Using this foundation, we look at politics, the choices of public policies, and even decisions about war and peace as lying outside of conventional thinking about culture and history. It also means that we put ideas of civic virtue and psychopathology aside as central to understanding what leaders do and why they do it. Instead, we look at politicians as self-interested louts, just the sort of people you wouldn’t want to have over for dinner, but without whom you might not have dinner at all.
