Dark Hearts: the Tragedy of Pathological Leadership in Politics
The Middle East has deep structural problems, endemic and systemic, not necessarily identifiable with, or the result of, specific individuals. However, this does not exclude a problem that individual leaders play in perpetuating conflict and hell. Specifically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar have both demonstrated a keen interest in surviving by maintaining a war that, ironically, neither had planned nor wished for. The two derail the smallest steps at ending conflict, and they certainly won’t entertain the more demanding and comprehensive answers needed to put the region, and the Israelis and Palestinians, on more stable ground and a better path.
Netanyahu and Sinwar manifest the structural problem of the Middle East in flesh and blood. They place their self-interest above the national, bringing a region to the edge of a wider war, while tragically leaving little of Gaza remaining. Such actions can be described as psychopathic. It is a disconnect with larger reality severe enough that the suffering of others becomes irrelevant.
According to Steve Taylor, senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, such people cannot see interests beyond their own. They enjoy manipulation at the cost of others, have a gargantuan appetite for attention, and have no sense of conscience to limit their actions.
“Power attracts ruthless and narcissistic people with a severe lack of empathy and conscience”, says Taylor. And many are attracted to those who have such power even if they are pathological, leading to what is called a pathocracy: rule by the pathological or a government made up of individuals with mental disorders.
Many support them because facets of their policies can be rationalized as necessary or good for their tribe. Benjamin Netanyahu is the legally elected Prime Minister of Israel and Yahya Sinwar the chosen head of Hamas and therefore both, despite their demonic self-interest, have a form of legitimacy supporting their actions. In some countries, we rely on checks and balances, public debate, the rule of law and democratic processes to right or contain such wrongs, and create a tolerable level of abuse of power. However, in the West and elsewhere, we have seen that pathological leaders can be legitimately elected with the risk that they can change institutions and laws in their personal or ideological favour: checks and balances can be overridden.
The root problem is that we strangely accept that psychopaths run countries and societies. This problem is global and historical and our millennia-old assumptions about politics make it so. The list of pathological leaders is long and pervasive, every reader can quickly summon up their names in his or her head.
We assume that this is just how power works: it is corrupting and no one is surprised when the worst of the worst capture and abuse power. However, this assumption deserves more attention and examination given that citizens effectively accept to suffer considerably as a result of this paradigm.
Looked at soberly, this is a strange abdication: that the nature of political structure and power is that leaders can pathologically destroy what they are responsible for. This speaks to the likelihood that our politics aren’t quite right if they are aimed at our own destruction.
The attraction to power and the abdication to its temptations are pervasive. Pathological leaders are only the extreme end of the problem, the tip of the iceberg. More mundane political decisions than war and peace are deflected and circumscribed by the desire to be somehow part of a power game, and to be relevant and apparently influential politically.
For example, today, many leaders around the globe are waiting for the next major centre of power, the next American president, to be chosen, and many important decisions are postponed until that time. This includes, for example, any push by important Arab leaders for comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Everyone is waiting for the power-boss to show up in order to be in the game, and in the meantime they keep their heads below the parapet.
Lives are lost, countries are on the edge of destruction and global stability threatened because of the assumptions of the game of thrones, which thrill us as entertainment on the screen but in reality destroy us.
If we are to move away from this fatal contract, our attraction to power and the assumptions behind it will need to be closely examined. The idea of public service, a throwaway in public discourse and even more so once in power, is likely the antidote. However, the outlooks behind such service, vs. the outlooks of pathological behaviour and obsessions with power, need to be clarified before we can throw words like service around.
What we do know is that the wrong people are drawn to power. Is there a way to correct this? The next post will examine some answers to this question as well as the outlooks needed for a healthier politics.
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