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I don't have NEARLY enough entries about sociopaths.
A random OOC-note conversation with Yue led me to start digging for more dissections of Martha Stout's A Sociopath Next Door. I know I've seen some critical analysis by actual professionals that is absolutely AMAZING, but tonight I'm kind of tired, so I really didn't look much farther than Amazon.com (SO REPUTABLE, I KNOW). But I did find one review that pretty much sums up ALL of my feelings on the subject:
Most Oprah-friendly psycho-babble is relatively harmless, but this book equips the multitude of middle-minded armchair psychologists who've experienced corporate downsizing or bad break-ups with little more than emotionally charged popcorn science that can (and undoubtedly will) be used for inappropriate slander. It is the stuff of witch hunts -- that Stout takes the time to lament the Salem witch trials in one of her many pointless digressions is an upsetting irony.
More upsetting is her tacit authorization of a lynch mob mentality. She uses an Inuit custom to illustrate her point that sociopathy may be an irredeemable state. The concept of 'kunlangeta' within the Inuit society parallels sociopathy. These individuals -- regardless of their mental disorder -- are subject to the lowest form of justice and systematically executed. The Inuit may assume that 'kunlangeta' is irremediable, but that is hardly an excuse for their murderous custom. The fact that she does not condemn such behavior is shocking.
With sweeping generalizations and fear-mongering, she defines an entire class of people as sub-human, beyond any form of redemption or rehabilitation, apparently worthy of extermination. This is an eerie tactic, made more corrupt as she curses the names of history's mass murderers while relying on their methodology to craft her message.
Her arguments are emotional. Her statistics are soft. Her evidence is anecdotal. Alarmist moralizing sophistry may very well be the recipe for a best-seller, but as a woman of science, it is irresponsible work. She may be a well-credentialed expert, and her extrapolations may ultimately prove correct. Her book, however, is little more than exploitation.
If this topic is of interest to you, start with Robert Hare's far superior book, "Without Conscience".
-----------------
If you like simplistic white-hat, black-hat moralizing dressed up in pseudo-scientific posturing, this book is for you. In it, Martha Stout will tell you that there are people who are good, hard-working and caring, and then there are people who are just plain evil, conscienceless and cruel. And they're all around us! Look out! One might be behind you right now!
Stout conceives of a world where pretty much any bad deed-- murder, rape, infidelity, genocide, theft, lying, you name it-- it's all the product of sociopathy. Stout identifies an incredibly large numbers of historical villains as being sociopaths. Not that there's any way to really know, considering that these people aren't around to undergo psychological testing. But Stout is sure they are, because they fit her profile, and they seem "bad".
The fact of the matter is, every day, people show incredibly cruelty to each other as acts of conscience. People kill and maim and hurt each other ever day because the think it is the right thing to do. Stout cites September 11th over and over and over again (to the point of absolutely cheapening the reference). Osama bin Ladin is her sociopathic extreme. But that ignores the fact that bin Ladin, who is an abominable murderer and horrendous person, did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do.
The truth is that the world isn't divided between good and evil, and it's not divided between sociopaths and the rest of us. The world is full of people who will all tell you that they are acting out of righeousness as they commit acts of immorality. There isn't simple black and white, predator and prey relationships in the world, but real people, beating against each other, caught in conflicts of ideology and politics. You don't need to create alarmist tales of boogeymen to understand the cruelty of the world. People of conscience do more than enough damage themselves, thanks.
What's most disturbing about the book, though, is the utter lack of any compassion for these people, this "4%" of society, that Stout describes. In the book she specifically says that the condition is largely genetic, and that most of the psychological dimension is brought on by childhood trauma. So in other words, these people have no control whatsoever over their condition. Now, they can control their behavior; but to Stout, this is not enough. Once a sociopath, to her, always a sociopath. There can't be any fate for these people, apparently, except fulfilling their "evil" natures.
She offers no solutions for these people, no idea of what we should do with them. And we need to know what to do with these people, if her absurd, Manichean view of the world is correct. Not against them; not what to do to protect ourselves from them, but for them, with them. I've looked and looked and looked and I can't find a single word-- not one word-- of compassion for this 4% of the population. Not an whisper of sympathy for people who are, she admits, deeply handicapped. By her own statistics, there are millions of these people in our country alone. And yet she washes her hands of all of them.
What kind of a conscience is this, that writes off millions of people? What kind of morally superior being effectively condemns one out of twenty-five people? What does Stout propose we do? March these people of to the camps? I don't want any part of that, thank you. I won't stand with a person or a book that flagrantly dismisses the lives of millions.
