“The United States will protect its people and advance our prosperity irrespective of the actions of any other nation…” President Barak Obama in National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010
The American Empire is not in decline.
It is rebooting for a new era of dominance.
The American Empire’s success depends on successfully converting the national American psyche into a sociopathic national consciousness (SNC). Once completed, America’s empire will be as successful as it is ruthless.
This conversion process is ad hoc and always the consequence of an “outside” event or “crisis” and the fear it engenders. The sociopath, as individual or collective, is opportunistic and reaps advantage from uncertainty. Sociopaths are in abundance at every level of American society.
For example, the response to 911 was mostly ill-conceived as the world now knows. But the fallout from that, though, is irreversible: state secrets, wire tapping, torture, leaders inciting fear in American society, terrorists around every corner threatening life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fusion centers, laws conceived for punishing terrorists used on common criminals/vandals, war as meaningless, etc. Now more war is needed and so it’s cyberwar, helicopter gunships into Pakistan and Yemen, and that pesky homegrown terrorist problem (antiwar activists).
There is no end game for this state of affairs just as there is no stopping the conversion of America to a totally sociopathic empire.
In the USA, Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and the societies of Orwell’s 1984 and Zamyatin’s We are taking shape rapidly. The institutions/societies they created/portrayed are the inevitable result of a society based on a violence-in-the-name-of-good model and indispensible to a warring Empire like the USA. They are critical to its success.
Could it be otherwise? Is the American Empire an exception to the historical rule?
The conversion to the SNC can be seen everywhere.
Language is emptied of meaning, the national securitization of every aspect of life, and the increase of “action at a distance via technology” whether in inter-personnel relations or the execution of war in distant lands.
Examples abound: “too big to fail” as legitimate rationale, a “surge” is not an increase; “combat has ended” when it has not; the recession “is over” when it is not; “we do not torture” when we actually do; the two party system is competitive when it is not, the Tea Party is a grassroots creation when it is not, and so on.
President Obama has stated that national security and homeland security are now the same. Just so: food security, infrastructure security, neighborhood security, personal security, airport security, education security, and on and on. The Christian Easter Sunday normally sees children at the receiving end of an Easter Basket from parents loaded with candy. Now the Easter Basket has toy soldiers and military airplanes included. A popular mouthwash states on its bottle, “Tooth Defense!”
Face-to-face, interpersonal communication is to be avoided if at all possible. When it is witnessed at press conferences, military briefings, town halls, or the “Sunday morning talkies” on the MSM, the ground rules for the contestants make for a sterile and humorless event in which participants simply make noises at each other.
Americans hide in their I Phones, Blackberry’s and Cell Phones. This scene is commonplace: talking in meat-space with friend, spouse, or fellow worker. In mid-conversation, a cell phone rings with the result that the person on the other end of phone overrides the near-flesh conversation. Even near-flesh experiences during which conversation does take place lacks any degree of substance. How was your weekend? Did you see “American Idol?” How about that football team? What’s the deal with Mel Gibson? Can you believe Lady Gaga?
No existential or ontological discussion here. It’s a nation of sociopaths, mechanical to the core. That’s ok because that what the Empire needs to move forward unencumbered with reality.
It is the SNC that will be America’s trump card in the game of global domination.
The American Sociopath
The American Empire depends on its people, said President Obama. What are the characteristics of the American people and their “leaders”?
Glibness and Superficial Charm and Manipulative and Cunning–They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
Grandiose Sense of Self–Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
Pathological Lying–Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt–A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
Shallow Emotions–When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
Need for Stimulation–Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
Callousness/Lack of Empathy–Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature–Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, and no concern for their impact on others.
Irresponsibility/Unreliability–Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility –Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.
Is there any doubting America’s character?
Critics of the Empire: Convert Now!
Naysayers believe that the American way of consumption is at an end. The USA can’t continue to consume 25 percent of the Earth’s resources, they say. They point to the presence of new and powerful global competitors in Brazil, China, Russia, Turkey and India that are cutting into the sole source status that the USA once enjoyed around the globe. Profligate US government spending and the financial crisis of 2008 sapped America’s ability to shape its own future, just as it has wounded its ability to meddle in the affairs of other nations.
The naysayers fail to understand the ebbs and flows of building and sustaining an empire. There are constant setbacks and challenges. They also underestimate the American Way of Empire: an empire based on the principle of excessive violence, consumption and amusement. The American Empire’s mission is right there in the Declaration of Independence: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It’s an inalienable right.
