3 Types of Dangerous People | Dark Triad Personality

A common belief, mutual understanding, common interests. These are the things that bind us together in society. Even after being complete strangers to each other, we transact with one another without hesitation. We transact with money, things, etc. We believe that the other party will not cheat. And most of the time we don't. It's not always that people do not want to cheat. But to live in a society or a big community of people means that you have to have control over your selfish tendencies. Be it a human society or even an animal herd of any scale, there are rules that the individuals of the society obey. You can't just have it all for yourself. It is also called Dharma in Hinduism - The balance between your free will and your social responsibility. You also need to consider people who are around you. You cannot fulfill your desires by misusing or abusing other people. That's not ethical. You have to control your biological urges. You have to civilize your behavior in front of other people. We all believe that everyone here is a unique individual, and with it, there are individual human rights too. No one will hurt you, and nor you can. And people who violate this also get penalized. This is how we go through the day in a large, big community of people. We mutually adjust. We keep our wild, primitive tendencies in check. 

We also learn these codes of conduct while growing up, but still, we all are selfish to some degree. We all are more or less selfish with one or the other aspect of our life. But there are some people whose personality is encompassed of selfishness. In fact, they are the embodiment of selfishness and anti-sociality. And in this video, we will talk about these people. They are experts in manipulating and exploiting people. They don't care about your feelings, nor they ever get emotional themselves. They are selfish because they only acknowledge their own existence. They don't even consider others as individuals. They don't have any ethical boundaries. They throw humility out of the window. They have no remorse, and also they are emotionally shallow. In fact, guilt and remorse do not even exist in their vocabulary. And with these, if there are violent tendencies, then it's even worse. They are the real threat to social structure and social hierarchy. Today we will talk about three such characters who reflect such abnormal dark personalities. 

 

Lou Bloom - Nightcrawler 

Out of all the looks of Jack Glynhall I have seen in his movies, his most sinister and creepy look seems to be in the movie Night Crawler. There are two major aspects of this film. The first is Night crawling - to film violent scenes all night, be it a murder or accident -any kind that spills blood. To film such events and sell them to news agencies in exchange for money. This job description itself seems so creepy. The second important aspect of this film is Louis Bloom or Lou Bloom - the main character who is doing this job. Lou is a complicated character. Because the moment you see him, and more importantly, when you hear him talk to someone, you can feel that he is different. Lou talks to everyone with a dominating attitude, and he doesn't do so by raising his voice but with his body language. The way he speaks and what he speaks is very peculiar. He is very persuasive and really smart. He is a fast learner, self-taught, and also a workaholic. The way he is driven for his work is admirable. But eventually, you feel that there is something to this creature that is very unusual. He is surrounded by sinister isolation. He is very alienated from the world around him. He lives a one-dimensional life where the only thing that matters to him is himself and his self-interest, and everything else can be ignored. He can steal for his survival, if caught, he will lie and argue, and if push comes to shove, he can even be violent. You cannot embarrass him. He doesn't care about compromising moral values. He has no regard for human nature. For him, people are products. Something that can be manipulated for self-gain. 

Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler

This is often termed as a Machiavellian trait. It comes from the name of the 16th Century Italian diplomat and politician Machiavelli who is famous for his book "The prince". Machiavelli believed that you can't be nice and effective at the same time. Deceit, cheat, immoral acts even such as murder in certain contexts are justified. Later on, this whole idea came to be called Machiavellian characteristics. People with Machiavellian traits tend to treat other people as tools they can exploit for their own good. And it was a very dominant trait in Lou Bloom. And this is the reason why he progresses in his job so quickly.  Of course, he is hard-working, intelligent, fast-learner, and ambitious but the most important of all is that he also has no regard for human nature and feelings. He is a very mean and selfish person. You will die fluttering, and he won't care. As I said, for him, people are just things that he can manipulate and exploit for his own benefit. 

Niccolò Machiavelli

Amy Dunne - Gone Girl 

Understanding behavior is fun but its also hard. It's even harder to understand human social behavior and the hardest of all is to understand abnormal human behavior - the messed up people. And the character which we are going to talk about is not only abnormal, but she is also dangerous. Narcissists are less trouble and more of a headache. Such people have a very high level of self-importance. They have a very high sense of grandiosity and superiority. Narcissists regard themselves as more important than the people around them. They don't like to be ignored. They feel that they make the most sacrifices, that they matter the most among their friends, colleagues, and even in relationships.

Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne

 

Nobody likes to be ignored. Social rejections hurt everybody. We feel bad when we are ignored, especially where we don't want to be ignored. But Amy doesn't only feel bad, but she also reacts with aggression. She is very vengeful Even for petty things. And to the extent, she goes to take revenge on her husband and the way she plans it, it's absolutely ridiculous. A normal person cannot devote himself to such a cause. But for Amy, her self-image matters a lot to her. And if you insult the idea of who she is, there will be a consequence. I think its safe to say that she is also a calculated psychopath. We view human personality as a concrete construct. But in reality, personality is like a color wheel; more like a fluid. Where a certain trait ends and another starts, it's not easy to say. It's complicated. But for the ease of understanding, we divide it into categories as we do with all complicated things. Similarly, We have divided many aspects of our life into thousands of categories. Pass and Fail categories, Right and wrong categories, music, subjects, work-related categories. Categories make it easier for us to deal with information and facts. It keeps things sorted and easier to see and understand. But in the real world, things are very ambiguous and blended. And sometimes categorical perception stops us from seeing the big picture. Sometimes we perceive two very similar things as different because we see them in two different categories. For example - if 40 is the pass marks and one person got 39 marks and another person got 40, then academically there is just 1 mark gap between them. Hardly any difference in terms of performance. But if we see it categorically in terms of pass and fail, then both are very far apart. In fact, they are opposite to each other. One is pass while the other is fail. In the same way, sometimes we see two very different things similar because we keep them in the same category. 50 and 65 marks. There is a reasonable gap between these but for us, both are average marks. We perceive reality differently when it is categorized. Likewise, we have also categorized personalities into introverts, extroverts, narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, etc. And though it makes it easier for us to see and understand, but it also eradicates the ambiguity in our perception. It makes our vision binary. We start to view things as concrete structures. We think that something cannot be more than one thing. If someone is good then he isn't bad. If someone is bad then he can't be good. But the truth is that our personality is, more or less, a mix of many traits. Behaviour is very ambiguous and also contextual. Introverts also have a bit of extroversion in them. Extroverts also like to be alone sometimes. Though clinical psychopaths are very rare but having psychopathic traits is comparatively very common. I don't know if Amy is a clinical psychopath, but she definitely has psychopathic tendencies. She won't hesitate a bit in cutting someone's throat. If she has to push you off a building then she can do that without a second thought. And the way she manipulates and emotionally exploits people, if you look closely, there is also a part of Lou Bloom in her. The truth is there are not one or two, but a cluster of traits that compiles our behavior. That defines who we are. 

 

Anton Chigurh - No Country for Old Men 

One of the prized possessions of human beings is their ability to imagine. In all the progress we have made, imagination has a huge role in it. And not only in material and technological progress, but also the way we conduct ourselves in society among other people, in this respect too, we have a come a long way. Its also called the laws of civility. And this is also a result of our imagination. The thing which binds and keeps us as a society, the civics, that is also imagined. Rules, laws, rights are as fictional as movies. Laws of physics and laws of civics are different in nature. Even if we disappear from the planet, gravity will continue to be there. and light will travel at the same speed. But social laws will cease to exist if we aren't there. Because it just concerns us. And even when it concerns others, that is also from our own focal point. In other words, social laws, morality, ethics are man-made. And if it's all man-made, then why shouldn't I create a moral order of my own..which only promotes my own self-interest. And Anton Chigurh does exactly that. A coin toss. Matter of chance. Chigurh tosses a coin before killing anyone. If you win the toss, you won't die and if you lose then you will be killed. And one thing you can't do is refuse to play. And by doing so he justifies his own action. He clears himself of the responsibility. If you lose the toss, then perhaps death was your destiny. As if you deserved to die. It was pre-destined. He cannot do anything about it. He is just a force of nature. He is just channeling, like an agent of fate or destiny. It comes through him but not from him. But of course, it comes from him because he is the hitman by profession. And if he has to kill someone, he will kill them even without caring for a toss. The coin toss is for peripheral victims, the people who aren't directly involved. Chigurh is not only strange by his rules but also by his looks. Strange haircut, deep threatening voice, an emotionless face. And the weapon he uses to kill people is also very peculiar. It seems that he doesn't belong here. He is one of the best examples of psychopaths depicted in cinema. Chigurh is so much socially withdrawn that even a small casual conversation can offend him. Because somewhere, casual conversations, short talks are the hallmark of social beings. And Chigurh is definitely not a social being. And there is also no mention of his origin in the movie and this makes his personality even more unpredictable and enigmatic. He is like a ghost. If death had a face, it would be his. He has his own set of moral order and ethics which he follows with great conviction. I think he is really convinced. And the way he works so impulsively, the way he takes risks, it shows his this very conviction. I mean you can talk around with people like Loo Bloom and Amy at least. And perhaps if Amy gets professional help, she can get better too. At least she may become less threatening to other people. But Anton Chigurh will remain as he is. He doesn't need help. He is a textbook definition of a psychopath. Because if even mistakingly you obstruct his path, then there is no chance of going back. Consider yourself unlucky. He will eventually come and kill you.