In Sky TV’s serialised remake of the classic film The Day of The Jackal, the lead character, The Jackal, played by Eddie Redmayne, is a bumbling, extremely socially awkward, conversationally incompetent, privileged, entitled, self-centred posh boy. And a stone-cold killer. It is the first two of the characteristics I listed that cause the problems for those in his life because psychologically and emotionally healthy people are wired to sympathise with people displaying these unfortunate qualities. Over 90 percent of people we deal with in life can appropriately accept normal human kindness and concern. But human jackals are different – to them, kindness is weakness, and weakness is to be dominated. And because we are (in this regard at least) normal, we are not able to anticipate the behaviour of a jackal.

In the TV series, the Jackal character is mirrored by a nemesis at MI6 named Bianca (who lives in North Kensington, a continuing thread on this website you’ll have noticed) played by Lashana Lynch. Bianca’s trajectory parallels the Jackal’s as she goes to a workaholic extreme in her obsessive pursuit of success in the manhunt. But Bianca retains a capacity for empathy. For the Jackal, and for the jackals in our lives, empathy is cumbersome and is therefore discarded.

Human jackals can act without internal reference to normal morality or social convention – these things are dropped as required. Unlike the TV Jackal, the jackals that cause chaos for us are usually cowardly. They act from an existential fear that dominates their every instinct.

Seeking approval and cover from authority figures, jackals turn unsuspecting or amoral professionals into the unwitting enablers of a victim narrative that is central to a jackal’s insatiable narcissism. Police, teachers, solicitors, and the whole range of people employed in the caring, protecting sectors of the economy – charities, housing officers, advocates of all kinds – are manipulated into allyship by the jackals. This has created numerous subindustries and vocations in Britain as jackals grift their way through life while bolstering the job security of those working in the miserable Family Courts system and the social housing rat race. It paid for the Christmases of countless unscrupulous lawyers.

Towards people who are paid to be empathic, the jackals are not anti-social. They are victims, they are charming, and they are a dopamine hit. They save their anti-social personalities for those they can render weak. Control is a jackal’s singular aim and they possess an ability to switch from victim to bully on a dime. From bumbling toff to ruthless assassin.

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles