It is no secret that these are dark times in America and around the World. There have been many atrocities in recent years that have produced a great deal of fear and dread. Gender-based violence, police brutality, excessive use of force, an influx of too many migrants, over 600 mass shootings occurred in 2023 and wars around the world involving America and its soldiers. When horrible events happen, there is an emotional fallout from them that hits the rest of the country and the rest of the world. The mood is dark as hope for happiness and optimism decreases in many, to be replaced with various shades of darkness and pessimism. Dark moods prevail and spread to others via contagion; those who may not have been directly involved learn about the events and feel the dark mood move around them from discussions like vibes in the air.
This mood spreads. Emotions rub off on other people, and that includes the dark emotions. There is no doubt that the darkness in America is related to pervasive gloomy emotions and forlorn, pessimistic moods that trickle out from people and spread through society, like vibes in the air. Vibes are subtle emotional exchanges between people, says Jeanne Nangle[1]. Many of these dark emotions are subtle yet contagious and bring simple messages as they move unknowingly between people, spreading through emotional and social contagion. The dark moods come when people are afraid, nervous, hopeless, angry, unsociable, gloomy, despairing and pessimistic. Some are morbid and may be expecting the worst. They may unintentionally pass these feelings and moods on to others via emotional and social contagion.
Rates of suicide and homicide are on the increase[2]. Among other causes, this increase occurs from the spread of contagious toxic emotions through Western society. Emotions such as panic, anxiety, fear, anger, hate, depression, suspicion, distrust, cynicism, apathy, hopelessness and despair result in a general demoralization felt and experienced by many more people in recent times. These dark emotions and moods spread through society via contagion. They are easily absorbed by trusting people, many of whom do not realize that they are absorbing them. They probably already have been feeling milder versions of these emotions inside themselves. This makes them susceptible to catching these emotions through contagion, thereby increasing their strength inside themselves, to be then passed on to others via contagion. This is likely what is happening, people automatically absorb contagious toxic emotions. They just seem to feel right since they connect with similar but milder feelings people carry inside them. So they absorb them without realizing they are doing that, and without realizing that the dark feeling is likely building and worsening internally. They fail to realize that they could learn to regulate their emotions, without medication, through many forms of emotional regulation, cognitive restructuring and behavior change known and used by psychologists and other therapists to help people. Psychotropic medication robs them of the ability to feel, identify, manage and control their internal emotion.
Darkness, as seen in the gloomy, joyless attitudes seen moreso in the country is strengthened by dark emotions, together creating the darkness in the emotional atmosphere through emotional and social contagion. Emotion can be absorbed, and may carry simple, subconscious messages, often simple, straightforward racist, misogynistic, judgmental messages embedded somehow in the dark emotion. And when the dark emotions grow and increase in society, and emotions dominate, we get turmoil, divisiveness, fighting and killing, because emotions don’t think.[3] They need to be regulated and managed to lower the level of turmoil and chaos, while retaining the belief. But medication makes it difficult for people to manage their own emotions because they may think medication controls their emotions. It doesn’t do that completely, it is just patial.
People not only absorb these contagious dark emotions but can get trapped in a circular causality of negative emotions. Many people avoid other people who show these dark features. Families break down. People then become alienated, depressed and lonely. There is no doubt that much depression, then, is a result of the darkness in society. But people who are depressed may not make this connection and think it is just a biochemical imbalance, because their doctors tell them so, although depression has increased over the years as society gets darker, leading many to attribute this change to other factors, such as increasing computerization, alienation, digitization[4] and similar features. That may be true, but there is more to it than that.
The idea of the darkness dominating our times started with the concept of the Dark Triad, which was developed early in the aughts decade. It was coined by researchers Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams in 2002.[5] It refers to a trio of negative personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—which share some common malevolent features. Machiavellianism is a personality trait describing a manipulative individual who deceives and tricks others to achieve goals. It is based on the political philosophy of the 16th-century writer Niccolò Machiavelli. His writings are maddeningly and notoriously unsystematic, inconsistent and sometimes self-contradictory, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[6]. He tends to appeal to experience and example in the place of rigorous logical analysis, according to The Stanford Encyclopedia. In this way he is not dissimilar to Donald Trump. In fact, the Encyclopedia says that the terms “Machiavellian” or “Machiavellism” find regular use among philosophers concerned with a range of ethical, political, and psychological phenomena. People who are concerned about Trump also are concerned with these issues.[7]
It is likely that the features described in the Dark Triad capture much of the darkness that we are describing. History seems to be repeating itself. This one trait alone, Machiavellianism, would provide the reason why many people are distrustful, suspicious and skeptical of others. It is one of the reasons why alienation has been prominent in our society. We avoid manipulative, deceitful people more than ever.