When asking what Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Washington would think about the current state of the American Experiment as Empire, they undoubtedly would applaud it. Why? Because they would be smart enough to understand that the speed of movement of people/resources and information/ideas around the globe is exactly what America is all about. It’s simply a reflection of the pace of life in the USA. Imagine it: Jefferson may have been able to pay off his debts rather than have died penniless. What living US president these days has ever gone broke?
The American Empire, just as its predatory predecessors (Greece, Rome, for example), proclaims—quite loudly–that its way of life is most noble, its technology preeminent, its political system unmatched, its culture and Gods supreme. An empire must shape the world in its own image, must conquer and enslave. The Gods favor conquerors, favor the emperor who orders destruction in the name of a good or a God, favors the citizens who go about their daily business or willingly sacrifice their existence for the Empire’s cause.
Empires tolerate internal dissent—“free press”–as part of the grand theater that is politics and entertainment. Allowing dissent legitimizes the destruction of the empire’s foes, internal and external (assassinating US citizens?) that are intolerant of dissent, who operate contrary to the empire’s ethos, who challenge the rule of violence.
The Price of Empire: Psychopathic, Vapid Culture
“Despair, feeding, as it always does, on phantasmagoria, is imperturbably leading literature to the rejection, en masse, of all divine and social laws, towards practical and theoretical evil.” Isadore Ducasse/Lautreamont
“The Korova Milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence.” Alex from a Clockwork Orange
“It did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change, or that the world could be a better place through one’s taking pleasure in a look or a feeling or a gesture, or receiving another person’s love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term ‘generosity of spirit’ applied to nothing, was a cliché, it was some kind of bad joke. Sex is mathematics. Individuality is no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire is meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, and grief, were things, emotions that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love can’t be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in … this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged…” Bateman from American Psycho
ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 
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Benjamin Wintersteen
John,
After deleting a point-by-point response to this troll, I must admit I lost gumption. Ultimately, this post conflates American with Human traits (Such as violent reactions to perceived threats to identity), levels of society (what is sociopathic in a mythical or ‘global’ society is in fact ‘normal’ in a nationalist geopolitical system), and assigns value statements under some undefined use of ‘normal’ (‘’promiscuity’ is a favorite of mine).
I struggled with falling through the trap of “compared to whom?” until I realized that you are comparing American political and individual traits to an undefined and historically unprecedented standard with which even our most moral human examples wouldn’t have agreed.
Your smug superiority and dubious use of anthropological terms definitely help you fit in with Americans, and we welcome you to the ranks of sandwich-board wearing doomsayers who camouflage good points and astute cultural observations with hyperbole and myopia (a river flows fastest through a narrow channel).
In the end, you are not wrong about some of your points, some of these are things that afflict us as Americans and Humans. These are aspects of our society we should address, unfortunately these gems are concealed by your very clear ire and rage at Americans.
I invite you, then, to consider the society to which you belong (as well as financially and personally benefit from), reread your post, and then ask yourself if perhaps this term applies more to you than to the perceived monsters in the world’s closet:
so•cio•path•ic
adj
\ˌsō-sē-ə-ˈpa-thik, ˌsō-sh(ē-)ə-\
: of, relating to, or characterized by asocial or antisocial behavior or exhibiting antisocial personality disorder
Maximilian Forte
John can respond for himself of course, but I have some points to add here, relating to arguments and barbs made more than once on this site.
One comes from this line in Benjamin’s commentary: “I invite you, then, to consider the society to which you belong (as well as financially and personally benefit from).”
“The society to which you belong” is a decidedly nationalist construct that is itself myopic and naturalizes the nation as one’s only and ultimate home. As a result, it disqualifies the fact that many become alienated from this supposed place to which one “belongs,” or risks treating such alienation as pathology for having deviated from an expected norm, a norm which is purely a figment of the imagination of the biased patriot.
Secondly, the point about benefiting “financially and personally.” You might want to make the “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” argument with your dog, because doing so with any adult is condescending at the very least. But what you also achieve is to offer proof for John’s objectivity in claiming that he is writing as if he had no vested interest in the society to which he “belongs.” If he is writing in this disinterested manner, placing himself outside of the society that would seek to imprison him, then that is objectivity in one of the clearest possible senses.
I also do not like the petty tone of your commentary, which has a kind of “do as your told” quality that one might hear from an elementary school teacher, and even then it’s unforgivable.
