Not really, there a tendency, but framing it like that sounds idealist. It’s not about who or how people are in themselves that makes them popular and powerful. It’s how useful they are to the ruling class. Being a manipulative sociopath certainly helps in not caring about other human beings, but if they help to justify the oppressive system in power, it doesn’t matter whether they are intelligent or not. They can also honestly believe to do the right thing, while doing terrible things, if they don’t understand the economic system they find themselves in and it’s contradictions.
Take Robert Owen, during his time, he was the most popular person in the British empire. He wasn’t manipulative, evil or sociopathic. He was just wrong. As an utopian socialist, he lacked the proper understanding about how capitalism functioned. By chance he became a very rich capitalist, exploiting many people. Out of goodwill, he became the first philanthropist. His workers lived way better lives than usual, but they were still exploited. His message that capitalism could be profitable and humane made him extremely popular, because it served the ruling classes.
Then he came to understand his error. His workers, even though they worked “only” ten hours a day instead of the usual twelve, were still completely depended on him. In his words, they were still his “slaves”. He detested that and took action. He tried to convince everyone, that the whole system had to change radically. He was immediately shunned and hated by the establishment. Excluded from business he still tried to do everything he could think of to help the poor. He died poor himself.
But being useful to hegemonic oppressors is not the only way. There’s another way for us to gain power, but collective power instead of individual one: through solidarity, class struggle and revolution.
Would you say it’s a common trend through history for sociopathic manipulators to be popular/respected
No… some of them are, and the combination of sociopathy and popularity can have devastating consequences that create a selection bias when we think of historical examples. But I don’t think that’s the typical outcome for a normal sociopath—most of them are recognized for what they are before they earn any significant respect.
honest intelligent people are shunned and ostracized?
Again, no: when we think of cases of people being shunned and ostracized, we think of cases where those actions had major consequences. But those are the exceptions that prove the rule: when capable people are heeded, or incompetent people are ignored, it’s expected and doesn’t attract our notice.
That’s not to say that there aren’t certain circumstances where the expected outcomes fail and the exceptions become more common. But the “common trend through history” is the invisible background that makes those exceptional circumstances stand out.
Would you say that the trope of politicians being lying manipulators isn’t very accurate?
Our version of politics is just a popularity contest rather doing what’s beneficial for the future. Would you think that most politicians, at least the faces for each party, tend to lie or tend to tell the truth? I’m not the most read up on politics but I can’t really think of many examples of politicians that I would consider truthful, yet they are chosen for positions that are elected by people.
Well, sociopathic manipulators manipulate people into liking them, including lying and flattery.
Honest intelligent people value truth and accuracy over popularity, so they’re much more likely to tell people things they don’t want to hear.
how much? everything always happens. what are your proportions here? and for how long? short-term, long-term? what is it you’d like to ask?
for one, by definition manipulation is to achieve an outcome with dishonesty, usually one relatively better than without in the short term. so if that’s what you mean …
I’m asking if you think manipulators are typically popular whilst truth sayers are not, whether it’s the other way around or perhaps there is no correlation at all between those personalities and their perceived likability
