The Tertulian writer tells that, in ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded in his triumphal car, a slave was ordered to hold the Laurel crown and repeatedly whisper to the ear: “Look after you! A person you will be remember!” (Look behind you! Remember that you are only a man!). While the crowd acclaimed him like a God, this warning was the anchor to reality, a reminder of his fragile human condition to keep the ego at bay. This ancient wisdom, whose spirit would be immortalized in the famous Latin speech “Memento Mori” (Remember that you will die), recognized an eternal truth: power is a powerful poison that alters perception.
In the folklore of national politics, a transsexenal joke illustrates those who surround the leaders of little intellectual mood: an expert close to the president in turn listens to his subordinates and explodes: “Who was the imbecile who said that crocodiles fly?” With the look low, one of them replies: “He was the president.” The expert, without hesitation, says: “Ah, well … of course they fly, but short.” Humor reveals the environment, or rather the ecosystem, which surrounds power: a resonance chamber, an infinite echoes where only the same voice returns, because dissenting is a risk and reality becomes negotiable. It is the same logic behind another common phrase in the halls of power: if a president asks “What time is it?”, The correct answer is “the one you say, Lord or Lady.”
Power, however, does not distort reality alone; You need a validation choir. The anecdote of the crocodiles not only exposes the blindness of the president, but the calculated submission of his surroundings. This phenomenon, known as groupthink o Group thinking – theory made by the social psychologist Irving L. Janis – describes how intelligent people renounce their critical judgment to maintain the harmony or favor of the leader. Through the cognitive dissonancethe subaltern justifies his silence, thus creating a toxic symbiosis: the leader needs flatterers to feed his ego, and flatterers need the leader to maintain their status, building together an impenetrable strength to the truth.
This phenomenon is not new; He inhabits us since the human being chose society as a form of organization. The passage of the primitive horde to the nomadic tribe, and from there to the first enclaves until reaching the empire, meant the renunciation of certain freedoms, including personal power, to assign it to a leader who exercised him for the benefit of the collective. However, the tension between the delegated authority and the individual ambition became a constant.
Plato, in The Republicwarned that power is inherently dangerous, because whoever yearns will be inevitably corrupted. His disciple Aristotle, in Policydescribed how governments degenerate when leaders use power for their personal benefit: monarchies in tyrannies and aristocracies in oligarchies. The Greeks even had a term for this “dizziness of power”: Hybrisexcessive arrogance that is born of success and that, inevitably, leads to ruin.
Sigmund Freud, on the other hand, described that behind the political power a theater of unconscious dynamics is hidden: the collective desire for a primitive father who offers protection; the almost hypnotic submission of the masses that renounce their critical self to merge into an ideal embodied by the leader; and the narcissistic need of that same leader to channel the most primitive drives of humanity (Eros y Tannatos), as aggression against the enemy and love for the follower, in order to consolidate his authority.
What the ancients and the first psychoanalysts described, modern science confirms it with diagnoses. The politician and doctor David Owen coined the term “Hybris síndrome” To describe the change of observable personality in leaders exposed to power, especially if this is prolonged. Today, neurological studies suggest that power can affect brain chemistry, reducing empathy and increasing impulsivity, partly by an increase in neurotransmitters such as dopamine and testosterone. This biochemical alteration can lead to an almost delusional belief of impunity, self -sufficiency and magnanimity; It is the feeling of being protected by the simple fact of appearing in an official photograph; is to believe that, in some way, the proverbial is possessed Giges ringwhich makes us invisible and invincible to the consequences.
But the distortion of reality is not only born from ambition; Often, its seed is more subtle: ignorance that does not recognize itself. Here the Efecto Dunning-Krugerdescribed by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the paradoxical phenomenon where less competent individuals are precisely those who most overestimate their skills. His own incompetence steals the ability to self -criticism and, far from recognizing expertise in others, they perceive it as an affront.