In connection with the “dubious use of anthropological terms,” I would like to see how you go about validating this dubious invention of “levels of society,” what your theoretical foundations are for pushing this construct, and how they are applicable to an imperial society where “domestic” and “foreign” policy, like “public” and “private,” are depictions of an ideal state at best.
The idea of “human traits,” that takes “human nature” to be singular, universal, and eternal, is probably the most backward part of your commentary, an antique 19th century Eurocentric universalism that one mainly finds in religious and reactionary tracts these days, and not in anthropology. The notion that people react violently to threats to their identity is clearly not valid as a universal human trait, or Americans would be torn to shreds wherever they went in the world, there would be no tourist industries, and the phenomenon of people switching identities and acquiring multiple identities would again be discounted entirely.
So in the end your analysis boils down to a nationalist moaning that laments an injury caused by harsh words. I don’t know what you expect John to do with that, personally it would be water off my back.
Maximilian Forte
Here is what I was trying to say, only said much better, and I think this would interest John as well since it is right in line with what he writes. Three of us seem to be on the same wavelength, as these quotes came from our friend Guanaguanare’s blog, quoting from Butler Shaffer’s “How We Lost Our Souls” (LINK):
Benjamin Wintersteen
I will state, that as tongue-in-cheek as my response may have been, I was maintaining the aggressive tone intentionally to make a point about the level of irony and hypocrisy in John’s tone.
MAX: John can respond for himself of course, but I have some points to add here, relating to arguments and barbs made more than once on this site.
One comes from this line in Benjamin’s commentary: “I invite you, then, to consider the society to which you belong (as well as financially and personally benefit from).”
“The society to which you belong” is a decidedly nationalist construct that is itself myopic and naturalizes the nation as one’s only and ultimate home. As a result, it disqualifies the fact that many become alienated from this supposed place to which one “belongs,” or risks treating such alienation as pathology for having deviated from an expected norm, a norm which is purely a figment of the imagination of the biased patriot.
ME: Absolutely not. I in no way denied that people can become alienated from their own “home culture” nor does it imply that his being an American is the deciding factor. The point here, then, was that he is benefitting from critiquing the very system that allows him to exist and prosper as her has. He has been a journalist focused on the government and defense for a very long time, and he serves to gain a great deal from things the way they are. He is, in essence, “part of the problem” not the solution.
MAX: Secondly, the point about benefiting “financially and personally.” You might want to make the “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” argument with your dog, because doing so with any adult is condescending at the very least. But what you also achieve is to offer proof for John’s objectivity in claiming that he is writing as if he had no vested interest in the society to which he “belongs.” If he is writing in this disinterested manner, placing himself outside of the society that would seek to imprison him, then that is objectivity in one of the clearest possible senses.
ME: Arguably his post was condescending to start, see my first comment about maintaining tone.
Second, again, he is not a prisoner of his society, he is a full-blown participant and beneficiary.
MAX: I also do not like the petty tone of your commentary, which has a kind of “do as your told” quality that one might hear from an elementary school teacher, and even then it’s unforgivable.
ME: I in no way intended a “do as your told quality” and if that was what was conveyed, I apologize.
It has more of a “pot/kettle” quality in my mind. And I will work to convey that better in the future.
MAX: In connection with the “dubious use of anthropological terms,” I would like to see how you go about validating this dubious invention of “levels of society,” what your theoretical foundations are for pushing this construct, and how they are applicable to an imperial society where “domestic” and “foreign” policy, like “public” and “private,” are depictions of an ideal state at best.
ME:Are you saying that we do not have distinct levels of society which interact but are not the same at the global, coalition (small “c”), national, regional, state, institutional, local, and personal levels? That each of these “levels” carry with them values and norms that may come into conflict?
And for the record, I was welcoming him to the fold, not claiming I was somehow exempt .
MAX: The idea of “human traits,” that takes “human nature” to be singular, universal, and eternal, is probably the most backward part of your commentary, an antique 19th century Eurocentric universalism that one mainly finds in religious and reactionary tracts these days, and not in anthropology. The notion that people react violently to threats to their identity is clearly not valid as a universal human trait, or Americans would be torn to shreds wherever they went in the world, there would be no tourist industries, and the phenomenon of people switching identities and acquiring multiple identities would again be discounted entirely.
ME: Granted, the term does carry Western-centric ideas with it, and I regret that I could not come up with a better way to express the aspects inherent to our biology and social underpinnings that clearly influence all cultures above and beyond any (including Western) models. This ‘nature’ comes at three levels. Biologically, for example, violence and competition for resources is a truism. It occurs, and will always occur. Socially, we form relationships, discriminate against The Other, and develop identities based on those relationships. Finally, it is generally accepted that humans filter information through subjective perceptions and that no two humans see the same situation in an identical way.
