Law #1 - NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER - Sociopathic, or not?

How about for as long as new members are able to join the forum? New members may welcome the opportunity to weigh in on the discussion and vote.

 

It has become clear to me that without a comparison, people will have difficulty seeing that The 48 Laws of Power are a description of classic sociopathic behavior. So I'm going to make a comparison for you that I will call The 48 Laws of Truth. I think every one of the Power laws can be countered with a Truth law. I may be wrong, given this early stage of insight, but let's see where this goes.

Law # 1 -- Be yourself

This is a direct counter to the Power Law of "Don't outshine the master." For people with empathy, compassion, and respect for others, honesty is the best policy. Respect who you are. Be yourself. Your emotions and feelings are genuine. Do not suppress them. Control them, yes. Harness them, yes. Suppress them, no. Express them in an honest but respectful manner. The reaction you get back from others will help you identify what kind of people you are dealing with. They may be genuine, like you, or they may not. But being honest is a good way to feel them out.

 

Wow, Zook! This is the second post where I don't even recognize you! I really like this change of strategy. I've never seen you do anything like this in the many years I've dealt with you, so I'm going to compliment you for changing up your game. So the plan is to take the same side as I do on the issues, win over the crowd, and then put the knife in?

Wait a minute! Have you been reading The 48 Laws of Power?

 

The first law is sociopathic, IMO.

If a slave has the ability to outperform a master, then the society (of two, in our case) is cheated out of maximum performance because the slave is not allowed to exceed the master. A portion of the slave's performance must be tossed away to ensure that the master's performance always retains top billing. Now, that is not sociopathic in itself. What is sociopathic, however, is the priority given to the master-slave configuration over the performance index. The primacy of form over function is a false construction, IMO. Isomorphisms of this primacy include facade over substance. Image over reality. Deception over reception. Sociopathy over empathy. Etc.

Empathy creates just societies. Just societies reward merit. Rewarding rank and not rewarding performance is patently unjust, e.g. it lacks empathy. Ergo, rewarding priviliege to the detriment of performance is inescapably sociopathic.


Pax

ps: Note that if the law had been written thusly: "Never outshine the slave" ... then that would be an empathic law for now the master subordinates to the slave to raise the esteem of the slave. Society benefits overall even if it loses performance in the subordination and precisely because the overall level of esteem in society is increased.

 

Both your video and mine deal with deceptive inter-species predators. Sociopaths are deceptive intra-species predators. They are much more dangerous.

 

There are many ways to look at serving others. A lot depends on your psychology.

Don't let the beginning hypnotize you.

 

^_^

 

That doesn't matter to me.
"An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers." -- Amanda Bloom

Rose, I am truly amazed at your interpretation. Here's the First Law of Power:

You are throwing out TRUTH. Always make those above you feel comfortably superior? Why? What if the truth is that they are inferior, incompetent, vile, destructive, even criminal? They should be held accountable! They should be replaced! If you can do a better job than your boss, then you should be the boss!

Of course you should outshine the master, because if you can in all truthfulness, you are the master! The old master is now the student, and he would be quite happy with that, if he respects truth.

Respecting hierarchy for hierarchy's sake is the sociopath's dream. They believe they are the master and you are the slave. Of course they want you to never outshine them! "Know your place, filthy worm. You are here to serve me and make me shine! Do that and I will reward you with a trinket. Fail to do that and I will have you whipped!"

So you are also throwing out JUSTICE. But throwing out truth and justice is exactly what sociopaths do. They do it with stealth, with camouflaging doublespeak, with obfuscation, with boldness, with convincing certainty, with malice, and for their own selfish benefit at the expense of others. It's all right there in the very first law.

I thought you said you couldn't be hypnotized, Rose. Did you ever stop to consider that you were indeed successfully hypnotized and simply commanded to falsely believe that hypnosis doesn't work on you?

 

What criterion should we use to determine if an action is sociopathic?

Note that these 48 "laws" of power are not laws at all, but agendas. Using the word "law" to describe them is just typical sociopathic doublespeak designed to give the agendas authority and respectability.

Here's the simple criterion I use to assess these so-called "laws".

Using that criterion, I think every one of the "laws" would qualify as sociopathic.

It's not a coincidence that Shezbeth would be so enamored to The 48 Laws of Power.

 

Noted.

And yes, I agree with you on that point ('true' masters), in fact in a proper scenario this IS what occurs; the master gets props for raising a proper student, and the student gets props for being proper. Everyone wins, and I agree this is the ideal scenario and one which is neither impossible nor improbable.

Still, such cases can be said to be less than the majority, so it is best to heed the Law (IMO) until it is shown that the situation allows for defiance of the Law. I willfully defy several of the Laws, and we will get to that in due course.

 

First off, define Megalomaniac please. I have exhaustively, but I need to know what you mean when you say it (that's a statement that bears repeating in a number of threads); everyone is a megalomaniac.

Secondly - per item 2 - There is a reversal to the law for precisely that reason, that's why you can't go off summaries. When the 'master' is in a position of instability or lack of authority (I.e. they suck at their 'job') that is exactly the time to outshine the master, but not haphazardly or pompously. When challenging an authority figure one has double the responsibility - not to mention the potential consequences (and rewards!) - as far as precision and careful planning are concerned.

If the 'master' is incompetent, then the organization and the individual all stand to benefit from the realization and consequential response. Still, one should avoid getting squished by falling 'giants'.