Sociopath

“Well there is a huge propaganda effort that we are all aware of to try to turn people into psychopaths who don’t care about anyone but themselves. That’s not new actually. They go back a hundred and fifty years, the early days of industrialization in the United States. Working people were bitterly condemning the industrial system that was being imposed, the way it was taking away their freedom, and one of the things they condemned is what they called the new spirit of the age– ‘Gain wealth forgetting all but self,’[…] That’s a hundred and fifty years ago and ever since then there have been enormous efforts to drive these sociopathic attitudes into people’s heads.”

- Noam Chomksy

Are creative people not victims of this propaganda campaign Chomsky speaks of? Isn't the drive to make art, that thing placed above all over things, merely an expression of how we have succumbed wholeheartedly to the persuasions from our psychopathic overlords to become fervently introspective and inherently selfish?

I often find my patience waning for the political blogs I discover on social media; tiring of their gelatinous ineffectuality, their tedious repetitions. My micro-bipolar disorder instils within me an insistent apathy for their one-sided calls for recognition. It is the political blogger's lack of creativity and sickens me the most, their lack of creative vision as they offload onto their readers their insistent belief in the political landscape. I am a fickle being, I get bored easily. Too often their prevailing uselessness becomes all too apparent to me.

So what am I but another sociopath, caring more about art than I care about the political? Doesn't this simply play into the hands of our psychopathic overlords? Are all creative people not merely stooges for the wealthy elite, who encourage us to hate our fellow fighters before we hate them?

To aspire to be a successful artist is to aspire to be nothing but a successful entertainer, no matter how grandiose the claims of artists might be. Art never affects the political. If it did, the world would be something else by now. Artists merely play into the game of the wealthy by creating more useless crap for the wealthy to invest their money in.

To put art before the political is folly. Who can claim it is more ethical to waste one's time creating useless objets d'art than to use that time being proactive in a political cause? Whether intentional or not, to dedicate one's life to the creation of art is precisely the self-absorbed, sociopathic lifestyle that prevents us from looking outwards to support our fellow oppressees.

And do you expect some kind of profound conclusion to this? Do you expect some epiphany where I realise things are not like that? I can find none.

Often it feels like artistry chose me rather than the other way round. I feel I am forced to be an artist, I do not choose to be one. The lack of creativity I feel in other people compels me away from them. I feel naturally estranged from muggle-folk; they get so baffled by artist-thinking. The art world is the place I am condemned to be placed, and even that will shun me in the end.

In many ways, political bloggers are lucky. They are lucky that their passions, their interests and even their livelihoods are consumed by the political. Their sociopathic, self-asserting aims are concealed behind a veneer of political righteousness. They are allowed to be selfish because their selfishness makes them politically engaged. I am not so lucky. It is creativity I uphold far above politics. First and foremost, I am an artist. I will not deny myself into forfeiting my goals, however tedious they may be.

But the obvious should here be noted; that one's passions are not exclusive to the political. One can be political and be creative. It is possible to do both; and I do do both, just, for me, creativity takes precedence, and coming upon a choice over which one to dedicate my time to, I choose art, and I always will, no matter how fruitless that journey may be. And if that makes me ensnared in the raptures of sociopathy, so much the better.