Journalistic justice: a parable of Jean Valjean

Those who have read or seen the various adaptations of the book Les Miserables are probably familiar with the protagonist Jean Valjean. Spoiler alert, he stole some bread, went to prison for a long time, and then was branded for life as a felon, unable to live an honest life because no one would give him a second chance. But that's not where the story stops. Instead of just submitting to his fate, he breaks his parole, changes his name and starts a new, honest life . . . until his past catches up with him, in the form of the justice-hungry watchdog Javert.

Along those same lines, I read a bizarre article in the NY Times lambasting someone who had committed a crime and then attempted to start a new life, "An Inmate and a Scholar". Apparently the triggering event for the article was that this convicted felon (whom I won't name, in an effort to avoid connecting it on Google with the term "sociopath") had published a paper in the Columbia Journal of European Law on Turkish nationals and the EU. The NY Times reporter, Alison Leigh Cowan (who seems to specialize in maligning?), does not suggest that this young man plagiarized, falsified, or otherwise misrepresented himself in the paper. Nor does she allege that he has done anything wrong in the recent past (apart from the activities leading to his conviction) so much as she insinuates that his past makes him an inappropriate candidate for a legitimate future as a barrister/scholar.

The facts of our inmate/scholar are basically these: he is the child of a conwoman. He perpetrated a Ponzi scheme at the age of 19. After a confession/conviction ("I did what I did") and serving his time, he was deported (Turkish national). Any money he earns beyond satisfying his basic needs is earmarked to repay his Ponzi scheme victims. In the decade since, he has graduated with honors from prestigious European schools. His applications to these schools were open about his past -- he referenced it in his application essays and his former lawyers wrote letters of recommendation. He did not tell everything to everyone, though, and that is not enough for our intrepid reporter.

Reporter Cowan works hard to suggest that she has caught him red-handed trying to escape from his past. For instance, she mentions that he added a middle name that is not reflected in his American official paperwork -- a clear sign that he is hiding something. She liberally quotes from classmates that found it "shocking" to learn that he an ex-con (shout out to my former classmates who may have found it "shocking" that I had been diagnosed as a sociopath, or to my gay friend's former classmates who might find it "shocking" to find that he is married to a man, or my transgender friend's former classmates who might find it "shocking" to discover that he is no longer a woman.) Despite people's alleged shock at having known an ex-con (?), none of his friends or associates suggested that he ever materially misrepresented himself. And do we have a duty to disclose everything about ourselves to everyone we meet? Cowan goes into great detail about whether or not the inmate/scholar was supposed to check a box on his school applications for certain types of past criminal convictions, but ultimately comes up with nothing, at least in my opinion. (The school defined relevant convictions as "offenses of a violent or sexual nature against a person, or something on the order of drug trafficking," and cautioned prospective students against overdisclosing in violation of the Data Protection Act of 1998). So apart from a general reluctance to expose more about his history than absolutely necessary, that's it for his bad behavior. And as one of his mentors said:

“Here’s a guy who paid a very heavy price and is trying to put his life back together. . . . It’s not that he’s averse to publicity and trying to hide . . . but he’s trying to survive.”

It's hard to read Cowan's article and not wonder what the NY Times found print-worthy about this tale. Although Cowan's reporting style is just-the-facts, it is still manipulatively written to suggest that the inmate/scholar has done something wrong in attempting to move on with his life in the way he has. And in doing so, Cowan joins other journalists (Caleb Hannan, and others) who have chosen to make torrid details of people's personal lives international news. I understand that part of journalism is incidentally ruining people's lives (interestingly, journalism is considered one of the top 10 professions for sociopaths), but there doesn't seem to be anything incidental about this (similar to the Essay Anne Vanderbilt story). Rather, ruining a life seems to be the point of this particular story. And why? This type of public shaming is even more difficult for me to understand than the typical ruin-someone's-life Twitter justice you see against people who violate social norms (possible racism and the too-soon). Is this just blatant journalistic pandering to the desire of the proletariat to be an armchair judge/jury/executioner? Or is Cowan just a Javert type who believes that people shouldn't be able to run from their past?

