Recently, we discussed the brain changes associated with greed. Undoubtedly, greed remains a significant motivator for those oligarchs trying to coopt democracy for their own gains. However, there is a more worrying motivation that is likely superimposed on their greed: a God-Complex.
Indeed, if we are trying to understand why someone with more wealth than they can spend wants to rule over others, knowing that they are likely trying to recreate the world in their vision is helpful.
Here we will briefly explore the motivation of greed and the God-complex behind those taking over society.
The Greedy Brain
It’s more than 10 years since I started my research in neuroscience. I remember the sense of astonishment. Soon, I got used to how remarkable the brain was and the ingenuity of neuroscientists (and others) trying to learn more about it. But when I delved into the neuroscience of greed, I was once again greeted by that same sense of astonishment I had ten years previously.
I was astonished at the sheer volume of research undertaken on both Dispositional Greed (a consuming drive to constantly want more money and/or power) and Greed Personality Trait. So convincing is the evidence of neuropathology that the question as to whether Dispositional Greed is a mental disorder or not has now been replaced by the question of what type of disorder it is - addiction, psychopathy, or part of the ‘dark triad’?
I was also astonished at just how substantial the brain changes are in those who are consumed by their greed. I was surprised to find that so disruptive is greed to the normal, healthy development of the brain that cortical regulation (prefrontal cortex) on the emotional system (limbic) was significantly lacking. Those with Dispositional Greed are essentially underdeveloped.
It has ramifications. For those consumed with greed, they are missing out on the best bits of life. Consistently, the evidence shows they are miserable. Indeed, they are so miserable that neuroimaging studies show actual changes to the structures of their brains. They are also angry and more likely to be aggressive. Evidence shows that those with Dispositional Greed seem to oscillate between being miserable and being angry.
Perhaps though, the most stark (from the individual with Dispositional Greed’s perspective) is the lack of higher cortical innervation. That is, the Greedy Brian has significant deficits in higher cognitive brain functions such as "decision making, reasoning, personality expression, maintaining social appropriateness, and other complex cognitive behaviours” (some of the known functions of the prefrontal cortex).
While difficult to quantify (neuroscience isn’t quite advanced enough yet), there is very likely to be an impaired ability to appreciate art, poetry, nature, relationships, and other meaningful aspects of life.
As I say, the greedy brain is missing out on the best parts of life.
For those of us who lay in their wake (which is more and more of us as they take over society), the deficits in the greedy brain have more worrying ramifications.
Firstly, there is the obvious issue: greedy people will take more of our shared resources for themselves. This has been happening for centuries and is now set to peak once again. The consequences of this are far-reaching.
The direct consequences include the lack of resources for others in society. Poverty, health inequality, further decline in educational opportunities, and a much weaker safety net for the vast majority of people seem unavoidable at this stage.
Leading on from this are the ‘indirect’ consequences associated with the vast majority of society witnessing the gross inequity and disparity between normal, working people and the opulent lifestyles of the oligarchs. Be clear that this behaviour of the oligarchs is in direct opposition to the ‘civil agreement’.
Humans have developed a strong sense of justice and fairness. It is inherent to the human brain due to the absolute necessity that within a vast and expansive cooperative (i.e. human civilisation) everyone in it must benefit from being in it. There is a strong push, present from an early age, for those who take too much from the collective resources to be held to account. Mutual cooperation - the pivotal aspect of humanity’s success - is contingent on fairness.
The lack of fairness was a bit more tolerable when the ultra-wealthy were less dominant in society’s direct future. When oligarchs influenced society with soft power, their extreme wealth was seen as some sort of aberration or outlier - it was easier to accept that exploitation of the people was leading to ‘only’ a handful of individuals hoarding masses of wealth. It was almost tolerable. But now oligarchs have moved into positions of direct, hard power over the people, the disparity and lack of fairness their existence imbues is simply too much for ordinary folk to take. They’ve broken the civil agreement. Why then, should we abide by it? This is the indirect consequence of oligarch rule.
Just to be clear, the answer is very straightforward. It is the civil agreement that has lifted so many of us out of pure survival considerations. To reverse this civil agreement based purely on the actions of those who have exploited so much wealth from society that they no longer have a ‘survival imperative’ to maintain the social agreement would be a foolish act of self-harm for the vast majority of us.
