Politics - Delusional Codependence

One is a nut.

Two is a conspiracy.

Three is a cabal.

Four is a political party.

Displays of confidence and enthusiasm contribute to charismatic power: the entertainer smiles!  The politician kisses the baby!  We say of the comedian and his room on a good night, "Great energy, man!"

Where intentions are good, i.e., "to educate, inform, and entertain" or, say, to improve community health and sanitation systmes, as well as "in bounds" and in the realm of the doable, possible, or just an inch over the edge, the crowds pile aboard and produce that something we call progress -- or just a good show or an improved downtown business environment.

However, whether on The Hill or in Hollywood or nurtured in the womb of The Enterprise (any sector), a not too secret self-aggrandizing motive may course through the social environment with more or less approval, much including approval, even enthusiasm, for those whose intentions turn on the sordid business of acquiring power over others to redound solely to the limitless beauty of their own glory in all of its unbridled sadism.

We expect actors, artists, politicians, and priests to reach for and appreciate, albeit with appropriate humility, a measure of greatness, and by rights, we seem to like our leaders (as we do our heroes) a little larger than life.  We don't expect the same to turn out shits (unless enjoying the flavor of a general and woeful cynacism), but some of them sure do, and Way Out There in the scale of their ambitions, the angered depths of their frustrations, and the heights of their preferred self concepts (nearer to God than to thee, such a one might imply or say), the same may acquire license as well as helpful and like-minded associates, equally uncontained and unencumbered by a more common human conscience, empathy, and kindly reasoning sensibility.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," wrote Shakespeare (Henry IV, ii) and with similar interest in lusts for power and conspiracies and outrageous gyrations and machinations to obtain it.

That we haven't taken the lesson from the Bard doesn't mean we haven't kicked it around some, and widely so.  This passage concerns itself with a basis in Jainism:

 "Codependent Origination, though not traditionally applied to political affairs, provides a psycho-social model of the human condition that is compatible with classic Realist political texts.  It finds much behaviour dependent on delusion (or ignorance), desire and aggression.  These are termed either the 'three fires' or the 'three poisons'.  They are the propellant fuels of human behavior and require discipline if they are not to stimulate suffering, aggression and death" [1].

In "Political Codependence and Cults of Personality" [2], Sam (Shmuel) Vaknin moves into this area through the dimensional gate that is narcissism (oh, let us count the ways).

At least one author in social psychology -- David Thomas, at first quick web glance at least, seems to have developed a profession in organizational psychology --  offers this observation in the definition of "Codependent, enabler, follower, covert narcissist, inverted narcissist, co-narcissist" [3]:

Codependency is a condition that affects a large percentage of the adult population. Individual characteristics vary in degree from individual to individual. Codependent patterns of behavior include, among others:

• Avoiding decision making and confrontation
• External referencing (always checking outside oneself before making choices)
• Subordinating one's needs to those of the person with whom one is involved [the narcissist]
• Perfectionism
• Over-controlling
• Manipulation
• Lack of trust
• Lying

Often, the same person displays both narcissistic and codependency (co-narcissistic) behaviors, depending on circumstances. Both narcissists and codependents tend to assume that in any interpersonal interaction one person is narcissistic and the other codependent, and often can play either part.

One may see the measures of silliness here in degrees (who is without tendencies along some potential psychopathological path?) as well as the transitive challenge in moving a description of individual and personal behavior toward one involved with social organizations . . . and yet, right there in that bulleted list are quite a few, if not all, of the hallmarks of the Islamic Small Wars and the autocrat-producing atmospheres in which they exist.

However, let me not restrict this to Islam's internecine conflicts but rather maintain the same dimensions, motivations, and variables exist and apply universally where violent and far out of kilter political mobsterism -- Burma, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, etc. -- prevail as the organizing principle of the society.

One may see complications ahead for "Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy (FBPS)" and now this helpful appendage that I will hereafter call "Delusional Political Codependence (DPS)", but one may see the parts moving, the juggernaut of the Out There and cloaked malformed charismatic, the lift off for the closest of fellow travelers, the lift of the enchanted acolytes in a cause that opens their gates to a new and endless dawn, one that may be as boundless as it may be boastful, cruel, pitiless, and ruthless.

Reference

1. Grey, Maggie.  "The Emptiness of Codependent Origination."  The Culture Mandala, 7:1, December 2005.

2. Vaknin, Shmuel (Sam).  "Political Codependence and Cults of Personality."  Global Politician, n.d.

 3. Thomas, David.  "Codependent, enabler, follower, covert/inverted/co-narcissist".  Definition.  Winning Teams, n.d.

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