“Adam Schiff is a sociopath,” said Tucker Carlson Friday night. The Fox News host was reporting on the lies, revealed in House Intelligence Committee transcripts, that facilitated what he calls the Russia/collusion “hoax.” Yet his comment made me smirk a bit, as I’ve often theorized that Congressman Schiff (D-Calif.) could be a sociopath. (He exhibits all the signs, after all.) Even more ominously, though, the transcripts reveal a pattern of sociopathic behavior among many powerful figures — and our government increasingly, owing to societal moral decay, takes on a sociopathic character.
Then again, Carlson and I could be wrong about Schiff:
He could be a psychopath.
In reality, I was using the term “sociopath” a bit loosely. “A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it’s weak,” relates WebMD. “He may know that taking your money [or vote or republic] is wrong, and he might feel some guilt or remorse, but that won’t stop his behavior.”
“A psychopath doesn’t have a conscience,” the site continues. “If he lies to you so he can steal your money, he won’t feel any moral qualms, though he may pretend to. He may observe others and then act the way they do so he’s not ‘found out.’”
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Sociopaths “may also use ‘mind games’ to control friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers,” adds Healthline. “They may also be perceived as charismatic or charming.” Of course, we just experienced years of Russia/collusion mind games — and controlled many of us were (and still are).
Below is the Friday Tucker Carlson Tonight segment in which the host outlines well the widespread sociopathic behavior underlying the Russia/collusion deception. Note the general pattern: Schiff and the other Machiavellians claimed in media that they possessed or had seen evidence of collusion — to try to sow discord, overthrow our election, and tear our nation apart — but told the truth before the House Intelligence Committee. Lying in media is legal, after all. Lying while under oath can bring prison time.
For the record, below is one of my many tweets in which I suggested that Schiff, who certainly is not normal, is a sociopath.
Ah, projecting again. “Weaponizing” law enforcement is exactly what Obama et al. did when spying on Trump’s campaign.
Not that Schiffty would care. He seems like a sociopath, after all. He has the same “crazy eyes” George Soros has, and “The eyes are the window to the soul.”
— Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) May 24, 2019
Interestingly, Schiff’s infamous “bug-eyed” look, alluded to above, has a name in Japanese superstition: yang sanpaku. This appearance, with the eyes’ sclera (white) visible above the pupil, indicates that your inner “world is a danger to you — i.e., you’re unable to control your emotions and it leads you to do terrible, terrible things,” writes the blog Tofugu.
More scientific and less folkloric, some medical experts believe that yang sanpaku may be, among other things, a sign of anxiety. It’s certainly believable, too, that Schiff would be experiencing anxiety — especially right now.
But this article isn’t just about Schiff. And while Carlson may be correct in saying the collusion hoax was perpetrated by the “most unscrupulous and power-mad political operatives this country has ever seen,” it’s certainly not the case that all involved are sociopaths.
What is true: Disordered individuals, or as the less pedantic and more romantic might say, “evildoers,” are inordinately represented among politicians — and upper-echelon people generally.
Note here that while many associate sociopaths/psychopaths only with figures such as the Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lector character and Helter Skelter killer Charles Manson, not all mass or serial killers are psychopaths (or at least they don’t test as such).
Even more to the point here, not all sociopaths/psychopaths kill. Most likely don’t, in fact, as it may not serve their ends or they may want to avoid punishment. The point is that whatever their behavior, it’s driven solely by a cost-benefit calculation without any moral considerations at all. The conscienceless are willing to do anything to satisfy their desires.
This includes, of course, lying to achieve power. To wit: “Research Suggests Politicians are More Likely to Be Psychopaths,” read the 2012 Smithsonian Magazine headline. This conclusion was based on an Atlantic article which informed that “psychopaths score low on measures of stress reactivity, anxiety and depression, and high on measures of competitive achievement, positive impressions on first encounters, and fearlessness,” before rhetorically asking, “Sound like the description of a successful politician and leader?”
It’s not just politicians, though. In 2016, CNBC cited a researcher who informed that “the prevalence of psychopathy in CEOs and business leaders is four times that of regular people.” Well, this helps explain why some corporations engage in value-signaling at home but pander to vicious tyrants abroad while selling out their own country.
Even more alarming is that there may be reason to believe the conscienceless are increasing in number; that is, if a theory I formulated years ago is valid.
Psychologists argue about psychopathy’s origin, whether those exhibiting it are born or made. Yet analyzing this matter through the prism of philosophy, of which psychology was once a just part (and still should be), may provide more insight. After all, devoutly embracing the moral relativism infusing our nation — and incorporating it into oneself emotionally, heart and soul — would logically lead to psychopathy. I’ll explain.
Moral relativism is the belief that what we call “morality” is determined by man and thus changes from time to time and place to place. Yet overlooked is that this is synonymous with saying there is no right or wrong.
To use my standard analogy, consider: If 90 percent of humanity said it preferred chocolate ice cream to vanilla, it wouldn’t mean chocolate was “right” and vanilla “wrong” or that it was better in any objective sense — it would simply mean people happened to like chocolate better.
Yet would it be any more logical saying that murder was wrong just because you learned that 90 percent of all people didn’t want others to kill in a way that 90 percent of all people call unjust? If the idea that murder is wrong is merely a function of man’s desires, it then occupies the same category as flavors: that of preference.
Thus does moral relativism actual boil down to moral nihilism, to the idea that “morality” is just illusion. This notion has taken hold in civilization, too, with a 2002 study showing that only six percent of teens rejected moral relativism.
Now, what would happen if this belief were, again, incorporated into a person emotionally? I don’t mean the shallow intellectual understanding most people espousing relativism have, but really feeling it viscerally. This would have to make the individual a psychopath, someone devoid heart and soul of conscience because his instincts say there’s nothing to be conscientious about. “There is no Truth.”
It should be difficult to reach this point, mind you. The heart is more resistant to change than the head, and most people, despite philosophical confusion, were in childhood instilled with certain moral principles. So their somewhat trained emotions will mitigate their quite distorted notions (though toxic ideas can, over time, warp emotions). Yet “certain” moral principles aren’t all, and this leads into the next point.
It’s fair to say that most people have only partially formed moral compasses, that pieces of their morality “jigsaw puzzle” are missing. For example, a man may feel that infidelity is reprehensible, but not flinch at lying in business to make money. Yet if the person truly is conscienceless regarding a particular behavior, couldn’t it be said he’s psychopathic with respect to it?
Moreover, a person can be “psychopathic” on one matter, three, or more. And if this process of personal moral negation is completed — if all his pieces are missing — we then call him a psychopath. But might such people just really be the world’s only truly devout moral relativists, far more philosophically “sincere” than the cafeteria relativists who don’t truly live down to their beliefs?
Whatever the origin of the conscienceless state, people embodying it are woefully common among those running the state. As late Harvard University sociology professor Pitirim Sorokin wrote in 1956 after finding via research that 25 percent of leaders are murderers: The “rulers of the states are the most criminal group in a respective population. With a limitation of their power their criminality tends to decrease; but it still remains exceptionally high in all nations.”
It’s a reminder of why government should be kept limited — and why those who today use prevarication, posturing, propaganda, and pandemic to gain more power should instead be stripped of every last bit of it they possess.
Photo of Rep. Adam Schiff: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
