# Is 48 Laws of power written by a psychopath? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676 "2012-11-21T02:36:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/21 "2012-11-21T16:52:21Z")
> [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yep. It’s crazy-people talk. The underlying premise is that \*everyone \*else is your enemy. It basically boils down to “Law of the Jungle: Kill or Be Killed”. I’m sure there are plenty of people who actually take this approach at work and thereby acquire a great deal of power. And those people are sociopaths. Powerful sociopaths. It is much that way in some enviroments. And those that succeed in those environments do need some sociopathic tendencies. It might be useful to have another 48 Laws that counter-balance those on the basis of cooperation and sincerity. ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/22 "2012-11-21T16:56:14Z")
"Law 11 Learn to Keep People Dependent on You To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you." This one in particular and people who adher to it annoy the fuck out of me. What’s the point of life unless you can share info and improve things. You’ll see their beady eyes light up when you give them a contact number instead of playing the “I’ll see what I can do and get back to you” game. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/23 "2012-11-21T17:00:05Z")
a more appropriate title to that document would be “How to be a sociopathic douchebag.” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/24 "2012-11-21T17:17:53Z")
> [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > Once again, [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power) has the answer: > > “_The 48 Laws of Power_ is taught in business management classes and is one of the most requested books in American prison libraries.” Yeah? Which management class? I didn’t recall learning about this in business school or any management training courses I’ve been to. I would ask anyone who swears by these rules or Machiavelli or Sun Tzu or that guy who wrote ‘Sun Tzu Was a Sissy’ whoever the master manipulator du jour is: how successful are you? Are your master manipulations getting you constant raises and promotions? Are you in command of hundreds of employees? Are you raking in hundres of thousands a year? Or, are you working in some bullshit job dominated by petty politics, squabaling over “rewards” that most people wouldn’t give a shit over? Let me also ask this. Have you ever worked for someone who inspired you? Someone you were willing to go the extra mile for? Or heck, someone you just didn’t totally hate working for? Did they possess the traits in this list? Although, in all fairness, a lot of these rules do make sense and are just good social politics. But some are just weird. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/25 "2012-11-21T17:22:54Z")
Man am I naive. Never heard of that until now. Now I picture a corporate world where everyone has read the book, and knows that everyone else has read it too. Takes game playing to a meta-level of dysfunction. I’m depressed. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/26 "2012-11-21T17:42:30Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you." I would love to see what people in IT departments would do to these authors if they could meet them. I strongly suspect anyone who knows more about the care and feeding of computer systems than 95% of their coworkers must frequently wish that all such coworkers would get eaten by a giant volcano-beast. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/27 "2012-11-21T17:57:15Z")
> [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](#): > > Once again, [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power) has the answer: > > “_The 48 Laws of Power_ is taught in business management classes and is one of the most requested books in American prison libraries.” I notice from that Wikipedia article that the book is particularly popular with rappers. For whatever that’s worth. I also note that the book is described as “a practical guide for anyone who wants power, observes power, or **wants to arm himself against power** ” (bolding mine). I’m sympathetic to the point of view of the OP’s girlfriend, and I tend to follow her approach (“she worked hard, her quality of work was good, didn’t play games, people trusted her”). I’m not all that interested in power, and I don’t like playing mind games. But I think it’s worthwhile for her, and for me, to be aware of such “laws,” to understand how some other people approach things, and to understand why/whether such approaches work. Just because you understand the Machiavellian mindset doesn’t mean you have to pursue it yourself (or assume that everyone else does). We can be [as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010:16&version=KJV). ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/28 "2012-11-21T18:19:32Z")
> [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yep. It’s crazy-people talk. The underlying premise is that \*everyone \*else is your enemy. It basically boils down to “Law of the Jungle: Kill or Be Killed”. I’m sure there are plenty of people who actually take this approach at work and thereby acquire a great deal of power. And those people are sociopaths. Powerful sociopaths. Agreed. It’s kind of fun to run up against this kind of person and see the look in their eyes when they try to figure you out. “How can this person be manipulated?” And when they realize you can’t, they move on. I wave bye-bye, and good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/29 "2012-11-21T18:44:47Z")
I have never run into this list before, but it perfectly describes a boss I had a couple of years ago. He was, without a doubt, the worst person I have ever met. Malicious to the core. To this day, I hate him worse than I have ever hated anyone else in my life. He was successful in that he had high-level jobs (which he had to change every year to stay one step ahead of the pitchforks). He was a miserable failure as a human being. Fuck that guy. > [@sociopath](#): > > You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead. Yeah, there’s a great rule for civilized people. Somebody is struggling or suffering? Get away! I didn’t run into this in business school. I would like to believe that business schools don’t encourage this kind of amorality, but of course they do. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/30 "2012-11-21T18:58:27Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Yeah, there’s a great rule for civilized people. Somebody is struggling or suffering? Get away! Actually that’s one I can get behind. I’m all for helping someone who is suffering, but some people are just toxic. They bring misery on themselves and everyone around them, and are emotional vampires. