Just the other day I was at my local cafe and could not help overhearing a conversation between a small group of hedge fund managers at a neighboring table. One of the young Turks was addressing his fellows, complaining about how the media painted them as the enemy. Another chimed in with a remark about how they did not make the rules, nor did they break them, they merely worked them to their own advantage. A third then pointed out that no competition is perfectly fair, there will always be winners and losers, so why whine about it? With that, the first speaker proposed a toast to finding a chair when the music stops.
Bravo to the players! They are the masters of the universe, the winners in the big game. They are the magicians who create the scams, draw in the suckers, and then take them for all they are worth.
These are people who live in a world divided between black and white - between winners and losers. Grey is of no interest to them, and each is unashamedly out for himself. Despite this, they have about them an undeniable sense of group identity. They all dress in a similar style, wear their hair the same way, and conform to the rules of a world in which everything must be 'just so'.
These observations lead us to consider how the linear mindset, tribal identities and narcissism common to these Players relate to each other. The fact is that each supports the other, so that linear thinking encourages narcissism by reducing everything to a monochromatic world of winners and losers, while encouraging a trend of every man for himself and no quarter. By existing in tribes we see the philosophy of narcissism applied to a collective identity with its own self-serving interests at heart. Moreover, the tribe, though a collective unit, is composed of individual members each out for him or herself and each committed to following his or her own agenda. These individuals see each other either as potential targets to be manipulated, or competitors to be removed.
These three elements work together to generate our current worldview. The relative strength in the mix of each one of the three may vary from culture to culture, but the overall effect is always the same.
Thus everyone who begins as part of a tribe has the option to choose conformity or exclusion. It is fear of exclusion which keeps the tribal community together. And example may be seen whenever one member of the tribe commits a morally dubious act to further the collective interest. In order for it to succeed, the group must put on a united front so that they are all complicit. Should any member refuse to accept complicity they become outcasts, and thus a threat to the group.
It might be helpful to visualise this process as similar to the one which led to the assassination of Julius Caesar. History tells us that all the conspirators - including Brutus - had to strike blows in order that all were equally implicated in the act. This same way of doing business holds together all large organisations - from political parties to international corporations to the mafia.
The more a member comes to know about the inner workings of a tribe, the less choice he has between exile and complicity. As an insider he knows too much to be let go - he understands the myth upon which the community operates. If an insider were to share his knowledge with those on the outside, the entire operation of the tribe might be jeopardised. Since everyone in the group is a narcissist - out for himself and determined to protect his own interests - any attempt to betray the collective aims will be seen as a threat and dealt with accordingly. Thus any insider seen to betray the tribe faces himself being undermined and destroyed - a fate which awaits a Wall Street stockbroker who acts as whistle-blower as surely as it awaits a senior mafia honcho.
What if these puppeteers sitting around the table, so pleased with their stature in this world, were no less puppets than those they deceive; perhaps even more so because they are forever the prisoners of their own delusions of grandeur. They are like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, bit players in a bigger drama, suffering from the delusions that they themselves are the antagonists. The rest of us just might wake up from the grand illusion we all share, but they never will!
More Information:
John Berling Hardy, tired of watching people being entrapped has committed himself with providing people the tools with which they can set their own course in life. For more of his writings please visit
www.playingtheplayers.com
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