“Dark” personality thrives in societies with corruption and inequality
A new global study shows that people in societies characterized by corruption, inequality, poverty, and violence are more likely to develop aversive, “dark” personality characteristics such as selfishness or spitefulness.
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I've been saying this, on Lemmy and IRL.
The other thing I've become adamant about is, if we want honest politicians who aren't nasty personalities, it begins with seeing dishonesty and nastiness in ourselves, doing the shadow work and deep healing to address wounded inner child, and modeling and expecting healthy behaviors in our children.
Why would anyone want to change when the rewards for being awful are so good? Doing the things you described not only make advancement in a dark society nearly impossible, but it takes a personal toll on the psyche and perspective of the person attempting bettering themselves and the world around them. I say this as someone doing the work.
Maybe it makes achieving personal things in a dark society harder, but it strongly helps to improve society itself. And it's much more pleasant to live in the opposite of a dark society. A better society is not a zero sum game
Healing is hard and uncomfortable in the short to medium term, but in the long term it's always preferred
Imagining humanity as one organism to which you can either contribute positively or which you can actively damage helps for me.
Or just believing in karma in its simplest form: you reap what you sow.
Doing the work is exploring and sitting with the uncomfortable feelings, going beyond the obvious stem to find the root. I don't like it either, but it gets better, then worse, then better for a while. Sometimes therapy is necessary.
Yeah. It mostly sucks at least for me. A cornerstone of a lot of my personal crap is lack of self worth which makes improvement pretty tough. I've been in therapy for over 5 years now, and understanding concepts is much easier than applying them. Of course that's just my experience.
That's a lot more common than you would imagine. You're worth it though. Sometimes you may not feel like it. Show up for yourself, anyway.
You're right. I know my experience isn't uncommon and that's unfortunate. Thank you fur the kind words.
You're so welcome. I've been there, and in therapy off and on for a lot of years. We're in it together.
The threat of groups out of the normal population correcting them, or in worst case firing them, for not kept promises or derailing plans, can keep them from seeing the population as nothing more than numbers and themselves as a superior in-group.
That's why i think that Swiss' initiative/referendum right is a prerequisite for a longtime-stable democratic system. I often see that in germany, where politicians do what they want and people complain that they lie in elections anyway. While here, even the president can take the bus to the Bundeshaus.
The biggest influence on society for most people is probably what you described and then raise children in a mostly trauma free environment.
That's what I meant when I said modeling healthy behavior. Mother/father wounds still happen, we're still human, but even in the healthiest households, weaning, toilet training, separation, learning table manners is stressful for little ones.
Beautifully said.
100% but that work is very difficult and for some people impossible to do. I watched an interview with a psychologist who had a former mobster as a client (not named Tony). The guy was in his 80s and had been retired from the game for years but kept having nightmares about bloody babies. He was unable to connect his work as a hit man to this nightmares, and always said that he was fine with his occupation.
