Against the backdrop of an escalating and growing series of wars and disasters in recent years, the simple question regularly arises from various people: 'Why all this, why can't we live peacefully and calmly?' The answer stems from social and psychological laws. Wars and conflicts are an integral, necessary, inherent part of human existence, no matter how much we wish otherwise. This is true at the level of humanity, countries, organizations, collectives, down to small groups. The struggle for survival, wars are mechanisms of self-regulation, natural selection, and purification from the poisoning of the social sphere by the results and products of negative selection.
In a calm, easily predictable, and stagnant environment, the most cunning and unscrupulous rise to the top of the social pyramid, directing all their strength and energy towards conflict, intrigue, solving personal issues while ignoring functional and official duties, offloading them onto subordinates. They understand perfectly that they can shift responsibility for their mistakes and problems onto others, just as they can appropriate others' achievements.
The more pronounced the 'dark tetrad' of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism) in such individuals, the easier it is for them to make a career in a calm society. They believe that everyone around them is herbivorous, while they are the true predators, living by the logic of opportunists – they come to a position/stream, take everything they can, move on, leaving the 'herbivores' to set things in order and grow a new harvest until the next collection. Such behavior seems to them a natural law of nature, as predators must eat meat to live without moral torment.
In nature, predators hunt for survival and do not kill more than the minimum necessary, which cannot be said about humans. Those with the 'dark tetrad' kill for pleasure. In reality, they are not noble but rather mad and sick predators, not the sanitizers of the forest, but the murderers of the environment. Their actions are social parasitism, akin to a cuckoo that has found its way into a foreign nest.
In a calm and natural human environment, it is precisely such individuals who rise to the top over time, given equal intellectual qualities; they have no moral self-restraints, deceiving, betraying, setting up, and adapting to others. Natural negative selection as described by Pitirim Sorokin in all its glory. As the share of such individuals increases at the top of the social hierarchy, culture changes, and the overall effectiveness of society sharply declines; it ceases to be competitive, losing previously acquired positions, preferences, and status.
When the degradation, degeneration, and weakness of the environment exceed reasonable limits, opponents living in worse conditions raise their heads and strike. Difficult times and trials begin, in which society can perish, yielding place and position (such is the natural cycle), or it can undergo purification, preserving its positions. During such a period, a large part of the parasitic carriers of the 'dark tetrad' finds themselves in a situation where personal adherence to social-hierarchical rules and demonstration of courtier skills is not required of them, but rather the performance of direct, nominal duties that are foreign and unfamiliar to them.
In such a situation, it is very easy and quick to become the scapegoat, who will be blamed for mistakes and failures. Tough times demand swift and ruthless decisions, ignoring past merits. Carriers of the 'dark tetrad' transition into a situation where everyone is for themselves, and if they unite, they not only perish themselves but also destroy the entire environment, as they are the first to sacrifice the last effective individuals who could theoretically save everyone.
(to be continued)