When this cognitive bias reaches a leadership position, the result is catastrophic. A leader is created who, with unwavering confidence, makes reckless decisions based on knowledge, in the best case, superficial and becomes waterproof to the evidence presented by experts. Not that necessarily lies; It is that, in his limited vision, his “other data” are the only truth. It is the blindness of the incompetent, amplified by the mirror of power, which allows the king to walk naked convinced of his elegance.
This cocktail, where Hybris syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger effect are merged, explains why we see in amazement how some characters in public life go crazy with a position: they humiliate their close ones and annihilate their rivals. The so -called “lords” and “ladies” of social networks are not necessarily ruins, but individuals who, under the drunkenness of power, money or a temporary status, assume that a momentary circumstance gives them a permanent virtue; Just to be destroyed by the public escarnio of a viral Tiktok.
Thus, the true catastrophe occurs when both phenomena not only coexist, but also enter synergy. Dunning-Kruger provides initial confidence: an individual comes to power honestly convinced of a competition that does not possess. Once at the top, power activates Hybris syndrome, which makes it arrogant, derogatory with experts and deaf to criticism. The arrogance of Hybris then protects the incompetence of dunning-kruger, creating a perfect feedback loop: the leader is unable to see his mistakes and, at the same time, he is convinced that he never commits them. It is the blind spot into dogma, the path that transforms the idealist Dr. Jekyll into the monstrous Mr. Hyde. Critics are silenced, perceive as adversaries and move away, even when they accompanied the ascent itself.
Faced with this self -deception cycle, the story also offers antidotes. The most powerful is the internal: the humility practiced consciously. Statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln, with his famous “rival cabinet”, or Emperor Marco Aurelio, with his Meditations Stoics actively sought self -criticism and discordant advice. They knew that power isolates and that the only way to break the fence is to build bridges towards those who do not think as one.
This virtue has a name: Sophrosyne. The Greek term, direct opposite to the Hybrisencompasses moderation, self -knowledge and control of the ego. It is the autocritical courage, intellectual honesty and the greatness of soul that constitute sobriety in the exercise of power. However, depending on individual virtue is insufficient. Therefore, mature democracies do not only trust their leaders, but in their institutions and counterweights.
So, no one who is not Lincoln or Marco Aurelio is prepared for power? Perhaps the problem resided in the loss of merit as a route to leadership. The political and professional careers of before, with their gradual ascent, functioned as a training, a progressive exhibition to the responsibility that the mind prepared so as not to collapse. It could even be said that a biochemical tolerance was developed to power. It was understood that, without a trajectory, without having exceeded increasing evidence, a leader’s brain could easily succumb to the dangerous idea of being an infallible “anointed”. Leaders require, before reaching the top, learn to walk a long time on Earth. The problem is that the outstanding races of some are seen as a danger in the eyes of others; In much of the world we are in an era that values more loyalties than capacities. The key question should be who has more merits for a position, not who is closer.
There is the right to vote and be voted as one of the pillars of democracy, and democracy as the best system found so far, but their health should not be left alone to the polls (often empty). The management capacity of their leaders and citizen surveillance is required. If the preparation, the experience, the background and the mental health of the candidates are difficult to legislate, the main safeguard is the public exhibition of their contradictions, the recognition of their achievements and the visibility of their behavior. Therefore, for democracy to work, a critical citizenship and its media must act freely, with the aim of definitively overcome the polarization of “with me or against me.” They are, ultimately, who accompany the triumphal car of modernity, even in front of the presidential balcony in a homeland celebration, with the civic obligation to whisper to the ear to power, regardless of who occupies it: “Look behind you. Remember that you are only a human being. Remember that you are mortal. Remember that the crocodiles do not fly. And remember that you owe yourself to your people.”
About the author:
*Edgar Alonso Angulo Rosas is a clinical psychologist and addiction expert with extensive experience in prevention and attention to violence, addictions, mental health and human rights. He has held management positions at NGOs, public and private sector.
Email: (email protected)
The opinions expressed are only the responsibility of their authors and are completely independent of the position and the editorial line of Forbes Mexico.
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