The God-Complex
Make no mistakes, greed will remain a dominant motivation in the oligarch regime. They will take full advantage of their access to the collective resources; increasing their wealth and individual power (as they have done already). But the other part of their motivation (perhaps the primary motivation to seek hard power over society) is more concerning.
We all have our world views. In a shared environment we try and permit each other to live out their own worldview, and when it concerns the whole group then typically the consensus view is taken forward. There is both freedom and compromise in a functioning society.
We also each have (most of us, anyway) an inherent drive towards social connections and acceptance in the group. It need not be acceptance by all, but there is a shared human motive for the ‘self’ to be acknowledged by others.
Oligarchs have both of these motives - to live by their worldview and to be accepted. Greed, as discussed, gets in the way of both of those objectives. The worldview becomes skewed towards acquisition. The validation of ‘self’ gets a bit buried beneath the fleeting validation of achieving more money and power. But the desire to have one’s worldview respected and one’s sense of ‘self’ to be appreciated remains. This is, I think, what we are seeing breaking through into the motives of the oligarchs to take over society.
Now, typically we elect people whose worldview is close to our own. These elected leaders are permitted to push that worldview out into society and make the changes that follow. Oligarchs are different. They are not elected. Yet they have the power to inflict their worldview directly on society.
It’s a problem. We neither need know what their worldview is nor agree with it in any real sense. It doesn’t matter. It will be pushed upon us anyway. This is even more problematic when we consider the ‘brain deficits’ they are likely to suffer.
We end up with those who don’t understand the parts of life most of us view as the most important - relationships, values, morals, justice, fairness - pushing their worldview onto all of us. While adept at exploiting markets, these oligarchs have no expertise nor any real experience with the important parts of life, over which they will now govern.
The need for their acceptance is another strong driver that will have ramifications for us all. Many are (in part due to their Dispositional Greed) socially awkward, and (not unlike psychopaths) are instinctively rejected by people who sense their uncivilised malintent. Some rehabilitate themselves, achieve some humility and rekindle their inherent sense of justice and fairness - they typically don’t pursue power over society but look to contribute to it. For those unwilling (or perhaps even unable) to generate any humility, or appreciate their own deficits and the need to change their character, they may well look to change the world to fit them, instead of them fitting into the world.
This would all be fine if they were socially mature and moralistically developed. Sadly, they are neither. As such, we end up with the equivalent of spoiled, moody teenagers with the powers of Charles Xavier of the X-men, controlling a society they simply don’t understand.
The wheels are already in motion. We are now at the whims of underdeveloped, narrow-minded oligarchs who know little about the society they are ruling over. Their moody outbursts and their struggles with getting to grips with the issues most of us deal with in early adulthood are now our problems. Their tantrums not just an annoying inconvenience but capable of substantial destruction.
Knowing what their motivations are is helpful. Turning away from their influence and focusing on your own communities is helpful.
It is also helpful to remain mindful that their greed and need for acceptance will still be dominant motivations for them. Making our opinions known through our own social connections and in how we spend our money may have a greater influence than we can currently imagine.
Either way, have hope. They will fail in their bid to recreate the world in their image. It is an image we will all instinctively reject.
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Notes:
Reactivity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, but not the amygdala, to negative emotion faces predicts greed personality trait | Behavioral and Brain Functions | Full Text
Greed personality trait links to negative psychopathology and underlying neural substrates
5 Personality Traits Linked to a Painful Childhood | Psychology Today United Kingdom
5 Personality Traits Linked to a Painful Childhood
I want more! The role of child, family and maternal characteristics on child dispositional greed and sharing behavior - Tilburg University Research Portal
The Psychology of Greed » Neel Burton author website and bookshop
The Founder: Dispositional Greed, Showbiz, and the Commercial Determinants of Health - PMC
Scarcity or luxury: Which leads to adolescent greed? Evidence from a large-scale Chinese adolescent sample - PubMed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554483/#:~:text=The%20prefrontal%20cortex%20is%20known,and%20other%20complex%20cognitive%20behaviors.
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