Agriculture and Sociopathy are the Fathers of Toxic Egoic Consciousness

I have sat with the contents of this essay for many many years now and have never felt the need to write it because I KNOW it will have little or no impact on the outcome of this experiment we call “the human race.” And so I’ve written essays for one on one teachings that will benefit one student at a time. However, I didn’t want to die without voicing this at least once. So, here it is.

By “egoic consciousness” I mean dominant left hemisphere consciousness which, if one is familiar with the works of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor or Dr. Iain McGilchrist, would be much clearer, and so I recommend delving into their works for further description of the differences between the two brain hemisphere’s views of human experience. And, while I like these two writers immensely, I differ with them in their seeming desire to unify the two hemispheres as an answer to the world’s problems. They are welcome to disagree with me about my conclusions about their philosophies, I welcome it, but reading their material has given me the sense that they give too much credence to the left hemisphere’s creations and worldviews. I would like to join them in much of it but when the narrative begins to suggest equality between the two hemisphere’s views and subsequent strategies I find the argument to promote a false equivalency. The left hemisphere of the brain is a useful tool, but its worldview of separation, isolation, individuality (expressed by this hemisphere in the experience that “what I perceive is NOT me,”) and competition, are the cause of a LARGE portion of the suffering in the human experience.

The Left Hemisphere’s worldview is also a very destructive influence on empathy and compassion in average humans which some non-average humans are more than happy to exploit in their misguided idea that they benefit from a society that lacks empathy, cooperation, and compassion. And, I am directly pointing to those who fall into the categories of Sociopaths, Narcissists, and Psychopaths. I would like to classify them all under the heading of “Extreme Empathy Disorders” to continue this discussion as I believe such a classification to be more accurate than the classic differentiation of the three psychological categories. Yes, in the end, there might be dissimilar characteristics to the three psychological categories but the primary cause would seem to be extreme empathy disorders and so I’m going to stay with that as a classification.

Egoic (dominant left hemisphere) consciousness also struggles with empathy and compassion in general but most “normal” people can access their empathy when conditions merit (usually when they are not in a fear response, but the details of that would be for another essay…)

And the easiest method to keep “normal” people away from their empathy response is to promote fear through “in-group/out-group” narratives suggesting that the “alien other” of the out-group is a danger to their “in-group.” Detailed examples of this would fill a large book, but I will give a few to illustrate:

“The people of another sexuality will threaten your children” (a very popular narrative in this present political climate)

“People from other countries/walks of life will come and take your resources…” (another very popular narrative in this present political climate)

“Those in power are evil and if ‘we’ (the in-group) were in power we would be less evil, and, of course, punish them for being so evil…” (also popular)

“Words spoken by the out-group carry different definitions than the same words spoken by the in-group and so should be policed…”

etc. etc. etc.

People often ask “who would benefit from the promotion of such narratives (notice they are on the left AND right of the political spectrum)??”

The simple answer is people who fear unity, empathy, cooperation, and compassion, why? Because they don’t have the type of brain that generates those states, e.g. people with Severe Empathy Disorders.

Am I attempting to make an in-group and an out-group of people with severe empathy disorders? No. I, having empathy, would like to include them in the solution, but am merely suggesting that their invisible influence needs to be overcome to achieve the goal of unity.

I have heard many theories about the statistics of people with Severe Empathy Disorders, suffice it to say, as with all brain mechanics everyone falls on a spectrum. But, last I heard up to 4% of the population falls into this category and by a conservative estimate cause over 40% of the general human chaos and suffering in general day-to-day life (committing crimes, acts of violence, etc.)

Now, this may be true or false, but I will now change focus to the so-called “high functioning sociopaths” who can mimic social behavior and so move less conspicuously among society and say that when assessing the major human injustices in post-agricultural history this might be closer to 100% of the cause.

Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, and Joseph Stalin are only a few modern examples of people with Severe Empathy Disorders coming to power and committing the types of atrocities that people with functioning empathy would never even believe possible. I could easily throw in the names of wealthy industrialists, western monarchs, and presidents/leaders throughout history on this list who committed similar atrocious acts, but I’m picking these three because their death tolls are now public knowledge and can be confirmed with a simple google search.