The lack of openness from those with the Dark Triad brings about a lack of authenticity, one of the characteristics that brings mental health to us. Authenticity provides the comfort that comes from self-acceptance. Not struggling to be something one is not can transform our experience of the world. McNulty says that authentic living leads to better health, being correlated with higher self-esteem, psychological well-being and happiness.[8] It in fact has been found to be integral to our well-being. That feeling brings brightness into our life. The lack of authenticity, then, brings a significant portion of the darkness and an emotional struggle for many who become lonely and alienated. In combination with the other two in the Dark Triad, psychopathy (or sociopathy) and narcissism, Machiavellianism certainly also bring much of the darkness into society in the times we are living in, as it blocks and inhibits intimacy. Indeed, avoiding intimacy in relationships has dated back to at least the 1990’s if not earlier than that. People become alienated from each other and need to connect in positive ways instead.
The darkness was worsened even more by the tragic events and deaths in the terrorist attack on America on 9/11 in 2001, and was likely accelerated by the darkness that occurred in the years that followed 9/11. The many atrocities in the first decade of the new century, such as the debacle of War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and corruption involved in financial scandals, as well as mass shootings continued the darkness for almost the entire decade. More people may have developed suspicion and distrust and so avoided other more than before, in reaction to the Dark Triad. The country’s dark mood probably transmitted these traumatic emotions of fear, dread, worry and panic from those wars, the corruption and mass shootings through contagion, resulting in an increase of the dark mood of the whole country.
The dark mood would have come from the number of deaths. Over 7,000 U.S. service members have been killed since 9/11, in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 4,400 in Iraq alone (Council of Foreign Relations, 2022),[10] and over 30,000 have died of suicide since returning from post-9/11 war duties (Brown University, 2021) [11]
War does not help change beliefs for the better. Wars darken emotions because thousands of humans are injured or killed. Wars are brought about by emotions when people and leaders of countries feel threatened and get revengeful and then want power, dominate and smother the threatening country. Beliefs can be changed for the better without war. But war usually darkens emotions for most.
The mood may have darkened more, as well as dividing the country, in the next decade, in the years from 2011 to 2020. Although much positivity entered the mood of the country after the election of the first Black president, Barack Obama, the underground of the country had laid in dormancy for these eight years, until Donald Trump was elected president, although not with a plurality of votes. The darkness returned even stronger then, as susceptible people who felt left out when Obama was elected seemed to absorb the dark emotions of Donald Trump’s inaugural speech. White supremacists paraded and chanted in support of Trump as Heather Heyer was killed.
This reflects the darker emotional state of the population and continued the rise of emotional contagion in triggering and spiking this darker emotional state. It again seemed to go in circular causality, as mass shootings and killings increased as the darker mood was already upon the country, resulting in an even darker mood. This heightened emotions and contributed to the rise of anxiety. People became more fearful and isolated. This resulted in higher costs to society through emotional crimes, as previously law-abiding people found their emotions rising so high that sometimes deaths from impulsive gunshots happened at the front door. This reflects a serious increase in anxiety, along with a rise in anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medication use not just in reaction to trauma and atrocities, but during lockdowns in the pandemic. Some people see depression as despair, which it sometimes is, but it may not always just be despair. It is our reaction to the atrocities.
However, psychiatry foolishly sees depression purely as a biochemical entity and do not connect this with the darkness prevailing in society. Some professionals have called depression bio-psycho-social, but let’s not kid ourselves, the main treatment from psychiatrists has been biochemical, through anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications. And of course, psychiatry is so blind and near-sighted, that they don’t see the obvious, that the psycho-social aspects descroibed here caused it. But since psychiatrists are blinded by confirmation bias they won’t see it this way. They are blinded by their own narrow thinking. They can’t see that you can’t treat darkness in society that brings forth the dark emotions and moods with medication. Depression develops through suppressed anger, cynicism, helplessness and related states that comes from these emotions described above. They develop in reaction to tactless and often abusive interpersonal and societal behaviors from controllig, manipulative people in the Dark Triad. And depression comes and spreads as a result of emotional and social contagion, because of increased cynicism, helplessness, suspicion and pessimism which become contagious. People already feeling these feelings mildly absorb them from others who also feel them, and it strengthens and spreads. Many people may think privately and subconsciously that if someone else feels this feeling, then it must be an acceptable feeling to feel, so they may absorb it even more, so these states increase in intensity, breadth and scope.
