Why I wrote this book

The Psychopath Mantra began with a question I could feel long before I had the words.

In 2005, three years before the global financial crisis, I was a senior in high school. Even though many of us were successful in getting into college, there was an undeniable feeling that the world was moving farther away. Away from our ideals. Away from reality.

MTV was beginning to abandon music. The War on Terror dragged on. Even the debauchery of The Jerry Springer Show seemed quaint by then.

On the last day of school, after our graduation rehearsal, someone approached me and said, “No matter what happens, never change.”

There was a sadness in her voice, as if she were clinging to the last shred of nobility in the world. It made sense to me. It made sense to all of us. The world was becoming cruel beyond reason, and cruelty had become the new standard of beauty.

You couldn’t smile too much. You couldn’t be honest. You couldn’t truly believe in anything. You couldn’t afford to be naive—not with society, and not even with yourself. It wasn’t just that deception was becoming fashionable—it felt like everything was being replaced.

Jobs, values, people.

As a former executive I knew would say with vicious glee: No one is indispensable.

We found ourselves fighting for meaning in places where meaning never existed. By leading us down this path, a small group of people amassed unimaginable wealth and power.

This book was my attempt to understand how we got here. But instead of looking outward through the lens of ideology, I wanted to look within.

Before The Mantra took shape, I had the idea of a dystopian scenario: A perfect “meritocracy” where people are required to become psychopaths—or be replaced by an all-powerful hive mind. While it may be difficult to imagine a “utopia” of psychopaths, that future is not far away. When having a good life requires negotiating against your conscience, goodness can vanish altogether. As I fleshed out the story, which became Alien Nation, I asked myself: What kind of motivational text would a society like this require its citizens to read? The result seemed inevitable. A reversal of stoic philosophy, turning the noble idea of acceptance in the face of mortality on its head, making it a means to an end. The satire may be lost on the citizens of Anthem, but it would (hopefully) be apparent to us in the present day.

Put another way, this is How to Win Friends & Influence People, as written by the ruling class.

The power of the status quo does not merely reside in its ability to oppress. In fact, some might say that oppression can be brought on willingly by the subject. Or that it is a necessary feature of a functional society. Indeed, we’re so entrenched in debating the merits of ideology one must wonder if this has always been the outcome intended by the status quo. For in the end, there’s nothing more powerful than a persistent conflict that cannot be won.

So then, is there nobility in resisting change? Is it immoral to wield power when the fight is over meaning itself?

If we’re condemned to “resist” tyranny forever, I’m afraid the future has already come to pass. And the meaning of those questions would be lost forever. Indeed, the end goal of the ruling class is the death of meaning. But we know, through the sheer conviction of belief, that life is worth living because meaning is self-evident. One doesn’t need professional credentials to hold this belief. One doesn’t need the approval of gatekeepers to see the world through clear eyes.

I believe we are all in search of meaning, and this quest will restore nobility to the world.

Thank you for reading. May our wisdom always endure.