Why do I care about this story? There is the public shaming thing, of course, but his story speaks to me more personally as well. This guy seems to be a young sociopath figuring things out: his mother was a conwoman, he was a very talented conman, he was described by federal investigators as "brilliant and probably capable of doing anything," and according to the NY Times, his sentencing judge:

did not doubt his desire to reform, but she worried if “in point of fact, he doesn’t yet know how.” His “moral compass,” she said, was simply “not present or not functioning." 

So this story struck a personal note with me, as someone who has also had my career prospects ruined, at least to a certain extent. But at least I sort of brought it on myself. This guy just committed a crime and paid for it. He didn't ask to have the media hound him for the sordid details of his past.

But this problem of trying to escape from a past is not isolated to sociopaths, or even to wrongdoers. Everyone makes mistakes of varying degrees or chooses to live a different way, unfettered by constraints from the past. How much should that keep them from having functional adult lives? Some jurisdictions are instituting a right for young people to wipe their digital slates clean, so youthful indiscretions wouldn't unduly limit their life options. But that policy is only viable if no reporter can come along decades later and use that information against you. Should we believe that people are redeemable or not? Apparently most of the inmate/scholar's classmates did, or at least they said that they “judged him only on the present," and found him to be an exceptionally friendly and helpful classmate. Unfortunately, present performance is often not good enough for the Javert types who are looking for their pound of flesh.

See also Anne Perry (especially the comments section of the video clip, which are predictably all over the map).

Sherlock: TV's favorite sociopath

BBC's Sherlock has started up again in the U.S. featuring many people's favorite fictional depiction of a high-functioning sociopath. Although Sherlock outted himself as a high-functioning sociopath in the first episode, not everyone was happy with Sherlock's apparent self-diagnosis. One of the more entertaining things has been to read people's explanations of how he cannot possibly be a sociopath, despite their hero worship of his brain and ability to analyze human behavior,

I can understand people's reluctance to acknowledge that he is a sociopath. After all, sociopath is a very dirty word and many people struggle with the idea that Sherlock is morally neutral, and that he just happens to be on the side of good. And so his fans tried to explain away his first reference to being a high-functioning sociopath, despite there being ample evidence to support his claim. And for a while there was nary a mention of the "s" word... tntil season 3, where he reminds people of his diagnosis almost every episode (search for the term "sociopath" in this wikiquotes article, but caution spoiler alerts). He chides his friend Molly for always falling in love with sociopaths, his best friend Watson for basically being attracted to sociopaths as well ("Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high. That's me, by thy way."), and scares other people with it:



Perhaps Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock was not a high functioning sociopath (careful the link includes many inaccuracies about what a sociopath actually is), but BBC's Sherlock certainly seems to be one. And not just in the most obvious ways or overplayed ways like the video clip above. One of the more interesting ways he manifests sociopathic traits for me is how he interacts with his close friends.

For instance (spoiler alert), in one episode the three people he cares most about have their lives threatened by the villain (also a psychopath, but do psychopaths have a death wish?) Jim Moriarty. Missing from that threesome is the girl who has a very one-sided crush on Sherlock, Molly. And because Molly wasn't one of the three who was targeted, she was able to help Sherlock out of his bind. For her help, Sherlock rewards her with this statement: "Moriarty slipped up, he made a mistake. Because the one person he thought didn't matter to me was the one person who mattered the most. You made it all possible." How sweet, but how very sociopathic. When most people see things like "you matter to me," they mean that they feel a strong emotional connection. Here, Sherlock seems to imply something similar, but what he really means is that Molly mattered in his scheme in the very literal sense that she made it possible. In other words, his assessment of whether someone matters to him or not is what they are able to do for him. And for some people, that acknowledgement is enough. My closest friend is that way. She prides herself on being a very valuable friend to know, so that fact that I constantly seek her company is just an confirmation that I actually do find her to be very valuable. And that is what is valuable to her.

Famous sociopaths: Benjamin Franklin?

So suggests a reader:

Of course, I read the book, and though I was, myself, a mental health professional, learned a great deal about sociopathy. In my day, before the functional MRI, there was no certainty that it was the functional structure of the brain that determined the behavior. Nor, that despite the 3-4% incidence in the general population, that many, if not most, are socialized, like "M. E." or Jimmy Fallon, and very likely, Benjamin Franklin, for that matter.

Not all sociopaths do evil things. I stated that Franklin might well be one, based on his risk-taking behavior, his disrupted familial relationships, his legendary charm, his promiscuity, and his need to go from one activity to another.

The risky behavior: the man signed the Declaration of Independence, an invitation to hanging. Also, he nearly electrocuted himself during the kite experiment. I'm sure that there were others examples that escape me for the moment.

• Disrupted family: Franklin had a hostile relationship with his son throughout their lives. He was also a very poor husband, and for all practical purposes, he acted as if he were a single man.
• The charm: Thank the lord for this and his genius. He got Louis XV to bankrupt France to support us against Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown, after all. AND: that bankruptsy was a proximal cause of the French Revolution that transpired just a few short years later.
• The hyperactivity: Again, thank the lord, and his genius, for his myriad inventions. Off the top of my head: a musical instrument that he called the Harmonium, the Franklin stove, bifocal lenses, the harnessing of electricity, etc.
• The promiscuity: His love life is one of legend, continuing well into his old age!

The error is to think that all sociopaths are alike. Sociopaths differ from one another based on the presence or absence of other pathologies such as paranoia (Stalin) or Schizophrenia (Hitler) or combinations thereof. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are certainly sociopaths, yet their risky behavior was channeled into developments that have revolutionized our lives! Perhaps, we have advanced to where we are today because of  constructive sociopaths like these! Not every sociopath is a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Pol Pot!

I'm not entirely surprised at the suggestion that Benjamin Franklin could have been a sociopath, especially since studies have shown that entrepreneurs have several sociopathic traits ("The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship").

How to Manipulate People

This was a good Lifehacker article on how to manipulate people (quick read, worth reading in its entirety). The following are the headings from the article along with my thoughts on each suggestion:

• Emotion vs. Logic: Appealing to emotion rather than logic in manipulation is a little bit of a no brainer. Not only do most people respond better to emotion than logic, irrational people often best (only?) respond to fear. 

• Master Your Own Emotions: Mastering your emotions means essentially two things -- being able to divorce your emotions from what is happening externally (look at this article for helpful suggestions of how) and being able to project the right emotions in the right circumstances to create the desired illusions. 

• Be Charming and Flirt Often: I love to flirt. I flirt with everyone. I used to flirt only with people that I could see myself wanting to seduce, but then the person who first called me a sociopath famously told me that she flirts with everyone, gay or straight because everyone likes positive attention everyone wants to be seduced.

• Overcome Trust Issues and Heal Doubt: Building trust with your target is often critical, see number 2 here (does Lifehacker read this blog? or have a sociopath on staff cluing them in?)

• Conceal Evil in Altruism: This step means pretty much what it says and is super popular with celebrities, billionaires and politicians.

• What to Do If You're Discovered: In addition to backpedaling and creating doubt in your target's mind as to whether you were actually manipulating them, I also suggest starting a counter insurgency campaign against them where you are spinning the message to favor you and disfavor them (Oliver North is a good example of this) if they're an enemy, or possibly proposing some sort of alliance if they're a friend or loved one (think Skyler White in Breaking Bad). Of course the best course of action is to prophylactically insure against this by building an actual, legitimate reputation for good (at least in certain areas) for people to cross-reference. 

Also, beware the anti-seducer, for they cannot be manipulated.

Power hungry

A reader asks why sociopaths are so power hungry, do I suspect any historical or contemporary figures were/are sociopaths, e.g. Machiavelli, and how to learn to think like a sociopath.

