The sentencing of Ian Watkins, former singer of the band "LostProphets", for a catalogue of sex crimes against children, is another case that adds to the spate of reported crimes, and historical crimes, that have featured in the media since the death of Jimmy Savile. In the last week, a British TV weather presenter, Fred Talbot, has been arrested for historical crimes, as has a former headmaster at a prestigious boys' school.
A recent article by Giles Fraser talks about the nature of this type of "evil", and the possible motivations that occur in the mind of people like Watkins, Savile, and others like them. However uncomfortable it is to think about it, it is important to understand why these people exist: this is why there are people trained in the police and specifically in the area of criminal psychology.
While it should be unnecessary to say so, understanding why such crimes happen does not condone them; no more that understanding why Hitler hated the Jews condones The Holocaust.
To many, child sex crimes rank amongst the worst forms of evil, because the such violations of human rights are against those so vulnerable and innocent. As Giles Fraser's article made clear, these kinds of crimes are nothing about sex; they are about power, and an ultimate, amoral expression of it.
In this way, paedophiles like Savile and Watkins are not so "abnormal" that their evil cannot be understood; it is more that they have become so removed from morality and humanity that their mindset cannot be comprehended by someone with conscience.
The motivations of a psychopath
Psychopathy is a personality disorder defined by a complete lack of conscience towards their actions, and empathy for others.
Psychopaths can unflinchingly carry out the most appalling crimes: some (such as brutal dictators, or, at another level, cut-throat CEOs) can intellectually justify their actions to themselves as part of a wider goal; a dictator to preserve power and "order" to the country; a CEO can justify massive fraud for the sake of boosting a company's share price. These are the calm, amoral psychopaths.
Then there are those who do so not for the sake of a real "goal", or as a means to an end, but simply for the "pleasure" of the act itself: those that simply take pleasure in others' suffering. These are the sadists. And it is this type that are may be considered the worst; for they do their actions not to improve their situation, but simply for the hell of it.
While an amoral psychopath may cause harm for "rational" reasons (to better his own situation), a sadist will easily cause harm for no rational reason whatsoever. Sadists are capable of taking enormous (and irrational) risks for the sake of a momentary act of power against another. It is this that makes them more dangerous, and more difficult to deal with.
People like Watkins and Savile (and sex offenders in general) fall into the latter catagory, because the actions they carried served no "method" other than to cause harm to an innocent person. In this way, paedophiles may be classified as simply a more "extreme" form of sexual psychopath and sadist. Their behaviour and "motivation" fits into many of the attributes connected to psychopathy. They are not "unique" in their evil; they simply plunge to sickening depths of it.
(For more about "Sexual Psychopathy", see here)
The general consensus is that people like Savile and Watkins are products of their cumulative environment. While "psychopathy" as a general rule requires some type of biological dysfunction in the brain, it is also documented that many people who went to commit child sex crimes were themselves "victims" (of one kind or another) at an early age. In order for people like Savile and Watkins to carry out their crimes, there must have been something that had seriously gone wrong at some point. Like all psychological "monsters", they are invariably made, not born.
By understanding how these people are created, it is how crimes like it are prevented in the future.
Causes and solutions
Psychopathy and sociopathy (the latter is generally considered the environmentally-caused disorder, the former primarily biological) have existed in humanity probably since the earliest times in human history. The key to preventing (or limiting) its negative effects on society is to spot the warning signs early on; better still, make a child's environment as stable and balanced as possible.
Sadly, the changes in modern lifestyle, in the family and the effects of technology, have made that job much more difficult. As I've mentioned in a previous article, narcissism (one of the factors that can lead to psychopathy under certain circumstances) is being fed through a vicious circle of the breakdown of the family unit, leading to the young people replacing a fickle family unit with a egocentric "me" unit. Technology may also be playing a part in this, in a way that was never previously possible.
