Dark Triad
The HOLY TRINITY of the modern technological age. It encompasses three overlapping personality types: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.
Originally conceived as an articulation of antisocial vices, they have attained the status of religious virtues. Culturally, they are both clearly encouraged and rewarded, and subscribers organize their entire lives around maximizing their presence in politics, schools, relationships, and on the internet. This particular faith has permeated so many institutions that apostates are forced to face either conversion or exile from democratic participation.
Machiavellianism has classically been understood as a proxy for EVIL, but due to the adoption of morally relativistic models of justification in the modern era, it has become a benign mechanism for achieving elitist goals. Characterized by the manipulation and exploitation of others as a permissible operating system in pursuit of a goal, this trait was borne from an ethos outlined in The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, wherein it is claimed that the end justifies the means.
For the uninitiated, this is to infer that if a particular goal or outcome has been imagined as preferable or ideal relative to any present or future circumstances, then any actions taken in the pursuit of achieving such a goal are therefore warranted. A minor examination of this philosophy is all that is necessary to dispel any validity it may offer; even young children know it is wrong. As we become increasingly proficient at advocating on behalf of our own interests, we happily abdicate our conscience and replace it with a suitably amoral authority: a rational framework. Once the coronation ceremony is over, it is just a matter of finding the right cabal to join so you can subjugate others and justify it as progress.
Narcissus, a storied hunter found in Greek mythology, fell in love with his own reflection. That alone should be a sufficient indictment as it implies both cowardice and egotism. Further, when he first witnessed his own face, he gazed into it until he starved to death. This compounds the sinful nature of self-love as failing in its capacity to adequately sustain a human spirit. As such, narcissism is not only an unattractive trait in people because it displays their otherwise concealed shortcomings, but if left unfettered, it will hollow out our cores as we drift into despair.
Despite the warnings of the story, narcissism is more alive than ever, especially online. There is nothing more narcissistic than believing that our subjective interpretations of ourselves and the world reign supreme. We regularly encourage one another to have our own truths and to elevate our potential divinity within to that of messianic proportions. We are encouraged, especially children, to be constantly ruminating about how we feel at any given moment. We obsessively think about ourselves and what others think about us, while pretending that we do not care, which tends to act as histrionic baiting.
None of this is healthy, and none of it could be construed as ‘living.’
It is currently accepted and expected that adults openly rage and have public meltdowns if someone does not accept our subjective impositions. We get high on our derisive and destructive narcissistic mobbing and cancelling, while everyone can see how miserable we are inside. Yet somehow, no one is suggesting a reroute.
Modern elites are no longer satisfied with being wealthier and more affluent than everyone else, they also need to be recognizable and beloved. If unsuccessful, they will settle for being infamous and universally loathed, as long as they get enough attention to feed their egos. This contorts reality in a significant way because it redefines what success looks like. It will cause observers to believe that egotism is a feature of success, or that obsessing over your image is a precondition to being successful, neither of which are true.
MODESTY, dedication, skill and hard work are far greater predictors of success, and people with these traits generally do not have time for perverse popularity contests. This does not diminish the interest in adopting this redefinition in ordinary life, because the rules seem both clear and accessible to the ambitious among us. The game has been fortified by market forces, and businesses have integrated sophisticated product development shaped by psychologically manipulative techniques designed to generate communities of destabilized minds that perpetually hunger for consolation.
Despite the epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm and suicide, everyone is expected to have a SMARTPHONE and subscribe to numerous social media services. Here, we compete for who can get the most attention based on false depictions of our lives that we share with others who feign interest in the cataloguing of our mediocre activities. What is worse, some may legitimately feel that these online exchanges serve as an adequate substitution for real engagements, or they may be playing a subservient role in an act of hero worship. Regardless of the case, we are more connected than ever, yet research indicates that we feel more alone and isolated than any other time in history. The claws of Narcissus have us in their grasp.
A feature of the modern technological age is a steadfast creep of human reductionism that so closely resembles a psychopathic interpretation of the world, it may be indistinguishable from a clinical diagnosis. Most human interactions now possess a transactional quality that is rapidly outpacing any naturally occurring engagement that a pre-technological age would insist is necessary for human health.
The culprit is likely the hyper novelty of technology so sophisticated that we are biologically incapable of understanding the system it generates. Complexity is one thing. Being immersed in an interconnected realm with billions of accounts that we cannot effectively parse as human or robot engaging in countless games simultaneously that both perpetually shape and challenge our perceptions ad nauseum, is another thing entirely. In an attempt to inject order in the chaos, we are forced to reduce the complexity of humanity to something that is easier to manage.
Any reduction of humanity will cause our standards of human value to diminish in tandem. If the respect we are expected to provide and receive is less than what we need to maintain a healthy status quo, then we collectively suffer. ONLINE DATING is an excellent example of an environment that twists our beliefs into normalizing the reduction of humanity into catalogues of images absent a spirit or a soul; we are presented as products. Regardless of any value that we obtain from such services, the effect it has on our perception of one another cannot be ignored, and both men and women are harmed as a consequence, albeit in different ways. These services are not unique; virtually all online exchanges contribute to a reduction in expectation of reciprocity and charity. We can, after all, just ignore or block someone, and there will always be many more to replace them. We have added our humanity to the list of things worthy of disposal in a culture of convenience.
The criticisms directed towards most complex systems do not typically pertain to any immediate crisis, but they forecast the potential for future catastrophe. We are already witnessing the effects of human reductionism and our willingness to dispose of our fellow citizens because we categorize them as inconvenient or indecent, and it will get much worse unless we change.
A reduction in humanity in others is a euphemistic description of cultural and systemic dehumanization. The only redeeming trait in such a landscape is that it emerged as an unintentional byproduct of technological progress, and not an intentionally engineered consequence of perverse incentives. That being said, now that governments and powerful corporations have sufficiently mapped the territories of our misery, they appear very keen on ensuring it remains present and pronounced. Perverse incentives may not have been the genesis of this state, but they have certainly been established to capitalize on it.
The dehumanization of large groups has always been a boon for the ambitious and idealistic. If we no longer expect to be treated as a human, that is, an infinitely complex embodied universe with its own needs that was thrust into a world without consent, then we are far more willing to accept injustice as a feature of existence. Alternatively, if others perceive us as no longer necessarily worthy of the rights, respect and dignity that we classically attribute to people by virtue of their humanity, then atrocities are significantly easier to justify.
Humans are far more likely to be treated as tools or objects, a means to an end, and while we may be maintained in some sense for future use, we are unlikely to be considered worthy of investment. We only invest in things to produce growth and unlock potential, both of which introduce the threat of competition, an unwelcome guest in the realm of a psychopath. When impulsivity and callousness are normalized, and games of reciprocity and empathy shift into antisocial exchanges of egocentricism, we have become psychopaths. We are what we do; a clinical diagnosis is not needed.
Many businesses have already adopted psychopathic practices; entirely immoral and self-serving. They have become unconcerned with any of the harm that people or places suffer if it helps their bottom line. Because these models generate the greatest profits, they will be replicated and proliferated, often with the assistance of our governments.
The only people who flourish in such an environment are real psychopaths, the rest of us will simply be sacrificed at the altar of arbitrary tyrannical self-interest masquerading as freedom and liberty.
For those who escape such a fate, we will face the dilemma of accepting our diminished status as subhuman, or to stand on the convictions of our birthright and demand to live a life in accordance with the burden of our humanity.
Posted: 11 Jan 2023
