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Thom, a lot of people who have a need to create chaos are driven by less observable, unconscious processes like old fury that is being displaced onto contemporary scapegoats. This is a more psychological way of understanding people then a description of their overt behavior. In his book, DISORDERED MINDS - How Dangerous Personalities Are…
Thom, a lot of people who have a need to create chaos are driven by less observable, unconscious processes like old fury that is being displaced onto contemporary scapegoats. This is a more psychological way of understanding people then a description of their overt behavior. In his book, DISORDERED MINDS - How Dangerous Personalities Are Destroying Democracy, Ian Hughes describes rulers like Hitler and Stalin as having a drive for absolute power over others and no conscience about how they achieve that end. These SOCIOPATHS are a small percentage of the population but they are attracted to positions of power in places like police departments, big business, and politics. As adolescents and young adults these, mostly men, join gangs and militant groups to find a sense of belonging and empowerment. They spread chaos to express their childhood rage at authority and assert their dominance. This is how they reassure themselves that they are powerful, unlike how they felt as children. Trump and Putin crave dominance and have no conscience about how that is achieved. So do many of the people who align with them.
Ms. Taylor, don't you think we might better concentrate our attention on the kinds of social organizations which give us the people you describe, the organization which enables them: Hitler, Stalin, Putin, "these, mostly men" who "join gangs and militant groups" and forget about "unconscious" motives and behavior? When you think about it doesn't the term "unconscious" behavior have an element of an oxymoron about it?
Professor, what social organizations are you referring to, that give us people who operate without conscience? I tend to believe that the most formative social organization in cultures that produce a certain percentage of sociopathic, malignant narcissists in Western cultures, is the nuclear family. However, I completely agree that there are widening circles of influence as a baby becomes a toddler, then a child, adolescent, and adult. In all of these developmental stages the culture (including the nuclear family) continues to exert influence over the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of its members, including whatever social organizations you had in mind...Absolutely, yes.
The reason I describe unconscious processes is that the effects of the cultural surround, including the nuclear family, have their greatest effect in the earliest years, then fall into the background of consciousness. Paradoxically, the more unconscious a belief is, such as "big boys don't cry," the stronger the hold it has over the individual or culture. These beliefs and attitudes, over time, become unassailable "truths." Their influence is almost total until a critical mass of people in that culture consciously challenge it.
I endorse your approach, if I have it right, of drawing the behaviors and social phenomena Thom (and Cambridge) observe back into the context of previously identified psychologies.
I'm not convinced that we need a new "agents of chaos" category, or whether it's useful .