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/31 "2012-11-21T19:14:10Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > \ > Although, in all fairness, a lot of these rules do make sense and are just good social politics. But some are just weird. That’s my take on it, too - there is some good advice there, but if the advice makes you feel like a manipulative sociopath, don’t take it. But do be aware that there are other people out there who are using that advice against _you_. ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/32 "2012-11-21T19:19:07Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Actually that’s one I can get behind. I’m all for helping someone who is suffering, but some people are just toxic. They bring misery on themselves and everyone around them, and are emotional vampires. Agreed, there are some kinds of misery to stay away from. It seems like about half of the rules would be good advice if they were stated a little more moderately. #9 (lead by example, not by words) is good as it stands, and #13 (appeal to other’s self interest, not kindness) is true if you’re trying to get things done in a business setting. #17 (be unpredictable to keep people scared of you), though, is a classic abuse mechanism and an instant GTFO sign for me. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/33 "2012-11-21T19:21:50Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead. > > Yeah, there’s a great rule for civilized people. Somebody is struggling or suffering? Get away! > > I didn’t run into this in business school. I would like to believe that business schools don’t encourage this kind of amorality, but of course they do. I don’t read it like that. I read this as not getting caught up in other people’s negativity. Not joining in on workplace bitching and gripe sessions. Especially with people junior to you. It’s not productive and can only undermine your own career. Helping a struggling coworker is ok (plus now they owe you!). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/34 "2012-11-21T19:30:07Z")
> [@FlyByNight512](#): > > Agreed, there are some kinds of misery to stay away from. It seems like about half of the rules would be good advice if they were stated a little more moderately. #9 (lead by example, not by words) is good as it stands, and #13 (appeal to other’s self interest, not kindness) is true if you’re trying to get things done in a business setting. #17 (be unpredictable to keep people scared of you), though, is a classic abuse mechanism and an instant GTFO sign for me. Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor sounds stupid but it actually works. You look like a mook just sitting in your desk all day. But if you are always our on “meetings” or “client visits” you seem a lot more important. But really a lot of these rules sound like clumsy attempts to appear more “leaderlike”. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/35 "2012-11-21T19:31:29Z")
> **[The Art of Seduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Seduction)** > > The Art of Seduction (2001) is the second book by American author Robert Greene. The book examines social power through the lens of seduction and was an international bestseller. > The book profiles nine types of seducers (with an additional profile for an "anti-seducer") and eighteen types of victims. Greene uses examples from historical figures such as Cleopatra, Giacomo Casanova, Duke Ellington and John F. Kennedy to support the psychology behind seduction. The book contains 24 seduction techni... He also wrote, “The Art of Seduction.” I read that too. Very similar. I can be an impressionable fool, sometimes. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/36 "2012-11-21T19:47:11Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Actually that’s one I can get behind. **I’m all for helping someone who is suffering, but some people are just toxic**. They bring misery on themselves and everyone around them, and are emotional vampires. (my bold) I agree with the bolded part. And I agree with the others who said you shouldn’t associate with those who habitually bitch, gripe, and gossip. But maybe because I find most of the other 47 Rules so objectionable, I read this one as, “Don’t ever help anyone.” Without reading the rest of the book, I don’t know the full context. But in summary form, it sounded to me like a blanket statement that you should stay far away from anyone who needs help. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/37 "2012-11-23T19:14:51Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m not all that interested in power, and I don’t like playing mind games. But I think it’s worthwhile for her, and for me, to be aware of such “laws,” to understand how some other people approach things, and to understand why/whether such approaches work. Just because you understand the Machiavellian mindset doesn’t mean you have to pursue it yourself (or assume that everyone else does). We can be [as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010:16&version=KJV). Only if one can answer back to such bald declarations of the reality of power as Macchiavelli and the _48 Rules._ Just one verse of scripture is not enough - they’re treacherous enough, and insistent enough, and _accepted_ enough, that they demand a point-by-point refutation. Has anyone got one? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/38 "2012-11-23T19:29:06Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor sounds stupid but it actually works. You look like a mook just sitting in your desk all day. But if you are always our on “meetings” or “client visits” you seem a lot more important. > But really a lot of these rules sound like clumsy attempts to appear more “leaderlike”. You make me sad. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/39 "2012-11-23T20:33:55Z")
Is it going to shatter anyone’s dearly held illusions if I point out that this book was written by an author whose only notable accomplishment was writing this book and getting it promoted by the self-proclaimed “gangsta” rapper community. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676/40 "2012-11-23T20:47:19Z")
It takes a bunch of rules of thumb that have appeared in a variety of materials for thousands of years and packaged them with a distinctive - for better or worse - style. What’s the big deal? Is this guy any more of a psychopath than Sun Tzu or Machiavelli? A bit sillier, perhaps. Is this stuff applicable to the vast majority of us in a big percentage of our lives? Of course not. Have the bulk of us witnessed situations where specific individuals appear to be going through stuff where these rules might apply? Sure; daily - look at all the powerplays: political, economic, business, the arts - you name it. Is it kinda silly to think about trying to live this stuff daily, either in your life or some rapper? A bit. But every now and then can you find yourself in a situation where the power of players is part of how you should approach it? Sure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-48-laws-of-power-written-by-a-psychopath/641676.md?page=3)