Apart from these negative signs, the positive is that psychopathy is in the public eye in a way never seen before. The more people know about it, the more people will be aware of its causes, and therefore know what they can do to reduce the chance of it becoming manifested.
We can only hope.
Showing posts with label Jimmy Savile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jimmy Savile. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
BBC Management structure and The Jimmy Savile Scandal
I wrote previously about the Jimmy Savile scandal, and how a lax and complacent establishment allowed him to be effectively the nation's perverted "court jester" for forty years.
All those at the top of the system played their part in turning a blind eye to the well-known rumours of his perverted behaviour, but none more so than the BBC who originally hired him, and he used them as a conduit for his twisted and amoral narcissism, as well as a highly-effective shield against personal attacks to his well-honed saintly image.
It is therefore the BBC that has the most blame to fuelling his criminal behaviour. The long-running investigation into the BBC's complacency and incompetence has also brought into sharp focus the byzantine structure of the BBC itself, as well-remarked upon by Peter Oborne. His point is partly political, and that's not what I really want to go into here. I want to focus on the anachronistic and byzantine manner that the BBC is structured.
There is perhaps no other media organisation in the world structured like the BBC. It is held up as the "gold standard" for journalism and reportage around the world, as well as being the oldest such structure. The problem is that the BBC also knows about its gold standard image around the world, giving it a predisposition to arrogance, and therefore less likely to take easily to criticism. At the very least, its indecipherable management structure makes it hard to know where the line of accountability runs. And accountability is the key problem that has been displayed from the report into the Jimmy Savile scandal, with reams of evidence being effectively redacted as though the BBC were the media version of the KGB, as well as managers themselves not knowing their proper responsibilities. Which is precisely the point.
The BBC has been around since 1922. To put it into perspective, the Fascist takeover by Mussolini, the end of the Soviet Civil War, the rise of Ataturk in the Turkish Republic were all contemporary events to the BBC's founding.The BBC's raison d'etre was designed to reflect the psychology of the day. Created with noble intent as a media provider for the British Empire that was separate from government, it was effectively the "voice of the Empire", albeit one that spoke not from a government mouthpiece.
In this sense, although staffed by managers who were from the same "establishment" background as politicians, lawyers and the civil service (and effectively still is), it was given a large degree of independence, thus putting its managers in a privileged position unknown to any other country at the time (and still is today).
After designed to be ran by similarly-minded "establishment" figures given a large degree of independence, the structure of the BBC itself seemed to have been inspired by civil service thinking as well. First of all, was its revenue structure. The "licence fee" was the way that kept the BBC financed, and this never changed after other television stations (notably its original competitor ITV) were established. In many respects, the BBC's mentality and structure are more like that of a government than a corporation. The "licence fee" is effectively a tax on people who want to use the BBC services, albeit one that the real government has no effective control over.
The BBC refuses to use advertising, its most common reason being that it would damage quality of its production. The more likely reason is that it would then no longer be able to use the public as a cash cow, and would have to lobby for revenue from the private sector. The "quality" excuse is not longer valid: Channel Four has produced quality independent programming, reportage and news since its foundation thirty years ago, and it uses advertising like any other of the BBC's competitors. The BBC's stance on needing the licence free smacks of fear and arrogance.
The way the BBC is funded is therefore more reminiscent of a government than a private corporation. The way the BBC is structured internally is similarly reminiscent of a government rather than a private corporation. The structure of the BBC was originally conceived before the Second World War, when it was the "voice of the Empire". That structure has never fundamentally changed; conversely, since the end of empire and the rise of the postmodern era, it has mushroomed beyond all comprehension. As Peter Oborne pointed out is his article above, there are now nearly thirty senior managers in the BBC, some of them with titles that are more reminiscent of bloated central government department. With titles like "strategy", "planning", "operations", and so on, it makes the BBC look less like an identifiable government department and more like a Kafkaesque nightmare of bewildering proportions, where no-one really knows what each persons job is, who is truly responsible for what, and what questions to ask to who.
