A few years ago, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman defined the concept of “liquid modernity”, a society that has achieved enough technological development that all the comforts are just a button away.

We are saturated with stimuli, information, leisure offers, we live connected to work and everything is so simple with technology, that it no longer demands depth or reflection, but simply speed: the need to adapt quickly, learn quickly, be able to carry out many tasks in a short time… Individualism and the manipulation of the behaviour of others through all the means that the technological environment puts within our reach prevail. The era of psychopathy has appeared .

The Dehumanization of Society

We live in a society that embraces much and presses little. We have social networks that allow us to contact hundreds of people daily, but because of this interface such exchanges are shallow or inconsequential . In fact, nowadays, depth is not a value. The value of successful people is in many cases in the millions they move, the beauty, the material objects they hold or the empty moments they boast about on Instagram.

If our ancestors needed intelligence to survive their world, today the need for social intelligence prevails . While language, logic, strategy, calculation… have been successfully reproduced in computers and new technologies, it has not been the same for other properly human skills, such as facial recognition, humour, and in short, those skills that require interpersonal exchanges. However, these qualities can also be affected by the dehumanization of work and relationships.

In the field of robotics and artificial intelligence a concept called “unsettling valley”; this suggests that when a humanoid looks very much like a human being but not enough so (it presents subtle differences), it creates a feeling of discomfort and uneasiness in people. Therefore, it is not surprising that those individuals that today present a higher social intelligence, better social mimicry and adaptation, and why not say it, a greater capacity of manipulation, reach further in life, given that their seduction skills can disguise the fact that they move through logics more typical of a robot.

Characteristics such as pragmatism and utilitarianism, superficial charm (see Instagram), individualism and manipulation are reflected in our society on a daily basis in the same way that they define the psychopathic personality.

The new dynamics of violence: the era of psychopathy

While violence has declined from century to century, crime is a rising value. And we should emphasize the point about violence: while a few centuries ago armies killed each other with a clean sword to conquer or usurp other kingdoms, today the boundaries of neighbouring countries are almost completely respected and there is even a certain alliance between them. However, every country has an army up its sleeve and increasingly sophisticated weapons “just in case”. The agreements between our rulers are as superficial as their handshakes and false smiles. And the power that some exercise over others is based on economic power.

The crimes change and so we go from armed robberies to swindles in big companies, exploitation, political corruption and the creation of laws that can sweep the whole shebang under the carpet or scandals that distract the public from more important social issues… Psychopathic ways of obtaining benefits and power by using the other that are more and more common to the point of legalizing the fact that they trade with the information and private data of each one.

Society is evolving in a psychopathic way , and the best adapted individual will be the one who develops the socially valued features today: the one who shows his best face while everything matters to him, and in particular you. To understand this superficial charm, this quest for power being used and using others disguised as kindness that is dominating the world, this social face of hypocrisy, just watch the first episode of the third season of Black Mirror, Nosedive.