Viewpoints
Machiavellian syndrome
By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.
“Scheming.” “Designing.” “Cunning.” “Devious.” “Treacherous.” These are some of the word-equivalents of the insatiable and wherefore detestable greed for power as verified in the so called “Machiavellian Syndrome”. Voracious and rapacious of might and influence, ravenous and implacable in the tenure of authority and prestige – such description very well for someone with dictatorial personality traits, with self-serving authoritarian tendency. Everybody is dispensable. Everything is disposable. The continuous tenure of power and might is the be all and end all of all agenda – primary design, pursuant plan and concrete programs – which are over and above anybody and anything else.
Dictator, tyrants and despots are all in possession of the Syndrome, They think the world turns around them. They see themselves as indispensable in the life of a people, in the history of a Country. Worst of all, while actually in the state of delusion, they feel consumed of love for and service to others – although feeding on their lives, demolishing their dignity and violating their rights. Thus it is that they think they are special creations of divinity, having a special claim to divine intervention and wherefore exacting special subservience of everybody else – under penalty of extrajudicial killing, forced disappearance and other atrocities.
The Syndrome brings to fore essentially the common pitiful realities, viz., one and the same sick psychopathological constitution having inherently the same sickening composite socio-political situation as follow: Strong popular resentment plus pervasive fervent dissent on account of people’s exploitation and victimization. The Syndrome becomes even more pronounced the more weak, fearful and poor people there are to subjugate and trample upon. History is the witness that these marginalized people feed the Syndrome as gasoline so well and so much feeds the fire.
Machiavellian characters deliberately and decidedly forget certain objective realities precisely because these are true and disconcerting: That everything temporal has an eventual end. That all human reigns have their ultimate conclusions. That even Machiavelli was overtaken by death, was buried and underwent unstoppable decay. All his pretenders thus infallibly have the exactly same fate, the specifically same destiny. They not only fade away but become the subject exemplars for profound rebuke, emerged as symbols of popular disgust.
The Filipinos are certainly neither ignorant of nor numb to certain personalities in their history who rose to power through deception, who kept power through corruption, and who wanted to continue wielding power through manipulation. But as certain as the sun goes down and the night thereafter reigns, Pinoys are very aware and knowledgeable that the past had, the present has and the future will have the same verdict for Machiavelli reincarnations in their dear Country: Away with them! Away they ultimately are! And away they remain.
Graft and corruption. Money power. Electoral manipulation. Dysfunctional justice system. Cha-Cha. Bomb scare. Gun rule. August moon. All these and other atrocities sound very familiar!
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