The structure at the BBC is rigidly hierarchical and bewilderingly impenetrable in equal measure, like a Soviet Central Committee in the Kremlin. This "Soviet style" of leadership and organisation may have been a subconscious design of the original founders (considering how many of the early establishment figures were closet Communist sympathisers, this wouldn't be surprising). Since that time, the organisation has therefore grown in accordance with its design, like an ever-expanding impenetrable web. The result of this, like any inefficient and corrupt government that is not publicly accountable, is an environment perfect for covering up scandals and not dealing with problems when they occur; rather pressuring "whistle-blowers" to either be quiet or be dismissed.
It is precisely this sort of environment that allowed Jimmy Savile to thrive. The fact that those responsible for tolerating the cover-ups and mishandling scandals, like former head George Entwistle, are rewarded with fat pay-offs, is symptomatic of a broken system. Likewise is the redacting of potentially-incriminating evidence under "legal advice".
Until the BBC is forced to change the way it is financed, by getting rid of the licence fee, it will never be able to bring itself to look with open eyes at its broken system. Until the BBC is ran like a private media company like any other (or, inconceivably, funded directly by the government as a state-ran operator), it will never be able to run itself with real accountability.
The BBC is effectively ran like a "media government". Not in the sense that it has an unaccountable influence on government media policy, but in the sense that it is ran like a separate media "government", funded by us, but unaccountable to anyone but itself.
Clearly, this situation has become untenable.
All those at the top of the system played their part in turning a blind eye to the well-known rumours of his perverted behaviour, but none more so than the BBC who originally hired him, and he used them as a conduit for his twisted and amoral narcissism, as well as a highly-effective shield against personal attacks to his well-honed saintly image.
It is therefore the BBC that has the most blame to fuelling his criminal behaviour. The long-running investigation into the BBC's complacency and incompetence has also brought into sharp focus the byzantine structure of the BBC itself, as well-remarked upon by Peter Oborne. His point is partly political, and that's not what I really want to go into here. I want to focus on the anachronistic and byzantine manner that the BBC is structured.
There is perhaps no other media organisation in the world structured like the BBC. It is held up as the "gold standard" for journalism and reportage around the world, as well as being the oldest such structure. The problem is that the BBC also knows about its gold standard image around the world, giving it a predisposition to arrogance, and therefore less likely to take easily to criticism. At the very least, its indecipherable management structure makes it hard to know where the line of accountability runs. And accountability is the key problem that has been displayed from the report into the Jimmy Savile scandal, with reams of evidence being effectively redacted as though the BBC were the media version of the KGB, as well as managers themselves not knowing their proper responsibilities. Which is precisely the point.
The BBC has been around since 1922. To put it into perspective, the Fascist takeover by Mussolini, the end of the Soviet Civil War, the rise of Ataturk in the Turkish Republic were all contemporary events to the BBC's founding.The BBC's raison d'etre was designed to reflect the psychology of the day. Created with noble intent as a media provider for the British Empire that was separate from government, it was effectively the "voice of the Empire", albeit one that spoke not from a government mouthpiece.
In this sense, although staffed by managers who were from the same "establishment" background as politicians, lawyers and the civil service (and effectively still is), it was given a large degree of independence, thus putting its managers in a privileged position unknown to any other country at the time (and still is today).
After designed to be ran by similarly-minded "establishment" figures given a large degree of independence, the structure of the BBC itself seemed to have been inspired by civil service thinking as well. First of all, was its revenue structure. The "licence fee" was the way that kept the BBC financed, and this never changed after other television stations (notably its original competitor ITV) were established. In many respects, the BBC's mentality and structure are more like that of a government than a corporation. The "licence fee" is effectively a tax on people who want to use the BBC services, albeit one that the real government has no effective control over.
