We should not fear the tyrants; the tyrants should fear us
In our society, we don’t push psychopaths off the ice. We let them rule the world.
If 1,000 people lived on an island and one of them started making life difficult for everyone else, soon only 999 people would be living together, and that one would be completely isolated from the group.
How strange, then, that a few satanic oligarchs and empire managers are allowed to boss around an entire planet full of people and do their evil deeds as they please.
I mean, right now we’re all sitting here hoping that a few sociopaths in Washington and Tel Aviv don’t plunge the global economy into the abyss with their reckless warmongering against Iran. There are so many of us and so few of them, and yet we’re all sitting here thinking, “Dear God, I really hope I can still afford food for the next few months; I hope those who rule us behave sensibly and normally for a while so my family can have something to eat.”
They are not deities ruling all-powerfully over our fate from above. They are ordinary people with ordinary bodies of flesh and blood, walking on the same Earth as us. They have soft skin and internal organs. Their heads are attached to their necks since they are able to breathe.
And yet they are allowed to terrorize the people with whom they share this planet.
This reminds me of a quote from Scientific American about an Inuit tribe’s view on the problem of psychopathy:
“In a 1976 study, anthropologist Jane M. Murphy, then at Harvard University, found that an isolated group of Yupik-speaking Inuit near the Bering Strait used a term (kunlangeta) to describe ‘a man who……. repeatedly lies, cheats, and steals, and……. sexually exploits many women – someone who doesn’t listen to reprimands and is repeatedly brought before the elders to be punished.’ When Murphy asked an Inuit what the group would normally do with a ‘kunlangeta,’ he replied, ‘Someone would have pushed him off the ice’.”
In our society, we don’t push psychopaths off the ice. In our society, we let them rule the world.
We have created systems that favour those willing to do anything to reach the top and protect them once they arrive. The richest are those who have destroyed their rivals and most ruthlessly exploited the working class. Those elected to office are those willing to protect the interests of the rich and powerful, no matter how underhanded they may have to be. Those promoted to leadership positions in the army and intelligence services are those who have demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the bloodthirsty empire they serve.
These systems protect people from the natural consequences of their actions. If you have a lot of money, your survival doesn’t depend on getting along with other members of the community; you can simply buy all the services you need and treat the people who provide those services like dirt, as long as you pay them enough. If you are elected to office, your survival doesn’t depend on representing the interests of the electorate; you can be as terrible as you like and rely on the security services to protect you.
This is a perversion of the natural order. The rich and powerful should not be allowed to do whatever they want to us and get away with it. They are massively outnumbered. Everything they have, they only have thanks to us.
Their wealth depends on workers and consumers. Their power depends on our collective agreement to treat invented rules about government and law as reality. Their very existence depends on our collective agreement not to turn against them en masse.
We can bring about revolutionary transformations whenever we want. We already have the necessary majority. All we need is the will to do it.
Author: Caitlin Johnstone
yogaesoteric
April 28, 2026