.::.Easy Mind Reading.::.

I remember overhearing a conversation one day between a number of hedge-fund mangers sat together around a table in a local caf. One of them was addressing the others, and as I listened I heard him talk about how they were not to blame for the economic collapse. He blamed everyone else - the system, the law, the regulator - but absolved himself and his fellows of all blame. He argued that he had taken risks to make his money, and that there would always be winners and losers in life, and he wasn't about to apologies for being a winner. As he spoke, I could see the others agreeing with him heartily, and at the end they all toasted to preserving the status quo and continuing to be winners no matter what it might take.

And are these, then, the Players who claim victory in the great Game? Is it they who ultimately control our society in such a way as to fuel their personal profits and successes?

These are people who live in a world divided between black and white - between winners and losers. Grey is of no interest to them, and each is unashamedly out for himself. Despite this, they have about them an undeniable sense of group identity. They all dress in a similar style, wear their hair the same way, and conform to the rules of a world in which everything must be 'just so'.

What these hedge-fund managers represent is the combination of a linear mindset with a mob mentality and a narcissistic temperament. All three characteristics, taken in tandem, serve to reinforce each other. Thus linear thinking, which encourages a visualising of the world in terms of its constituent elements, rather than as a whole, prepares the way for narcissism. The less beholden we feel to a community, the easier it is to see things in terms merely of personal outlook and personal reward. In living our lives like this we come to assume that everyone else is only out for themselves too, a mindset which encourages us to react against them before they have chance to react against us. By adding in the tribal dimension - the mob mentality - we tend to act on the collective level, standing up for our own against anyone and everyone else. This causes escalation. On top of this, the tribes in question are made up of narcissists conditioned to stand up for their own interests, so tensions will be high and perpetually so. Individuals within the tribes will attempt either to manipulate one another for personal gain or to undermine one another for fear of competition.

These three elements work together to generate our current worldview. The relative strength in the mix of each one of the three may vary from culture to culture, but the overall effect is always the same.

Members of a tribe are forced either to conform or to face exclusion. Fear of being banished from the collective unit breeds subservience, if not respect. As a result, if an individual within the tribe commits a morally dubious act the entire group must become culpable to distribute the threat to that one member among them. If anyone refuses to be complicit, they may act as witnesses, and so become an unacceptable threat to the other members who are all equally culpable.

This phenomenon found its expression famously in the conspiracy to murder Julius Caesar. When Caesar fell, his body bore wounds from the knives of each of the conspirators, meaning that all were responsible, and none could turn against the others. This principle has been applied throughout history, and is true of the political arena as of the gladiatorial, as true in the business world as in the schoolyard.

Once the tribe member has been allowed in to the inner sanctum of the tribe, the choice between complicity and exile is illusory. The insider, by definition, knows too much. They have seen the backstage machinations, which underpin the myth. Should they share what they know with those on the outside they could threaten the entire status quo. Given that the group is a collection of narcissists, for whom all others are merely means to their own personal ends, should someone become a threat they would not find it difficult to justify doing what ever it took to protect their security. Consequently, an insider who breaks rank and attempts to get out faces the spectre of almost certain annihilation. This principle applies to a Wall Street investment banker no less than to a mafia king pin.

It is even possible to argue that these same Players who are on the inside - who devote themselves to manipulating others for their own ends - are themselves being played in the cyclical drama of myth and counter-myth being played out in our society. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern they consider themselves key players in a drama to which they are in fact ancillary - forever destined to be kept in the dark as to what's really going on. Even if the rest of us were to escape the illusory reality of The Game, the chances are they never will!