Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths
Description
Conquest is murder & theft
Conquerors are vicious criminals
Vicious criminals become kings
Kings designed civilization
...and we are the products of civilization.
Right wing movements are rising around the globe, but our attention is misdirected. The problem is not the authoritarian leader, but the blinkered supporters who unthinkingly follow him. Without them, the despot is irrelevant.
Why do we attach ourselves to dictators & demagogues? Why do we defend even their most obvious hypocrisies & lies?
The answer lies in the roots of civilization. Despite our romantic traditions, monarchs were never wise, just, nor generous. History shows that, without exception, kings were the most vicious psychopaths, narcissists, & sadists who ever lived.
And the only path for survival required blindly believing & obeying anything the king said.
. . .
Winner World History: Independent Press Award
Winner Current Events: Indie Book Awards
Winner World History: NYC Big Book
Gold Medal Non Fiction Author Awards
Short List Grand Prize: Eric Hoffer Awards
1st Runner-Up Legacy Nonfiction: Eric Hoffer Awards
Bronze Medal Historical Nonfiction: Readers' Favorite
...and 7 others
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Content
Prologue: Fantasy and Horror
War is not gallant heroism, it is horror: it is the sadistic dismembering of soldiers and civilians.
Chapter I: Kings
Kings were gangsters running national protection rackets: they extorted money from their subjects, monopolized high-profit resources, and dealt brutally with any resistance.
Chapter II: Conquerors
Conquerors are serial killers who prey upon nations. They commit murder, theft, and enslavement against millions for fabulous wealth.
Chapter III: Psychopaths
Conquerors meet the diagnostic criteria for the 'dark tetrad': criminal psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism. Kings and conquerors do not need to personally meet the psychiatric criteria for these disorders, because successful conquest
and monarchy always do.
Interlude: Genetics, Eugenics, Genocide
Human genetic behavior is ruts, not rails. It is a mistake to categorize people by their genetic characteristics, but ignoring our genetic influences leaves us more vulnerable to them.
Chapter IV: The Breeding Programme
Through rape and polygamy, on one side of our family tree we are all descended from the conqueror and his armies; on the other side, we are descended from their victims. Through both we are selected to ignore doubt and independent thought, on risk of torture and death. Survival under king and conqueror required that we we blindly believe anything the nobles said, however illogical or outrageous.
Chapter V: The Noble Classes
Those atop the noble hierarchy were 'important' people while the rest of us were unimportant and expendable. The king designed civilization as a rigid caste system of subjugation, subordination, and exclusion. Despite the expansion of egalitarian ideals in recent centuries, we struggle against authoritarian factions, working to pull us back toward hierarchy and oppression.
Chapter VI: Privilege & The Double Standard
'Privilege' means 'private law', a legal double standard: the king and nobility demand a middle class morality of the commoners, while they pursue a criminal anti-morality of exploitation and evil.
Chapter VII: The Authoritarian Personality
Millennia of cultural and genetic selection under king and conqueror leave us vulnerable to blind loyalty, and many of us still believe any lie or hypocrisy the despot presents. This explains political and religious fanaticism, and the cult of personality.
Chapter VIII: The Atrocino
King and conqueror have morphed into modern business and political leaders, who continue to exploit us and expend our lives for power, wealth, and narcissism.
Chapter IX: The Modern World
For 10,0000 years under the king, progress was slow and serendipitous. As the oppression of the noble classes was gradually eliminated, diffuse prosperity and independent thought grew rapidly. That liberation created an expansion of intellectual and economic participation, giving us the modern world.
Chapter X: The Ugly Truth
Without the slaughter, torture, and terror of the conqueror, we would still be neolithic hunter-gatherers. That was the horrific cost of civilization.
Epilogue: Response
Equality and democratic participation are the only antidotes to the narcissists who struggle for monarchy and monopoly today. If progress is to continue, it is essential that we have an educated and engaged electorate. Without it, we will revert to the brutality of the past.