The BBC refuses to use advertising, its most common reason being that it would damage quality of its production. The more likely reason is that it would then no longer be able to use the public as a cash cow, and would have to lobby for revenue from the private sector. The "quality" excuse is not longer valid: Channel Four has produced quality independent programming, reportage and news since its foundation thirty years ago, and it uses advertising like any other of the BBC's competitors. The BBC's stance on needing the licence free smacks of fear and arrogance.
The way the BBC is funded is therefore more reminiscent of a government than a private corporation. The way the BBC is structured internally is similarly reminiscent of a government rather than a private corporation. The structure of the BBC was originally conceived before the Second World War, when it was the "voice of the Empire". That structure has never fundamentally changed; conversely, since the end of empire and the rise of the postmodern era, it has mushroomed beyond all comprehension. As Peter Oborne pointed out is his article above, there are now nearly thirty senior managers in the BBC, some of them with titles that are more reminiscent of bloated central government department. With titles like "strategy", "planning", "operations", and so on, it makes the BBC look less like an identifiable government department and more like a Kafkaesque nightmare of bewildering proportions, where no-one really knows what each persons job is, who is truly responsible for what, and what questions to ask to who.
The structure at the BBC is rigidly hierarchical and bewilderingly impenetrable in equal measure, like a Soviet Central Committee in the Kremlin. This "Soviet style" of leadership and organisation may have been a subconscious design of the original founders (considering how many of the early establishment figures were closet Communist sympathisers, this wouldn't be surprising). Since that time, the organisation has therefore grown in accordance with its design, like an ever-expanding impenetrable web. The result of this, like any inefficient and corrupt government that is not publicly accountable, is an environment perfect for covering up scandals and not dealing with problems when they occur; rather pressuring "whistle-blowers" to either be quiet or be dismissed.
It is precisely this sort of environment that allowed Jimmy Savile to thrive. The fact that those responsible for tolerating the cover-ups and mishandling scandals, like former head George Entwistle, are rewarded with fat pay-offs, is symptomatic of a broken system. Likewise is the redacting of potentially-incriminating evidence under "legal advice".
Until the BBC is forced to change the way it is financed, by getting rid of the licence fee, it will never be able to bring itself to look with open eyes at its broken system. Until the BBC is ran like a private media company like any other (or, inconceivably, funded directly by the government as a state-ran operator), it will never be able to run itself with real accountability.
The BBC is effectively ran like a "media government". Not in the sense that it has an unaccountable influence on government media policy, but in the sense that it is ran like a separate media "government", funded by us, but unaccountable to anyone but itself.
Clearly, this situation has become untenable.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Jimmy Savile's psychopathy and the British psyche
The psychopathy of Jimmy Savile is now well-known and documented, and is a stark example of what happens when a psychopath attains a position of power.
The fact that he was a predatory paedophile has masked over the fact that he was also Britain's most prolific sex offender, regardless of the age and gender of the victims. The majority were underage girls, but his paedophilic tendency is merely a detail to the overall horrific nature of his personality.
His personality fits all the characteristics and behaviour of a psychopath. The gross narcissism was there, with the love of himself, and his self-made opulent lifestyle. The sense of entitlement, that he could do whatever he liked whenever he liked, was constant. All psychopaths are obsessive about control and psychological power, as well as utterly amoral. This explains why another key indicator of psychopathy is shameless sexual promiscuity and sadistic perversion.While Savile was not a serial killer like another infamous British psychopath, Ian Brady (more about him here), his psychopathy was instead displayed through his shameless and shockingly prolific sexual behaviour.
He called his mother "The Duchess", and preserved her clothing carefully decades after her death in the early seventies. Did he do this out of "love", or was it another form of Secondary Narcissism (love through association)? If his mother was "The Duchess", then that would make him "The Duke" upon her death.
Like a typical psychopath, Savile was outwardly charming, but this was merely his psychopathic "mask" that hid the cold and calculating monster beneath. The "monster" beneath the "mask" was best revealed in Louis Theroux's TV profile of him: Savile, while outwardly charming, became hostile and intimidating at a moment's notice if he thought his outward persona was under threat.
