Lee_from_phx
Patron with Honors
OK, so I am getting the feeling that a few people here think DM is nuts. Was he always like this or did he suddenly or slowly "go crazy"?
Miscavige is a sociopath. Contrary to popular belief this is not a psychiatric condition. It is a character flaw (and yes it is a doozy). This is not something that can be treated with therapy or medication. The reason is that a part of these people is literally missing: their capacity for empathy.
Miscavige didn't "go crazy." He is not, strictly speaking, insane. He knows right from wrong, he just doesn't care. What he is, is evil. This is a topic that most people have a hard time facing. Describing someone or something as evil has fallen out of favor. Instead they are described as "crazy" or "sick." The notion that someone can simply be evil has been all but forgotten. Everyone keeps trying to find a reason why when someone guns down their coworkers, murders a child, or otherwise does something senseless and evil. In the abscence of any rational reason, the actions of these people are ascribed to mental illness. What most people never consider is that these acts were carried out specifically because they were evil. For people like this, doing evil is an end unto itself.
Like most people of this sort, Miscavige has been this way all his life. There was no point at which something happened which made him bad. The reasons why are still unclear, but there are people who are simply born without a capacity for empathy. They learn to be charming and manipulative, but they are completely incapable of any real feelings of warmth or affection for anyone other than themselves. The most dangerous among them take genuine pleasure in causing others pain. They gravitate towards positions of power where they can hurt others without any consequences for themselves. They look for excuses and justifications that will allow them to hurt others.
All of us have encountered people like this in life, and Miscavige is a grade A textbook example of this personality type.
He is evil and that is all there is to it. There is no use trying to understand him in normal terms. Everything he does is to gain more power for himself and to cause pain and suffering to others.
In normal society this is self-limiting behavior. People like Miscavige generally wind up in prison. They indulge their desire to harm others in the wrong place and at the wrong time and wind up behind bars. But in the bizarro-world that is Scientology, Miscavige's actions went unchecked and he eventually became Big Brother.
When will it end? Who knows.