Are you saying any of these is incorrect?
As for issues of identity, everywhere Americans go there IS negotiation, sometimes physically violent, about identity. Growing up in Hawaii was a great example, as I am kama’aina but only the locals who knew me could tell. To strangers I was just another Haole, here to change the islands (for the worse). In situations where one or both groups fail to adapt, violence is along the continuum, as shown by racial violence in Hawaii (Kill Haole Day).
I never once claimed that identities cannot change, that would be absurd. That change is part of the social adaptation that allows humans to thrive. I would argue, instead, that people do have multiple identities that come into conflict with themselves and others, and that violence is a ‘normal’ response for our species, even if not universal.
MAX: So in the end your analysis boils down to a nationalist moaning that laments an injury caused by harsh words. I don’t know what you expect John to do with that, personally it would be water off my back.
ME: I think I made it pretty clear that I saw good points in his rant. The problem, then, was a tone and hypocrisy that undermined those points and were clearly decontextualized, invalidated, and ultimately meant to stir emotional as opposed to rational thought.
Second, I see nothing nationalistic in my response. Nor do I claim any injury. If anything, I can thank him for inspiring me to respond. If anything, a nationalist would resort to the “compared to whom” response that I tried to avoid. The fact that I refer to Americans is factual, not nationalistic.
I would hope that anything said here could eventually be “water off of our backs” but when we discuss issues we care about, issues that connect to our identity, we can get quite… passionate. A perfectly “normal’ response.
CM
Psychopathy is a fascinating and frightening subject in equal parts. I’ve read Robert Hare’s books Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits. They helped illuminate the seemingly inexplicable behaviour of a close relative (unfortunately after the fact, for me) and have opened my eyes to the astonishing number of them, major and minor, in our society. Bankers, politicians and corporate lawyers most of us look warily on anyway but others in positions of trust – doctors and nurses, police, the military – always surprise us.
Often the only indication of a psychopath is the destroyed lives, the despair or the horror they leave in their wake. It’s like a psychologist’s version of a cloud chamber.
Dr. Hare had a “Rule of Thirds” to describe how people recognize (or don’t) a psychopath.
One third detect them right away. They invoke an almost primal fear. Another third are undecided and give them the benefit of the doubt until their behaviour becomes obvious. And the rest never recognize them at all. They don’t even admit it when they’ve been exposed.
It’s kind of interesting to apply that to election results.
What has frightened me most during the last ten years is the speed at which people have accepted torture as a means of accomplishing something – even if it doesn’t – how massacre of innocents is acceptable if we do it but not if they do, and that the people who stand for the best in a society and actually practice the virtues by which the society characterizes itself are vilified. Dennis Kucinich comes immediately to mind.
And once they’ve demonstrated their hypocrisy, I can’t listen to them any more. My reaction to George W. Bush was like a severe allergy. Obama, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair and Stephen Harper are unbearable. Watching the destruction they cause is even worse.
Benjamin Wintersteen
CM: What has frightened me most during the last ten years is the speed at which people have accepted torture as a means of accomplishing something – even if it doesn’t – how massacre of innocents is acceptable if we do it but not if they do, and that the people who stand for the best in a society and actually practice the virtues by which the society characterizes itself are vilified. Dennis Kucinich comes immediately to mind.
ME: Absolutely! This scares me as well. The idea that we can dehumanize the Other to the point where we can justify the same behavior towards THEM that we attack when it happens to us terrifies me. It is practically a schizophrenic or MPD response.
Just like the explanation of “We dont torture our enemies nearly as bad as they do to us” I find to be a bankrupt defense.
I think that the reason we villify the virtuous s the same reason we attack the famous, or experience joy when a great person falls, or pick at when homophobic preachers are caught in flagrante delecto with another man… it scares us Americans) when someone demonstrates how unvirtuous we really are.
John Stanton
I recommend Living in the End Times by Slavoj Zizek.
Of course I’m part of the society I criticize. As Neils Bohr once said you can’t exempt the apparatus or human for an object being observed/analyzed. I recognize that and so the point of this piece was an attempt to look at where America is going based on the trend lines which point to some weird form of fascism. It is scary as CM said.
I’ve got to run now but will have more to say this evening.
It is good that there was an emotional response as it has led to discussion. That’s a positive!