But wait! Maybe if I don't like her book, I'm a sociopath too!
-----------------
Dr. Stout's book does a tremendous disservice to humanity and to the field of psychology with this shallow and sensationalized "study" of sociopathy. Her book is a call to judgement: she irresponsibly urges readers to diagnose and condemn the people in their lives, and shows no compassion for the nuances and complexity of the human psyche. The sociopathic examples she writes about play out like one-dimensional cartoon characters lurking in the shadows and dropping anvils onto innocent passersby. Would that Dr. Stout had used her experience and pedigree to consruct something helpful; unfortunately she chose an approach that is truly WITHOUT CONSCIENCE.
Anyone interested in this subject would be much better informed by reading M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie.
-----------------
Psychopaths tend not to feel fear, and sociopaths usually don't feel guilt. There are lots of people out there who have tendencies of both diseases, but do not technically qualify for the diagnosis. There's a branch of mild schizophrenia (so mild that most people will never guess you have it) that causes emotional detachment. I know someone who literally cannot empathize with someone she hasn't personally met, yet is fiercely loyal and understanding of her friends. I also know a guy who can empathize with animals, but not most humans (except like his parents and girlfriend). It happens. Both of these people are good people, and they don't go out of their way to hurt or manipulate others. They just have emotional limitations. Even for people who do meet the diagnosis, their condition is not a virtue, but a handicap. There are many emotions they can still feel: anger, sadness, love. It makes personal relationships very hard. Imagine being able to love someone, and to hurt them, unintentionally. They can tearfully explain why it is that you hurt them, but you'll have a very hard time understanding, because you can't empathize with them. This may lead your partner to believe you don't love them, or care about how they feel, which is not true. You're just UNABLE to feel their pain.
Most of these people are normal people leading normal lives. There are plenty of people out there with no hint of sociopathic tendencies who cause plenty of pain for others. I know it is tempting and comforting to assume that al the evil in our world today is the result of people who aren't ike us, who don't feel like we do, but this just isn't true. Those who do the most ill are people just like you and me, who chose to be evil because they could, not because they were born that way.
^ That one makes very similar points to an article I read that was written by a PhD., SO EVEN THOUGH IT'S FROM AMAZON THE IDEAS HAVE CRED, YO.
-----------------
EXACTLY THIS. All of this. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
Most Oprah-friendly psycho-babble is relatively harmless, but this book equips the multitude of middle-minded armchair psychologists who've experienced corporate downsizing or bad break-ups with little more than emotionally charged popcorn science that can (and undoubtedly will) be used for inappropriate slander. It is the stuff of witch hunts -- that Stout takes the time to lament the Salem witch trials in one of her many pointless digressions is an upsetting irony.
More upsetting is her tacit authorization of a lynch mob mentality. She uses an Inuit custom to illustrate her point that sociopathy may be an irredeemable state. The concept of 'kunlangeta' within the Inuit society parallels sociopathy. These individuals -- regardless of their mental disorder -- are subject to the lowest form of justice and systematically executed. The Inuit may assume that 'kunlangeta' is irremediable, but that is hardly an excuse for their murderous custom. The fact that she does not condemn such behavior is shocking.
With sweeping generalizations and fear-mongering, she defines an entire class of people as sub-human, beyond any form of redemption or rehabilitation, apparently worthy of extermination. This is an eerie tactic, made more corrupt as she curses the names of history's mass murderers while relying on their methodology to craft her message.
Her arguments are emotional. Her statistics are soft. Her evidence is anecdotal. Alarmist moralizing sophistry may very well be the recipe for a best-seller, but as a woman of science, it is irresponsible work. She may be a well-credentialed expert, and her extrapolations may ultimately prove correct. Her book, however, is little more than exploitation.
If this topic is of interest to you, start with Robert Hare's far superior book, "Without Conscience".
-----------------
If you like simplistic white-hat, black-hat moralizing dressed up in pseudo-scientific posturing, this book is for you. In it, Martha Stout will tell you that there are people who are good, hard-working and caring, and then there are people who are just plain evil, conscienceless and cruel. And they're all around us! Look out! One might be behind you right now!
Stout conceives of a world where pretty much any bad deed-- murder, rape, infidelity, genocide, theft, lying, you name it-- it's all the product of sociopathy. Stout identifies an incredibly large numbers of historical villains as being sociopaths. Not that there's any way to really know, considering that these people aren't around to undergo psychological testing. But Stout is sure they are, because they fit her profile, and they seem "bad".
The fact of the matter is, every day, people show incredibly cruelty to each other as acts of conscience. People kill and maim and hurt each other ever day because the think it is the right thing to do. Stout cites September 11th over and over and over again (to the point of absolutely cheapening the reference). Osama bin Ladin is her sociopathic extreme. But that ignores the fact that bin Ladin, who is an abominable murderer and horrendous person, did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do.
The truth is that the world isn't divided between good and evil, and it's not divided between sociopaths and the rest of us. The world is full of people who will all tell you that they are acting out of righeousness as they commit acts of immorality. There isn't simple black and white, predator and prey relationships in the world, but real people, beating against each other, caught in conflicts of ideology and politics. You don't need to create alarmist tales of boogeymen to understand the cruelty of the world. People of conscience do more than enough damage themselves, thanks.
What's most disturbing about the book, though, is the utter lack of any compassion for these people, this "4%" of society, that Stout describes. In the book she specifically says that the condition is largely genetic, and that most of the psychological dimension is brought on by childhood trauma. So in other words, these people have no control whatsoever over their condition. Now, they can control their behavior; but to Stout, this is not enough. Once a sociopath, to her, always a sociopath. There can't be any fate for these people, apparently, except fulfilling their "evil" natures.
She offers no solutions for these people, no idea of what we should do with them. And we need to know what to do with these people, if her absurd, Manichean view of the world is correct. Not against them; not what to do to protect ourselves from them, but for them, with them. I've looked and looked and looked and I can't find a single word-- not one word-- of compassion for this 4% of the population. Not an whisper of sympathy for people who are, she admits, deeply handicapped. By her own statistics, there are millions of these people in our country alone. And yet she washes her hands of all of them.
What kind of a conscience is this, that writes off millions of people? What kind of morally superior being effectively condemns one out of twenty-five people? What does Stout propose we do? March these people of to the camps? I don't want any part of that, thank you. I won't stand with a person or a book that flagrantly dismisses the lives of millions.
But wait! Maybe if I don't like her book, I'm a sociopath too!
-----------------
Dr. Stout's book does a tremendous disservice to humanity and to the field of psychology with this shallow and sensationalized "study" of sociopathy. Her book is a call to judgement: she irresponsibly urges readers to diagnose and condemn the people in their lives, and shows no compassion for the nuances and complexity of the human psyche. The sociopathic examples she writes about play out like one-dimensional cartoon characters lurking in the shadows and dropping anvils onto innocent passersby. Would that Dr. Stout had used her experience and pedigree to consruct something helpful; unfortunately she chose an approach that is truly WITHOUT CONSCIENCE.
Anyone interested in this subject would be much better informed by reading M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie.
-----------------
Psychopaths tend not to feel fear, and sociopaths usually don't feel guilt. There are lots of people out there who have tendencies of both diseases, but do not technically qualify for the diagnosis. There's a branch of mild schizophrenia (so mild that most people will never guess you have it) that causes emotional detachment. I know someone who literally cannot empathize with someone she hasn't personally met, yet is fiercely loyal and understanding of her friends. I also know a guy who can empathize with animals, but not most humans (except like his parents and girlfriend). It happens. Both of these people are good people, and they don't go out of their way to hurt or manipulate others. They just have emotional limitations. Even for people who do meet the diagnosis, their condition is not a virtue, but a handicap. There are many emotions they can still feel: anger, sadness, love. It makes personal relationships very hard. Imagine being able to love someone, and to hurt them, unintentionally. They can tearfully explain why it is that you hurt them, but you'll have a very hard time understanding, because you can't empathize with them. This may lead your partner to believe you don't love them, or care about how they feel, which is not true. You're just UNABLE to feel their pain.
Most of these people are normal people leading normal lives. There are plenty of people out there with no hint of sociopathic tendencies who cause plenty of pain for others. I know it is tempting and comforting to assume that al the evil in our world today is the result of people who aren't ike us, who don't feel like we do, but this just isn't true. Those who do the most ill are people just like you and me, who chose to be evil because they could, not because they were born that way.
^ That one makes very similar points to an article I read that was written by a PhD., SO EVEN THOUGH IT'S FROM AMAZON THE IDEAS HAVE CRED, YO.
-----------------
EXACTLY THIS. All of this. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
no subject
Actually, I was talking about disorders along Asperger's or other types of disorders that they have and feel emotions but most people don't get to see that and then think 'they're so angry or blah or whatever all the time' since they don't have the skills to show that emotion correctly. I don't do as much research into pyschology as you so forgive me if I'm misreading this but a common person can and will mistake 'supposedly' unresponsiveness as a lack of emotions or 'eccentricness'. Again, I know that you know a lot more about this sort of thing that I do but yeah...
no subject