Some of the most successful psychopaths (i.e. those which hide it most effectively) are philanthropists. Savile is perhaps one of the best-known examples of this to date in Britain, at least that we know of. The philanthropy is a shield, another extension of the "mask" - and a very effective one, as had shown with Savile in the end. This made him feel (rightly, as it turned out) almost untouchable, thus justifying his own God-like self-image. As long as he was publicly seen to be charitable and caring, the real sexually-depraved, narcissistic and sadistic monster beneath was free to do as he liked. He was given free-rein in hospitals and prisons. His cunning was such that he preyed on sexual opportunism. His preference for victims from children's homes, the psychologically disturbed and the vulnerable was another indication that he chose victims who were even less likely to be believed.
One of the most bizarre incidents involved his long-term friendship with another infamous serial-killer and misogynist, Peter Sutcliffe: he duped the boxer Frank Bruno to shake Sutcliffe's hand in prison, not realising he was the infamous serial killer. This is just one small example of the psychological power-play constant in Savile's personality. His annual festive dinner with Margaret Thatcher is another, as was his continual peddling for influence within the royal family.
Savile successfully groomed his self-image for his entire professional life as an entertainer, especially in the circles of the establishment. In that sense, there was something of the "court jester" about Savile, albeit a depraved one that was also a "dirty old man". For the entire second half of his life, Savile became part and parcel of the establishment; a sinister and freakish psychopath that hid his true nature "in plain sight" as he hob-nobbed with the rich and famous.
But I also believe that some aspects of British cultural psyche played into his hands, for depraved psychopaths like him truly thrive when there is the right "human environment": a collective culture that is callous towards sexual responsibility and indulgent of deviancy.
"Uncle Jimmy", as he called himself, was also one of Britain's most famous "eccentrics".
There was his odd fashion sense - the track-suit - that marked him as being unique. This was another extension of his narcissism, attention-seeking to make him instantly identifiable, as well as conspicuously wearing gold chains and rings, and smoking huge, phallus-like cigars. But because such "eccentricity" is considered a natural part of the British psyche, it was tolerated and indulged without question. This "eccentric" side of the British psyche also hides a darker truth: that what might sometimes be called "eccentricity" in complacent eyes, should really be called something much more sinister.
During the decades of sexual abuse, sex crimes were not taken as seriously by the police as they are now. This reflected a casual indifference in British society towards sex acts. These things were never spoken about in polite conversation, with chauvinism and "naughtiness" the frivolous norm, and a complacency towards the behaviour of "dirty old men". It was in this atmosphere that Jimmy Savile thrived.
And yet this "atmosphere" still exists in British psyche today: casual chauvinism is the norm: "The Sun" still has its "Page Three"; anyone who has been to resorts like Magaluf will know about the rampant sexual depravity that goes on - far higher than in, say, German resorts. The British are sex-obsessed yet sexually-illiterate; have among the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and broken families in Europe; have the most irresponsible attitudes to alcohol in Europe, and as a result, night-time Britain often resembles a war-zone when the bars close.
Yet this is all part of "British Culture", supposedly. And Jimmy Savile - in the way he exploited that culture - is partly a product of that.
The fact that he was a predatory paedophile has masked over the fact that he was also Britain's most prolific sex offender, regardless of the age and gender of the victims. The majority were underage girls, but his paedophilic tendency is merely a detail to the overall horrific nature of his personality.
His personality fits all the characteristics and behaviour of a psychopath. The gross narcissism was there, with the love of himself, and his self-made opulent lifestyle. The sense of entitlement, that he could do whatever he liked whenever he liked, was constant. All psychopaths are obsessive about control and psychological power, as well as utterly amoral. This explains why another key indicator of psychopathy is shameless sexual promiscuity and sadistic perversion.While Savile was not a serial killer like another infamous British psychopath, Ian Brady (more about him here), his psychopathy was instead displayed through his shameless and shockingly prolific sexual behaviour.
