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I will take this opportunity to point readers to a very interesting article that was published 11 years ago in a renowned medical science journal. Strangely, I did not notice that in our public discourse, someone who is an expert in this field has mentioned it until now.
It is a scientific work that bears the name Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years (Hubris Syndrome: An Acquired Personality Disorder? A Study of American Presidents and British Prime Ministers in the Last 100 Years).
The word hubris comes from ancient Greek and, interestingly, it is not found in Vujaklia and the Dictionary of Foreign Words and Expressions by Klein and Šipka. The English translation is haughtiness, with numerous synonyms such as arrogance, arrogance, insolence, indolence, recklessness, narcissism, predominance, arrogance, insolence, haughtiness, etc. As you please, we will use the abbreviation HS in the text.
The authors of this research analyze some of the most important political figures in Britain and America in the last 100 years in order to describe a new personality disorder, that is, HS which does not assume a history of any psychological problems. It is enough for a person to be arrogant and arrogant and to have seized power - the period of development of the syndrome is during the term of office, i.e. in the range of one to nine years. If the syndrome did not develop during the first mandate, re-election increases the probability of its development, as well as the occurrence of a crisis situation such as war, financial crisis or perhaps a pandemic.
The authors state that it is crucial to understand that HS is "a disorder that results from the possession of power, especially power that is associated with enormous success lasting for years in an environment of minimal constraints facing the leader." A huge success can also be an absolute usurpation of power. For example, we learned that in the recent parliamentary elections, the ruling party won 60,65%, and its coalition partner from the previous mandate won 10,38% of the votes of those who went to the polls. This calculation is misleading because it does not take into account the scattered votes of the numerous parties that did not enter parliament. Therefore, a much more realistic picture is obtained when the mandates won are compared to the number of parliamentary seats. The ruling party won 188 out of 250 parliamentary seats, or 75% of parliamentary seats. When the 32 mandates of the Socialists are added to that, the ruling coalition from the previous mandate won 88% of the seats in the parliament.
Symptoms of HS are a combination of 7 symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPL) and one symptom each of antisocial (psychopathic) personality disorder (Antisocial Personality Disorder - ASPL) and affective personality disorder (Histrionic Personality Disorder - APL). Five symptoms are exclusively characteristic of HS:
1. The narcissistic tendency to see the world primarily as a battlefield where they display and exercise their power and seek their glory (characteristic of NPL).
2. The tendency to take actions that are primarily aimed at improving one's own image (NPL).
3. Excessive concern for one's own image and appearances in public (NPL).
4. Demonstrating messianic zeal and exaltation in addressing the public (NPL).
5. Identification with the people or organization to the extent that individuals recognize their views and interests as identical to their own (HS).
6. Tendency to speak in the third person and use the royal "we" (HS).
7. Overconfidence in one's own judgment and disdain for the advice or criticism of others (NPL).
8. Excessive self-confidence that relies on a sense of omnipotence, due to which they exaggerate their capacities (NPL).
9. The belief that they are not responsible before the earthly court or before colleagues or public opinion, but only before the court of history or God (NPL).
10. Firm belief that in the court of history or in the court of God they would be acquitted (HS).
11. Loss of contact with reality (ASPL).
12. Inability to rest, recklessness and impulsivity (HS).
13. Convinced of their own moral correctness, they tend to ignore questions of practicality or costs of an outcome (HS).
14. The tendency, when things go wrong, due to their arrogance, arrogance, accompanying incompetence and overconfidence, to not take into account the concrete consequences of a policy (APL).
The authors state that such personalities are not prone to therapeutic treatment. In dictatorial regimes, the profession and close associates will not or must not point out the problem. The legal solution of limiting the rule to two mandates is not effective in the fight against HS because it can be manipulated indefinitely through the principle of rotation in the relationship between the president and the prime minister and/or through a change in the Constitution, as was recently the case in Russia.
Politicians who suffer from this syndrome are willing to moderate only in case of a real threat of not being re-elected. In a country where the media is occupied and the elections are rigged, this option also falls away. The branches of government are not helpful either, since they are separated only on paper. On the other hand, the threat of impeachment in America or the possibility of withdrawal of support for the Prime Minister by the British Parliament, as, for example, in the case of Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, are potentially effective means of reining in HS.
Furthermore, in democratic societies, an individualistic approach in reining in HS in the sense that individuals are aware of the harm that the leader personally inflicts on them is not sufficient. Public opinion plays an important role here if it recognizes HS in the leader and insists that such actions harm the common good. Again, public opinion reactions to HS will be ineffective if, in the case of controlled media, communication channels are cut off.
The authors end the article effectively: "Finally, we should never forget that in a letter written on April 5, 1887 to Mandell Creighton, author of the book 'The History of the Papacy in the Age of Reformation', Lord Acton wrote something very profound that preceded his famous saying : 'I cannot accept your canon that we ought not to give our judgment of pope and king in the same way as we do of other men, but only on the favorable supposition that they have done no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is reversed and directed against those in power'. In the next sentence he wrote that 'power tends to corrupt people, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'".
The author is a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade
(Peščanik.net)
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