So, how is it that Extreme Empathy Disorder has come to be so destructive in modern man’s history? And why wasn’t it as destructive in the 50,000+ years of hunter/gatherer tribes?

One word, and one word alone, agriculture.

Agriculture, while being an amazing human achievement, has the severe drawback that it creates a singular location for the wealth it generates (e.g. one location for the food.)

A simple example of the impact of Severely Empathy Disordered people in pre-agricultural tribes might prove to be useful here.

Let's say that a person in a hunter/gatherer tribe born with a Severe Empathy Disorder decided to hunt and gather only for their own benefit. They find a bush with edible berries, let’s say, and hide its location from the rest of the group. The damage this causes is simple to measure. The damage in the form of loss to the overall group is one bush of berries. Yes, it is harmful to the group, but in proportion to the rest of the resources available, it has a negligent effect on the overall health and welfare of the entire group.

All one needs to do to see how this would be more impactful in the post-agricultural revolution era is imagine that the one bush is now the central food source of the entire tribe. I believe with a little imagination that this one example can show the genesis of modern and often harmful inventions such as possessions, money, policing, armies, monarchs, generals, and weapons designed expressly to kill other humans, the gap between the “rich and poor”, and many many other issues that modern man has struggled with for a few thousand years now.

And who believes they would benefit from control of that central resource? Well anyone with a Severe Empathy Disorder would operate under the mistaken idea that if they controlled that resource they would benefit MORE than if everyone had access. Why do I say mistaken? Because someone with a Severe Empathy Disorder is incapable of valuing others beyond their utilitarian usefulness, but someone WITH empathy is able to value even the Severely Empathy Disordered person simply because they are alive and feel pain and so would include them in any fair resource allocation. And the lack of ability to see the benefits of cooperation, compassion, and empathy, keep those with Severe Empathy Disorder from understanding that their lives would actually benefit from the promotion of such traits.

Who are the primary targets of the so-called “high functioning” Severely Empathy Disordered people through political demagoguery? How do they provoke fear among the general public to maintain their control? Well there are two primary targets by the political demagogues (almost always so-called “high functioning” Severely Empathy Disordered people) who wish to promote separation, competition, and fear and they are:

People with higher than average disgust responses (this is usually characterized by people in the so-called “conservative political” groups)

and

People with severe un-healed trauma (this is usually characterized by people in the so-called “liberal political” groups)

By constantly creating narratives that either provoke the disgust response (in conservative narratives) or threaten the un-healed trauma (in liberal narratives) the demagogues maintain a state of fear, competition, and in-group/out-group violence, which maintain separate and isolated and therefore less powerful groups of people. Why do they want this? Because they are much easier to control in these groups.

Until this process is clearly seen and dealt with this will never heal and debating issues like “capitalism over communism” or “socialism vs private wealth” or really ANY other general means of governance will be a COMPLETE waste of time until the demagogues are removed from places of influence. Because there is no noble philosophy of governance that is not vulnerable to the destructive practices of the political demagogues I’ve outlined above.

I would add that if an “empathic/cooperative utopia” were the goal that even the so-called “average” people with access to empathy would need to strengthen that brain mechanic or even the completion of the daunting task of the removal of the Severely Empathy Disabled from positions of great power and influence would not accomplish the goal.

I could probably write a four-volume set of 1000+ page books illustrating the points I’ve made here but I won’t. I do the only job that has any chance of waking the average person up to the truths I’m pointing out here, but if I didn’t at least write this much I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that I didn’t speak up about the horrendous pain caused by people with Severe Empathy Disorders being in places of authoritarian power and influence in systems that do not embrace cooperation, compassion, and empathy.

When this is coupled with the Left Hemisphere's dominance over the general world views of modern people the result is the tremendous suffering, pain, and injustice experienced in stunningly high amounts in the modern world.

I hear a lot of talk about whether the human race will survive or not, I will say simply, that unless the reversal in the trend away from empathy, cooperation, and compassion, is quelled, I sincerely doubt humanity will survive (nor should it.)