Saturday, February 12, 2011

power

An extremely interesting article on power entitled "Could You Become a Dictator?".  Those experiments were quite clever.

3 comments:

  1. Really enjoyed that, the research doesn't surprise me.

    "people primed to think of themselves as well-off were worse at reading other people's emotions than people primed to think of themselves as poor."

    This is so true, in my limited empirical experience, and there is something going on in the pysche were people with power and wealth tend to become more self-involved self-obsessed and put less effort into reading others emotional states. When one is rich they can afford to act rude, smug and treat others badly. Their messed up values tell them that they are superior because of their status/wealth. If you question many of these people the attitudes they share on those "beneath them" are are the same as during Victorian times where the poor and assumed to be immoral, lazy, unintelligent and even deserve their lot in the life. Social darwinism is evil and treats people as things to be exploited for our own selfish gain. This dovetails in with odious Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism where each person is told to look out for themselves and that they have a naturalistic imperative which lets them off the hook morally! Disgusting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's how Ayn Rand was married but continued to have an affair with another man with full knowledge from her husband. She is a nut case along with Karl Marx. She is admired by Greenspan too. These people believed in their own superiority to devastating effect.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes a very destructive philosophy and shallow too. Astoundingly people, even bright ones, still cling to Marxist ideas which have long been discredited by history. Greenspan literally sat at her feet for years lapping up her selfish rantings as if it were the Gospel.

    ReplyDelete