A recent CIA recruitment video valorized the Cluster B traits of narcissistic identity obsession, self-righteousness, and craving for affirmation. “I am a woman of color. I am a mom. I am a cisgender millennial who has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder,” intones the featured CIA analyst as the camera pans over her diversity awards. “I used to struggle with impostor syndrome, but at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided, patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be.”In a Cluster B society, psychological disorders are job qualifications rather than problems to be solved; ideology replaces competence as a marker of distinction.

There is a creeping sense that our society has turned upside-down. Healthy debate is replaced by activist hysterics. Speech is declared violence; violence is excused as speech. Masculinity is condemned as “toxic,” while men in dresses are celebrated in the public square. It feels as if we are in the midst of a society-wide mental breakdown.

One might be tempted to laugh at these manifestations as the outbursts of small but vocal minority, but the compromised health of our body politic is no trivial concern. A strange new pattern of psychological dysfunction has infiltrated all our institutions, from humdrum bureaucracies to the highest offices. Wherever we turn, that creeping feeling sets in: our society is sick; our institutions are out of balance; our public life has been consumed by a cluster of disorders that appeal to our worst instincts and derange our most vital social functions.

What happened? Why have old standards suddenly vanished in favor of narcissism, psychodrama, and moral theatrics—all in the name of “care”?

If we have any hope for recovering our sanity, we must first understand what we are dealing with.

Every historical period develops unique psychological characteristics that shape public life. After World War I, we had the “Lost Generation,” shell-shocked and disillusioned. In the mid-twentieth century, we entered the “Age of Anxiety,” characterized by a sense of existential dread in the face of the atomic bomb. And 50 years ago, we saw the rise of “the culture of narcissism,” which social critic Christopher Lasch described as a society obsessed with ego, desire, and self-image.

Today, we are witnessing the emergence of something new: the “Cluster B society.” Like the culture of narcissism, our digital age has distinct psychological traits, heavily influenced by the rise of personal pathologies and the power of social media. For this generation, the cameras are always on. The audience is always watching. And the old narcissism has transformed into frenzy, moral theatrics, emotional volatility, self-indulgence, and outbursts of violence.

Psychologists have captured the spirit of our modern culture in four specific psychopathologies that, together, make up the Cluster B personality disorders: the narcissist, the borderline, the histrionic, and the antisocial. (They also identify Cluster A and Cluster C groupings of personality disorders.)

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by a sense of entitlement, obsession with one’s own importance, and deep feelings of resentment, often expressed through moral self-righteousness. Borderline personality disorder is marked by an unstable sense of identity, black-and-white thinking, feelings of emptiness, and recurring self-harm and suicide attempts. Histrionic personality disorder exhibits excessive emotionality, sexual provocation, and attention-seeking, often to serve a pathological need for sympathy. Antisocial personality disorder is typified by impulsivity, manipulation, disregard for others, and a penchant for violence and aggression that violates social norms.

This cluster of psychopathologies is no longer an individual matter, however, to be dealt with in the privacy of the analyst’s office. On the contrary, Cluster B psychological traits have begun to shape the patterns and structures of our culture. The scenes of American public life increasingly resemble a Cluster B psychodrama: victimhood replaces accomplishment as the standard of merit; accusation replaces disagreement as the means of settling disputes; false compassion becomes the primary method of manipulating citizens into compliance; and the whole scheme is enforced with the threat of violence: obey, or suffer the consequences.

For most of American history, significant personality disorders were treated as problems and their sufferers largely relegated to the fringes of society. But in the emerging Cluster B society, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, and antisocial psychological traits can now be found in those elevated to positions of power and celebrated by our institutions. The new status quo is an emerging leadership class that rules through emotional blackmail and uses the cover of various “victim” groups to impose its agenda on society. If citizens dissent, they are branded hateful bigots, accused of lacking empathy, and sometimes banished from public life. 

While these strategies are contemptible, they are also extraordinarily effective in controlling what we think, what we say, and how we act. And they have slowly transformed our institutions into what psychologist Andrzej Łobaczewski calls a “pathocracy,” or rule by psychological dysfunction. This has become our new social order. Once a thoughtful observer internalizes this phenomenon, he will start to see it everywhere: the Cluster B traits have been formalized and entrenched in our human resource departments, government policies, cultural institutions, and civil rights laws.

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