A Thought on Psychological Confidence and Weakness
I've noticed that powerful, brilliant, and perceptive people can also be driven by evil. Sects, religions, groups, foundations, institutions, parties, and art movements all claim to be the answer to bad people, yet they all have them in their folds. Something else is driving bad people who otherwise have pristine credentials. I believe they don't have a healthy and flourishing psychology, more specifically, they are driven by envy, rage, fear, or insecurity. They don't have deeply rooted psychological confidence.
Appeals to reason, logic, propriety, fairness, goodness, the children, or reality don't have any affect on bad people, even, exposing contradictions by their own stated beliefs. It is their unaware retarded emotional growth that becomes the driving force of their motivations. I don't mean backward people that have very little impact on others, rather I mean leaders, directors, artists, and powerfully influential people. Their positions of power, will not tell you if they are good or not. When important people do not make sense in their behavior, look to their psychological weaknesses to understand what makes them tick.
Over 2,000 years ago Aristotle developed the concept of eudaemonia, it is the concept of human flourishing and happiness integrated within the reality of the situation. It was/is incredibly insightful of human nature, practical, and forward-looking.
Frame of References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia
Interesting perspective that I don't fully agree with is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Psychological Motivation Rabbit Hole: https://positivepsychology.com/motivation-theories-psychology/
Rand, Ayn. Sense of Life: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sense_of_life.html
Good overview of motivation, but missing both Rand's and Aristotle's takes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation