Monday, October 26, 2015

Sociopaths on television: Doctor Who

From a reader:

I suspect you've heard this from many, but the latest Doctor Who seems to have borrowed not only your style but your name. You really might value seeing the latest episode, "The Woman Who Lived", about an involuntarily immortal woman who has lived so long she has ceased to feel or care, and who happens to be a thrill~seeking, nihilistic, face~changing highwayman in a mask. Being Doctor Who, the romantic morality goes places I would prefer it didn't, but Ashildr/Me is still a fascinating portrait.

DOCTOR: Anyone in that village would have died for you.
ME: Well, they're all dead now, and here I am. So, I guess it all worked out.

DOCTOR: Ashildr...

ME: That's not my name. I don't even remember that name.

DOCTOR: Well, what... what do you call yourself?

ME: "Me".

DOCTOR: Yes, you, there's nobody else here.

ME: No, I call myself "Me". All the other names I chose died with whoever knew me. "Me" is who I am now. No one's mother, daughter, wife. My own companion. Singular. Unattached. Alone. Anyway, I should get started. Jump on, I'll give you a ride. You can help me.

You can find the episode here:
https://www.animmex.com/video/10635/doctor-who-2005-s09e06-the-woman-who-lived

​~~~

​I read your book two years ago, and it started a process of self~understanding which has finally brought peace and sense to a perplexing life. In the process, I've gained an education in psychology and the diversities of the human condition more valuable than my degree in philosophy. Thank you.

I'm an escort, dominatrix, and live~in mistress, residing in a tolerant country which allows me a more~or~less openly antisocial lifestyle. I feel next to nothing for others, and in what people call morality I experience as something like a logical fallacy. I live a reasonably peaceful life entertaining people, but I think I could commit genocide and feel only curiosity, power, and excitement. "I am my freedom", to quote Sartre, and I would not wish it any other way.

[Continue on for spoilers]

in case you haven't seen the episode I should warn you (I didn't want to spoil), that the episode suddenly pulls Me's sociopathic personality at the last possible moment.

"Redeeming", softening, or retconning evidently sociopathic characters (Sherlock, Dexter, Rick from Rick and Morty, Capaldi's Doctor from last season) seems to be a thing television writers feel compelled to do. Just like lesbians used to be portrayed as going straight once they find the right man, and Jews were once supposed to convert to Christianity by the end of the play.

10 comments:

  1. That would be really interesting if it were an intentional reference to you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "what people call morality I experience as something like a logical fallacy."

    The commonly held Western bases of morality amount to authority. When that authority is questioned, systems of morality do seem non-sensical or redundant.

    The incidence of psychopathy / sociopathy presents a valuable opportunity. Taking a scientific perspective on morality for once, we have further datapoints to the range of human moral responses.

    Science is well placed for this task because it examines what *is* rather than *what should be* and is hence outside morality (at least insofar as the aims of the discipline's project go.)

    I think it makes far more sense to consider the biological (and hence evolutionary) bases for sociality and social systems than to contrive an understanding via the various moral systems.

    "What I do know sir, is that man is more preoccupied with the IDEA of morality than with the acts of 'morality' themselves" ~ Christopher S. Hyatt

    "We're all wild animals, brother" ~ Jake, Adventure Time, a most astute pronouncement.

    To follow the rules for the sake of the rules or for the guardians of their sanctity might very well be to thwart oneself. As a Way of living, moral systems are unsatisfactory. Instead, within our organisms we have the tools we need to navigate safely through our social existence. This approach is more in alignment with the ancient Chinese Dao.

    I'm interested to hear more of your thoughts on Sartre as a person and as a philosopher.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Does anybody have any suggestions here on how we can encourage
    people how to commit suicide in a friendly way?
    I have a heart. I believe that people-even sociopaths-should be gently guided
    to annhalition.
    It's easy to get whinny empath to end it. My last sucess was a middle aged
    woman in a declining neighborhood. I made sure she heard: "It's A Rainy Night
    In Georgia" by Brook Benton (1970) over and over. I wanted the message to
    sink in. It's a wistful song about the futility of life: An improvished hobo climbs
    abourd a boxcar and strums to a photo of his girlfriend:
    "How many times I've wondered,
    It still comes out the same
    No matter how you look at it or think of it
    It's life and you've got to play the game...

