began to report on the awards and the movement of troops. Nikolai scanned the list, crossed out several names, and then briefly and decisively ordered the movement of the two divisions to the Prussian border.

Nicholas could not forgive the Prussian king the constitution given to him after the 48th year, and therefore, expressing the most friendly feelings to his brother-in-law in letters and in words, he considered it necessary to have troops on the Prussian border, just in case. These troops might also be needed so that, in the event of the indignation of the people in Prussia (Nicholas saw a readiness for indignation everywhere), they could advance them in defense of the throne of his brother-in-law, just as he advanced an army in defense of Austria against the Hungarians. These troops were also needed on the border to give more weight and importance to their advice to the Prussian king.

"Yes, what would have happened to Russia now, if not for me," he thought again … ".

“Despite the fact that the plan for a slow movement into the enemy's area by means of deforestation and the destruction of food was the plan of Ermolov and Velyaminov, completely opposite to the plan of Nikolai, according to which it was necessary to seize Shamil's residence at once and destroy this nest of robbers and according to which it was undertaken in 1845 The Dargin expedition, which cost so many lives, - despite this, Nikolai attributed the plan of a slow movement, consistent deforestation and extermination of food, too. It seemed that in order to believe that the plan of slow movement, deforestation and extermination of food was his plan, it was necessary to hide the fact that he insisted on a completely opposite military enterprise in 1945. But he did not hide this and was proud of both the plan of his expedition in 1945 and the plan for slow movement forward, despite the fact that these two plans clearly contradicted one another. The constant, obvious, disgusting flattery of the people around him drove him to the point that he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer conformed his actions and words with reality, with logic, or even with simple common sense, but was quite sure that all of his orders, no matter how senseless, unfair and disagreeing with each other, became meaningful and fair, and agree with each other only because he made them.

Such was his decision about the student of the Medical-Surgical Academy, about which Chernyshev began to report after the Caucasian report.

The fact was that the young man, who had failed the exam twice, held the third time, and when the examiner did not miss him again, the painfully nervous student, seeing this as injustice, grabbed a penknife from the table and, in some fit of frenzy, rushed on the professor and inflicted several minor wounds on him.

- What is the last name? Nikolai asked.

- Brzezovsky.

- Pole?

“Polish and Catholic,” answered Chernyshev.

Nikolai frowned.

He did a lot of harm to the Poles. To explain this evil, he had to be sure that all Poles are scoundrels. And Nicholas considered them as such and hated them to the extent of the evil that he did to them.

“Wait a little,” he said, and, closing his eyes, lowered his head.

Chernyshev knew, having heard this more than once from Nicholas, that when he needed to solve some important issue, he only needed to focus for a few moments, and that then he was inspired, and the decision was made by itself the most correct, as if what an inner voice told him what to do. He was now thinking about how he could more fully satisfy that feeling of anger towards the Poles, which had been stirred in him by the story of this student, and an inner voice prompted him to the following decision. He took the report and wrote on the margin in his large handwriting: {"Deserves the death penalty. But, thank God, we do not have the death penalty. And it is not for me to introduce it. Conduct 12 times to hide a thousand people. Nikolai," he signed with with its unnatural, huge stroke.

Nikolai knew that twelve thousand gauges were not only a sure, painful death, but excessive cruelty, since five thousand blows were enough to kill the strongest man. But he was pleased to be relentlessly cruel and it was pleasant to think that we do not have the death penalty …”.

“Nikolai, with the consciousness of a well-done duty, stretched himself, glanced at his watch and went to get dressed for the exit. Putting on a uniform with epaulets, orders and a ribbon, he went into the reception halls, where more than a hundred men in uniforms and women in elegant cut-out dresses, all arranged in certain places, awaited his release with trepidation.

With a lifeless gaze, with a protruding chest and a tied and protruding belly from behind the constriction both above and below, he went out to those who were waiting, and, feeling that all eyes with quivering servility were turned on him, he assumed an even more solemn air. Meeting his eyes with familiar faces, he, remembering who - who, stopped and spoke sometimes in Russian, sometimes in French a few words and, piercing them with a cold, lifeless gaze, listened to what was being said to him.

Accepting congratulations, Nikolai went to church.

God, through his servants, just like the worldly people, greeted and praised Nicholas, and he for granted, although bored with him, took these greetings and praises. All this had to be so, because the prosperity and happiness of the whole world depended on him, and although he was tired of it, he still did not deny the world his assistance. When at the end of the Mass the magnificent combed deacon proclaimed "many years" and the singers in beautiful voices picked up these words in unison, Nikolai, looking back, noticed Nelidova standing at the window with her magnificent shoulders and decided in her favor to compare with the girl of yesterday.

