Sick people everywhere, sane people in the asylum

As the title suggests, I believe everything is fundamentally broken. It seems that in most cases, the very people running our major institutions—including our federal government and Congress—and leading most corporations are those suffering from mental instability or a complete lack of moral compass.

Why do I say that? It’s because these individuals often lack any real empathy; they are either completely detached from reality (psychopathy), or if you challenge them, they lash out through deception and hollow bravado. They love to take credit for achievements that were actually accomplished by the subordinates they command (narcissism).

When you have a system built on such warped values, it is inevitable that decent, empathetic people will lose their minds. They either snap under the pressure or simply give up, spiraling into deep depression.

Why am I sharing this? Because I’ve lived it. I fell into a depression myself due to these exact circumstances. After facing layoffs and then dealing with various penalties after finally reaching my breaking point, I turned to "legal" drugs—psychotropic medications, obviously. Those were what kept me going and allowed me to function somewhat normally for a while.

So, I want to know: are there others who feel the same way? Please, feel free to share your own thoughts on this entire landscape of inverted values...

I’m pretty much on the same page as you, and I think you really hit the nail on the head with how you put this together... I feel almost exactly the same way, though I probably wouldn't have phrased it quite as elegantly as you did. It seems like highly successful people tend to be a bit lower on the empathy scale, which, honestly, might just be one of the engines driving their success... It’s something I hope our leadership can instill in us, and if I had to guess, I think they’ve made some decent progress there already.
The thing is, I haven't quite "made it" yet—I'm still just an average guy being kept on a short leash by my parents. Man, I would love to be one of those high achievers; just imagine being able to tell the old folks to back off, enjoying the spoils of success, and finally having the breathing room to get my own head straight.

Values? "Inverted values"? Let's be real—this whole "empathy" thing is just a buzzword used by the average Joe to feel better about himself. It’s a way to mask the fact that to actually practice it, you need a level of comfort that can only be provided by some psychopathic, systemic structure. You see these hypersensitive "empaths" acting all high and mighty, clinging to their supposed moral compass... meanwhile, they soak up this manufactured empathy from some propaganda machine. They sit there watching a staged performance of morality, judging everything with disgust while some elite in a designer suit and polished shoes—with a literal gag over their mouth—shuffles through the filth, pretending to uphold these precious "values." Fast forward to the next day, and that same "empath" walks past a crowd of homeless people with the exact same look of pure revulsion. To them, those people are just a disgusting symptom of a broken system that claims to care for its own, when really, it's just about keeping your own head above the sewage... the "concept of values" remains perfectly intact. Empathy practically glows in this dark, miserable reality where the entire system is backwards, soulless, and totally two-faced.....

Mark Twain once remarked, "If people knew how little intelligence actually governs the world, they would die of fear." There’s a kernel of truth in your argument, but you might be surprised to find a surprising number of level-headed individuals holding sway in politics, big business, and the military. In other words, within those sectors where making high-stakes, difficult decisions is part of the job description, competence does exist. Yet, the moment things get heavy, everyone runs to weep and lament in the arms of priests, preachers, imams, spouses, therapists, gurus, psychics, and all that other nonsense. At the end of the day, a job is just a job, and we’re all just human beings... don't you think?

There’s actually a massive distinction between psychological issues and what we typically call psychiatric disorders—the more severe mental health conditions.

Exactly, John. It’s just that the line between what we call psychiatric disorders versus psychological issues is such a massive gray area... there is so much room for debate there. I’m not even talking about people confined to hospital beds; I mean those everyday folks who are fully functional despite having a diagnosis. Then you have the high-powered executives at the top of their game, where you could easily argue about their mental health too...

The real headache here is how we handle symptoms, diagnosis, and actual treatment. Most psychiatric or psychological disorders hit all three of those areas at once, which is why they end up being categorized under the international standards of disease classification.

When you look at the "Dark Triad"—and since you mentioned psychopathy and narcissism, I’ll toss Machiavellianism into the mix to complete that trio—it’s a relatively fresh concept in psychology. The thing about these specific traits is that they describe a person's personality without necessarily breaking their ability to function in daily life. Because they aren't "disrupting" everything, you can't really call them de facto symptoms. Since there's no formal diagnosis for just having these traits, people don't usually seek out treatment. That said, I was reading recently that newer forms of CBT and general psychotherapy can definitely help soften the edges of these personality traits.

Here is the main takeaway:

Lately, the Dark Triad has really caught the eye of both academic researchers and the general public alike. It’s a framework made up of three overlapping parts: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. This paper aims to walk through some of the core research findings on the subject. We'll start by defining what the Dark Triad actually is, where it came from, and what makes up its components. From there, we’ll dive into existing studies that compare the Dark Triad against the standard five-factor and HEXACO personality models, and wrap things up by looking at the most common tools used to measure these traits. I'll also touch on gender differences and how people with these traits tend to approach dating and relationships, and finish by analyzing some famous fictional characters from movies and books who fit the profile.

https://psychology-research-us.org/dark-triad-overview