If you’ve ever known anybody with a personality disorder that inclines them toward manipulative behavior, you may have noticed that one of the main things they manipulate in people is their sympathy. They do everything they can to draw as much sympathy toward themselves while working to kill off any sympathy that people might have toward their perceived enemies. They’ll sacrifice almost any piece on their psychosocial chessboard in order to control a bit more of the sympathy among the people in their life.

They do this because sympathy is a fundamental primer for narrative control. If you sympathize with someone, you are much more likely to  believe the things they say and trust their narratives about what’s going on. If you lack sympathy for someone, then anything they say is going to be viewed with much more skepticism.

The real currency of our world is not money or resources, nor gold, nor even weapons. The real currency of our world is narrative and the ability to control it, because if you can control the narrative, you can control everyone.

Caitlin Johnstone