After Mass, he went to the Empress and spent several minutes in the family circle joking with his children and wife. Then he went through the Hermitage to the Minister of the Court Volkonsky and, by the way, instructed him to issue an annual pension to the mother of yesterday's maiden from his special sums. And from him I went on my usual walk."

A state ruled by a psychopath

Nicholas I, being the third son in the family, did not prepare for the heir to the throne and turned out to be the emperor of all Russia unexpectedly for himself.

From the school course, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich is remembered as an autocrat, addicted to military reviews and parades.

In a little more detail, his 30-year reign is characterized by the following points:

Nikolai Pavlovich entered Russian history mainly by the fact that he began his reign by hanging five Decembrists and ended it with defeat in the Crimean War, unleashed as a result of exorbitant imperial ambitions. Between these events, 30 years of government, during which there is a constant struggle against revolutionary sentiments by any means and the prevention of anti-state actions. Creation of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery - the main body of state administration of the country. The institution was served by many officials, which contributed to the strong growth of bureaucracy in the state. Section III of the Chancellery was in charge of political investigation and surveillance of all spheres of society, including religious dissent. Tightening of censorship, the new "cast-iron" charter prohibited any manifestation of dissent and prohibited the press of anything that had some kind of political overtones. Expulsion of all unreliable and suspicious outside the country. The elimination of university autonomy and strict supervision of students. 192 mass peasant uprisings, cholera, potato riots suppressed by government troops.

Measures to form the national spirit of the people, a new coat of arms of the Russian Empire was developed and a melody for the anthem was created. "The doctrine of the official nationality", the essence of which was reduced to autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality - Russia has its own way of development, does not need the influence of the West and should be isolated from the world community.

Suppression of liberation movements in Poland, Hungary, Moldova. Russia gets the unflattering nickname "Gendarme of Europe".

Caucasian War (1817-1864), Russo-Iranian War (1826-1828), Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), Crimean War with Turkey, Great Britain and France (1853-1856). The defeat in the Crimean War showed the backwardness of Russia from the advanced European countries and the unviability of the conservative modernization of the empire. Summing up the results of the reign of Nicholas I, historians call his era the most unfavorable in the history of Russia, since the Time of Troubles.

For all that, the emperor undoubtedly wished for the best for the country and hoped for the revival of the greatness of Russia. But the ruler had his own idea of what would be good for Russia at the moment and in what ways to carry out political transformations. Personal motives, preferences and management style were dictated in many ways, if not in all, by considerations arising from the peculiarities of the emperor's mental organization. Under absolute power, his mental problems inevitably acquired the scale of state processes, influenced the psychological climate of the entire country and the fate of millions of Russian citizens.

If a ruler with absolute power has a runny nose, then this is bad for the whole country. If the ruler is a psychopath, then the peculiarities of his mental organization extend to subjects from the minister to the serf, from the capital, to the most distant district. The psychopathic character becomes the norm, the state system is built according to a specific template and is saved only by the fact that the influence of the ruler's personality, despite the scale, is still not absolute. During the reign of Nicholas I, along with the psychopathization of millions and incessant wars as a manifestation of collective psychosis, P. Ya. Chaadaev, A. I. Herzen, V. G. Belinsky.

A. I. Herzen, who did not forgive Nicholas for reprisals against the Decembrists, was biased in his own way, but at the same time, with an emphasis on psychopathism, he wrote the following about the emperor:

"He was handsome, but his beauty was bathed in cold; there is no face that would so mercilessly denounce the character of a person as his face. The forehead, quickly running back, the lower jaw, developed at the expense of the skull, expressed an unyielding will and weak thought, more cruelty, rather than sensuality. But the main thing is the eyes, without any warmth, without any mercy, winter eyes."

However, there were other reviews. One of the noble ladies of the court, Mrs. Kemble, distinguished by a special severity of judgments about men, was delighted with the appearance of the emperor:

"What a beauty! What a beauty! This will be the first handsome man in Europe!"

Queen Victoria of England spoke equally flatteringly about Nikolai's appearance, although she noted that he was poorly brought up. This inconsistency in the assessments of Nicholas I only adds additional touches to the portrait of his psychopathic organization. The dangerous charm and attractiveness of psychopaths, especially for the opposite sex, is a well-known phenomenon.

During the Soviet period A. I. Herzen and his associates were included in the list of thinkers who prepared the revolution, but in fairness it must be said that the influence of Westerners on the events of subsequent decades in Russia was no more significant than the contribution of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich himself, who suppressed all sorts of liberal and Westernizing sentiments. This is how the dialectical principle of enantiodromy of mental processes works: "running towards", the repressed and suppressed always comes out and, being released, becomes a fateful force. Whether we are talking about an individual or a collective psyche, this law works inexorably, regardless of the conscious intentions and actions of a particular person.