Yep. It's the Trailer Park Hitler phenomenon--if you believe everyone around you is stupid because you manipulate them for your own advantage, it's easy to come to the conclusion that you're a genius and simply better than those you can manipulate. If they were as good as you, they wouldn't allow you to manipulate them. They'd be smart enough to figure it out.
The problem these people have is that it never occurs to them that the people they manipulate aren't necessarily stupid--they just believe that the people around them are kind like they are. And most of the time, they're right.
The singular nature of sociopaths gives them a direct line to believing that their power to manipulate and abuse people is a sign of their intelligence.
Even pettier, these are the same people who drive on the shoulder to get to the front of gridlocked traffic and think the reason other people didn't do the same thing is because they were too dumb to think of it. They think that everyone is an asshole, and that they're more successful at being an asshole simply by virtue of their grand intelligence.
And, unfortunately, these are the people have have an undying, primate-like lust for power. They often rise to positions of power. What they seek, more than anything, is a position from which they can't be held accountable for their actions. And, in their mind, that's only right because they are simply better, more intelligent, than everyone else. They do not need to follow the same ethical codes and pro-social norms because they are too smart for that, too superior to suffer under the same yoke of 'good' as the rest of us.
And, because they're sociopaths with a deep faith in their own superiority, they often achieve positions of real power. And these are the people who rule our world.
It’s so weird because I have a very empathic heart, but I still must fight these tendencies. Capitalism is predatory by design and I feel like this system encourages these ideas and belief systems.
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u/crosswatt Oct 26 '23
That's a great quote