Medication can’t stop contagion. But when people think it does and continue to use it, then they don’t see the true cause, the dark mood spreading through society from the many atrocities, unnecessary killings, wars, instances of corruption, political chaos and other tragedies. These raise fear and despair. But when we as a society don’t see this as the cause and think it is biochemical, we don’t realize the emotional impact of the darkness in our mood, which comes from the atrocities. We think the cause is biochemical when that is only true for a few. Otherwise, people will be calmed and feel brightened without realizing that the emotional peaks are flying high and running rampant in society. Dysfunctional attitudes and behavior reacted with the Dark Triad, as well as all the social inequities, like crime, unemployment, digitalization, connected with the political and social turmoil of our times, produce the darkness. As this occurs, the individuals on anti-depressants again absorb this darkness, feel left out of the good things that happen to others, become depressed again, and need their medication increased because they think it is their biochemistry that causes it. They do not see the darkness but they feel it and absorb it.
Emotions dominate in politics; they are strong but really are an invisible storm. Few people recognize them, although Donald Trump elicits dark emotions and produces turmoil and divisiveness. They are hidden in news articles and take a toll but are rarely recognized because emotions are invisible. Nevertheless they add to a worsening mental illness in society. Emotions fly high and people get more medicated, in a never-ending cycle. This adds to the emotional turmoil in the world. You can’t have turmoil and chaos without emotion, and yet few people understand that the turmoil cannot be medicated away without correcting the cause of the darkness. Without identifying the cause, that causes the dark emotions to grow.
We are human beings with emotions and expectations of fairness. We are likely to experience dark emotions when things don’t go right in life-and-death scenarios, especially through neglect, corruption or incompetence related to political appointments. We get very angry, then pessimistic and cynical if we are on the losing side. There are many controversial topics, like abortion, vaccinations, corruption, racism, police brutality and others that make us cynical. The emotional effects stay with us. They spike our emotions toward darkness.
It is the emotions that talk in our volatile times, not the issues. The emotions are inside the people who react to the issues. The issues are abstract concepts that affect people, but it is the emotions inside people that hurt. And when they spill over they can drive actions such as shootings that cause mayhem. This means the unregulated emotion that results drives chaotic behavior. This influences our politics and causes divisiveness, through the negative circular causality of blame, conflict and judgment. The susceptible people absorb these dark emotions which makes it worse in those individuals, who then act it out, though shootings, fighting, firings and breakups done in the midst of chaos, as well as trends like cancel culture, public shaming and wokeism, and arguments over them, which harshly judge and dismiss valuable citizens. We need to regulate our emotions instead, through emotional awareness. The country has an emotional illness.
We need to lower the spike of the toxic dark emotions around us, then people won’t need alcohol, street drugs and pharmaceuticals to calm their nerves. However, few realize this and emotions run higher in society and people think they need more anti-depressants and more anti-anxiety medication. It blinds us to the cause and the solution. The solution is to reduce the spread of dark emotions in society by reducing the atrocities that cause them. That involves learning how to regulate our behavior, change our actions, and learn how to cooperate. Regulating our behavior can’t be done only by slowly decreasing the the dose of the medication, although this might help. Behavior varies from moment to moment, hour to hour, situation by situation. Pills don’t account for momentary fluctuations in emotion from one part of the day to another part of the same day that stem from life stresses, arguments, and predicaments.
Otherwise, we have what seems to be a never-ending cycle which makes Big Pharma richer and depression, anxiety and other forms of mental illness worse. It is much more than just an emotional illness within a person. No wonder America is mad. This is pure insanity. America as a country has a mental illness. And medication won’t help it.
(c) Bruce Hutchison, Ph.D.
[1] https://jeannenangle.com/how-to-know-you-feel-vibes-9-things-to-notice
[2] Curtin, S. and Garnett, M. Suicide rates for people aged 10–24 increased from 2007 through 2021, while homicide rates increased from 2014 through 2021. NCH Data Brief No. 471, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db471.htm#section_1
[3] Hutchison, B. Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil. Crossfield Publishing, 2021.
[4] Hidaka, B. Depression as a disease of modernity: Explanations for increasing prevalence, Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 140, Issue 3, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2011.12.036.
[5] Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-11565-008.
[6] Nederman, Cary, “Niccolò Machiavelli”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/machiavelli/.
[7] Nederman. C. Ibid.
[8] McNulty, C. The Power of Authenticity: How Embracing Who We Are Can Promote Well-being. Linked-In. June 21, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-authenticity-how-embracing-who-we-can-promote-cara-mcnulty-dpa/
[9] Firestone, R and Catlett, J. Fear of Intimacy. American Psychological Association, 1999.
[10] Council of Foreign Relations, The Iraq War, 2003-2011. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war
[11] Costs of War, Brown University, Watson Institute. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/military/killed