    But it's a rainy night in Georgia. Such a rainy night in Georgia.
    It feels like it's raining all over the world.
    Did you ever get the feeling it was raining all over this man's
    world?

    Basically, the idea is to remove hope, and to get them to see the fultility of life;
    that it really is "a meaningless inturruption to non existence.
    With consistant effort, it's easy to discourage the Empath.
    A sociopath would NEVER "fall" for the above song, because the have no
    sentementality. So, how do you persuade the sociopath to end it?
    The best way is to deprive them of hope.
    Eternal boredom! That's their vulnerabilty. Give them no way out of enforced
    routine. They'll try to escape it. Go off, and KILL. Then THEY will be killed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shut the fuck up, Loonie Lonnie. Do you honestly think that everyone else lives such a miserable, hopeless wreck of an existence that they're a few melancholic lyrics away from offing themselves? Hahaha. You are so lost in your warped little mind that you are a seemingly endless fount of inanity.

      If you think "having a heart" means sucking someone else into the quagmire of your self-imposed Pity Party of Despair, then I'd say your far crazier than any psycho that frequents this blog. But I'm not going to give you even that much credit, because you're an idiot if you expect us to believe that you possess the manipulative ability to steal candy from a toddler, let alone convince some sorry old hag to kill herself because you play some outdated old song, over and over again, LOL. If she killed herself, I would be inclined to say that she did so to get away from you- but that would mean I *don't* think you're full of shit. ;)

      Delete
    2. It looks like Anon "in 4:55" bites the dust (all empty-handed). Yes, the one in the bag.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8pC8iYQSXI

      Delete
    3. Look at you, using a tried-and-true method to garner attention by writing about a controversial topic and claiming that you're indirectly responsible for the death of another.

      Well, far be it from me to disregard your desperation.

      If you wish to ensure the death of another, then I suggest you deal with the matter personally. If you want a sociopath to kill him/herself, then good luck. It is generally known that our lot have a distinct absence of pesky emotions and therefore are less likely to act on emotional impulses. However, if you know of a particularly egotistical sociopath, you could try to convince him/her to participate in an activity with a higher-than-average mortality rate. Such examples may include mountaineering, skydiving, underwater welder for ships, Army or Marine Corps infantryman (more likely to be killed by insurgents), Navy sailor attached to a ship (more likely to kill themselves), scuba diving or free-diving in caves, riding a motorcycle (especially in densely populated areas), etc. Or, if a specific intended victim lives in WA, OR or CA and has a terminal illness, you could encourage them to consider Physician-Assisted Suicide, since it's legal in those states.

      Please don't hesitate to update us regarding your noble indirect genocide of sociopaths. We're standing by with bated breath.

      Delete
  4. Wow! Your logic is flawless! Oh wait... how exactly do you make a sociopath eternally bored? How do you do that? Also, why will they be killed if they kill? There are a lot of assumptions in there.

    I think you could have saved yourself a lot of time playing that song over and over again, as I'm pretty sure 5 mins with you would be enough to make most people end it,

    All my love,

    Adge

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe a new fictive tv-psycho called Hilder Swirtlenagger could breathe new life into the psycho-genre? "Hild" is a very "correct" character at daytime, talking endlessly, for example, about the dangers of "thoughts", because these cannot be controlled. His "dark side" is an urge to shit on revered (but somehow tainted) objects such as a covert satanists basement-altar or a photograph of mrs Nichols dead husband everybody loved (but he masturbated in front of videos of starving children). Season one: "Hild" plans a complicated "dump-raid" & at work praising women painting vaginas and calling this art..

    ReplyDelete
  6. This place is really a great experience for me as the discussion pattern is quite different and interesting than many other similar kind of blog platforms. I have looked at this content moves on how the issue is being handled and it's interesting the way you presented things throughout. I do work for a cheap essay writing service online and it brings a lot of encourage to me to write even more effectively to provide more values to the readers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Really good and interesting post! And some methods in this article can work for couples to refresh their relationship! I read another good article https://kovla.com/blog/how-to-breathe-new-life-into-the-old-relationships/ where you can find another advice! Read it too, this words can inspire you!

    ReplyDelete

Comments on posts over 14 days are SPAM filtered and may not show up right away or at all.

Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.