He called his mother "The Duchess", and preserved her clothing carefully decades after her death in the early seventies. Did he do this out of "love", or was it another form of Secondary Narcissism (love through association)? If his mother was "The Duchess", then that would make him "The Duke" upon her death.
Like a typical psychopath, Savile was outwardly charming, but this was merely his psychopathic "mask" that hid the cold and calculating monster beneath. The "monster" beneath the "mask" was best revealed in Louis Theroux's TV profile of him: Savile, while outwardly charming, became hostile and intimidating at a moment's notice if he thought his outward persona was under threat.
Some of the most successful psychopaths (i.e. those which hide it most effectively) are philanthropists. Savile is perhaps one of the best-known examples of this to date in Britain, at least that we know of. The philanthropy is a shield, another extension of the "mask" - and a very effective one, as had shown with Savile in the end. This made him feel (rightly, as it turned out) almost untouchable, thus justifying his own God-like self-image. As long as he was publicly seen to be charitable and caring, the real sexually-depraved, narcissistic and sadistic monster beneath was free to do as he liked. He was given free-rein in hospitals and prisons. His cunning was such that he preyed on sexual opportunism. His preference for victims from children's homes, the psychologically disturbed and the vulnerable was another indication that he chose victims who were even less likely to be believed.
One of the most bizarre incidents involved his long-term friendship with another infamous serial-killer and misogynist, Peter Sutcliffe: he duped the boxer Frank Bruno to shake Sutcliffe's hand in prison, not realising he was the infamous serial killer. This is just one small example of the psychological power-play constant in Savile's personality. His annual festive dinner with Margaret Thatcher is another, as was his continual peddling for influence within the royal family.
Savile successfully groomed his self-image for his entire professional life as an entertainer, especially in the circles of the establishment. In that sense, there was something of the "court jester" about Savile, albeit a depraved one that was also a "dirty old man". For the entire second half of his life, Savile became part and parcel of the establishment; a sinister and freakish psychopath that hid his true nature "in plain sight" as he hob-nobbed with the rich and famous.
But I also believe that some aspects of British cultural psyche played into his hands, for depraved psychopaths like him truly thrive when there is the right "human environment": a collective culture that is callous towards sexual responsibility and indulgent of deviancy.
"Uncle Jimmy", as he called himself, was also one of Britain's most famous "eccentrics".
There was his odd fashion sense - the track-suit - that marked him as being unique. This was another extension of his narcissism, attention-seeking to make him instantly identifiable, as well as conspicuously wearing gold chains and rings, and smoking huge, phallus-like cigars. But because such "eccentricity" is considered a natural part of the British psyche, it was tolerated and indulged without question. This "eccentric" side of the British psyche also hides a darker truth: that what might sometimes be called "eccentricity" in complacent eyes, should really be called something much more sinister.
During the decades of sexual abuse, sex crimes were not taken as seriously by the police as they are now. This reflected a casual indifference in British society towards sex acts. These things were never spoken about in polite conversation, with chauvinism and "naughtiness" the frivolous norm, and a complacency towards the behaviour of "dirty old men". It was in this atmosphere that Jimmy Savile thrived.
And yet this "atmosphere" still exists in British psyche today: casual chauvinism is the norm: "The Sun" still has its "Page Three"; anyone who has been to resorts like Magaluf will know about the rampant sexual depravity that goes on - far higher than in, say, German resorts. The British are sex-obsessed yet sexually-illiterate; have among the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and broken families in Europe; have the most irresponsible attitudes to alcohol in Europe, and as a result, night-time Britain often resembles a war-zone when the bars close.
Yet this is all part of "British Culture", supposedly. And Jimmy Savile - in the way he exploited that culture - is partly a product of that.
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