Maximilian Forte
Not only are we part of the society that we analyze, we have absolutely no choice in the matter. To tell someone born in a prison, hey, you get three meals a day and exercise, you’re benefiting, is an asinine argument that blames the critic for merely having been born.
Benjamin Wintersteen
To refer to the society into which one is born as a prison is a bit disingenuous. While arguments regarding penopticons and hegemony could be twisted to support the view, it devalues what being in prison really means.
More to the point, if anything, some of us are part of the administration of that prison (if you insist on keeping the analogy) in that we could leave if we wished, we act as voices for and about the system (such as journalist who made their living commenting on the same administration without reprisal), and ultimately we have freedoms that the real ‘prisoners’ (arguably the poor, forcibly relocated, etc) are denied.
Martyr complex aside, equating living in our society, even with all of its flaws, as living in a prison is tantamount to saying that we live our lives denied water because we lose our gills before birth, or that we are prisoners on Earth because we don’t have the knowledge necessary to leave it in any meaningful way.
John Stanton
“Ben Wintersteen, a current [former?] HTS member. The stated audience of his blog is his friends and family, but as his stated purpose in the program is (at least in part) to critically examine the workings of the HTS from the inside, his blog contains many reflections on his experiences with the program to date (he is currently in week 15 of training). He posts 2 extended blogs per week on his ethical, educational, social, emotional and physical experiences in the program, and often takes the time to compare them to the issues raised against the HTS in the broader disciplinary debate.”
OK, now I recommend One Dimensional Man by Marcuse. I am confused a bit as to what your point is Ben. Do you have a particular formula for “critically examining the workings from the inside” of American society/politics, etc.? If so, please enlighten us all as to the proper methodology.
I took a stab at an analytical framework for strategic cultural analysis. Not sure if the ppt is still available but it was ref here http://zenpundit.com/?p=2732…It speaks to some of your concerns.
Benjamin Wintersteen
I am not entirely sure if your comment directly relartes to your original post or my response, but thank you for the reference. I am definitely interested in sources relating to my work.
I am former “HTS Trainee” officially, though my work on HTS has not concluded.
I would not venture into telling someone how to critically examine US politics from teh inside in the same way as I would a smaller organization. I would, however, caution against using words like “Fascism” as freely and as out of context we sometimes do. identifying trends is one thing, but using social science in some sort of predictive way is always dangerous.
It is a fine line between pointing out concerns and dangers in our society and claiming the sky is falling. Every generation in memory has claimed theirs was the begining of the end, we have a running eschatology of modern society that only seems to gain strength from failed prophecy.
Maximilian Forte
The prison analogy works much better as an explanatory device to highlight the misplaced quasi-voluntarist assumptions behind such ideas as one being a “full blown participant and beneficiary.” Full blown participant? What are the options? Not living in a society? How is that to be done when the boundaries of state, society, and globe, are all coextensive? So it’s facile to argue something like “you live in the society, you take part in it, you benefit from it” and that this should somehow temper one’s criticism of the society. This can reflect an authoritarian impulse to get all citizens behind the wall, keep quiet, and work. On the other hand, it clearly prohibits an objective analysis that requires that one see the objective structures of society as existing outside of oneself, and that does not take on the nationalist duty of taking that society as a normal and naturalized given.
Also, when you class all critics, as participants in a society that they were born into and as people who are thus “part of the problem,” you have effectively imprisoned them. At its most crude and simplistic, the assumption is that to be a critic of one’s society one must be extremely poor, homeless, wandering, and without connections to the society–which is really great, because then it means that person is invisible and you get to avoid hearing any of their criticism. No wonder then that as soon as an academic goes against the mainstream, the first impulse of reactionaries is to deny the person a livelihood, going straight for the jugular, and exiling the person in a way that makes Soviet gulags sound inviting.
I would be extremely careful about injecting biology into discussions of social constructions and cultural conditioning. The notion that violence and competition for resources is a “truism” is more Thomas Hobbes than it is anthropology. More to the point, the violence we are dealing with here is state violence in the form of war, and there is nothing “natural” about it, and thus no need to reach for wobbly assertions about the truths of human nature.
John Stanton
So, what words/concepts would you have us use?
You are not giving much insight here. Chicken Little’s are with us always chirping from every profession and level of society.
There are few political models or systems of governments that do not end as authoritarian or conquered.
If the USA chooses to adopt an authoritarian model of a republic then so be it. The matter for discussion is how the USA pursues it’s national interests and survival.
That issue needs to be discussed with ferocity.