I honestly don't know why sociopaths are so concerned with gaining power. I don't think it is necessarily unique to sociopaths, obviously, but I would say that it seems to apply to the vast majority of sociopaths. Perhaps there is something evolutionarily implicated here, that for the same reasons that sociopaths were evolved to not have a conscience, they were also evolved to crave power?

There's something very primitive about the sociopath's drive for power, like the sex drive, but it can manifest itself in many ways. For instance, I think a lot of sociopaths just want to make people jump, or at least know that they can. Some of them want the classical form of power, for example some political or business position or the money that can buy the power. Some of them, like me, channel the drive for power to include power over oneself, one's impulses and inclinations.

I do think that Machiavelli was a sociopath. There are a lot of people that I sort of suspect are sociopaths, but it's really hard to tell if anyone is without being privy to their thought processes. Anything else is complete speculation. For instance, I got in this idle debate once about whether Angelina Jolie was sociopath leaning. In my mind she had some of the clear identifying factors: creepy attachment to family, volatile, bisexual, and loves Ayn Rand (libertarian leaning politically). The person I was arguing with could not get over her humanitarian work, which to me is a nonstarter because there could be plenty of reasons why she does that. You know? Like why do I write this blog? People always want to know stuff like that, but there could be a million reasons, including accumulating power, respect, being able to influence the dialogue about a particular subject, etc. And with Angelina Jolie, how can you explain the other stuff? Like the fact that she has a look that makes people want to cry and she can be equally seductive with straight women as she is with men? But really I could go either way with her, and without looking inside her head there's no way to know for sure.

There are few people that I would feel confident to say are sociopaths, most of them literary because we actually get to see the "honest" picture of how they think, e.g. Tom Ripley, Cathy from East of Eden, and some others I have mentioned on the blog.

How to learn to think like a sociopath? I don't know, find one to apprentice with? But I would be careful. I think after you learn to think like a sociopath, there is something about you that changes and you can never really go back. I think this is particularly true if you learn to think like a sociopath at a young age and had all of those sociopathic neurological pathways reinforced instead of the "normal" ones.

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Famous sociopaths: Wernher von Braun

Nazi or opportunist? A reader sent me this video on top rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, widely credited for getting the U.S. to the moon, but at what cost? The reader writes:

skip to 1:29 in --

Charming, clever guy who did what it took to make his dream comes true.  A bit like Steve Jobs.



The video has a charming impression from one of von Braun's contemporaries about what his personality was like: "Here was the man who had created those bombs. He attacked my house. I was not a friend of his. Right from the start I had to resist becoming a close friend of his because he was charming. He could charm the pants off anyone and he was a very clever man. You knew that right away. I had tremendous arguments with him because he maintained that he was only a scientist, that he was not a Nazi and I said, 'That's nonsense, you belonged to the Nazi party.'" Apparently President Eisenhower was one of the few that did not succumb to von Braun's charms, but that did not stop von Braun from manipulating the U.S. Congress to fully fund his space/moon pursuits by preying on the public's fears of the Russian threat.

Chameleon, liar, non-political opportunist? Either way, it's an interesting example of someone who was able to navigate the politics, the mob sentiment (both Nazi Germany and the cold war) and manage to manipulate people who could not understand the importance of his work by using that age old tactic -- playing upon peoples' fears.

If he was a sociopath, would he qualify as a "good" or a "evil" one?

Better off post-sociopath?

A reader writes about how he appreciated having sociopaths in his life, if for nothing else because they add excitement and color to life and brought out different aspects of his own personality:

I'm much better off for having sociopaths in my life at one time.  Have you ever read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road?"  Whether you have or haven't, I'll give you some context: JK, in my estimation was a very shy empath, hence the raging lifelong alcoholism.  He found himself drawn to Neil Cassady, a sociopath who probably had some bipolar disorder thrown in as well.  Cassady brought so much fun, spontaneity and wildness into Keroac's life that there literally would be no "On the Road" or Jack Kerouac if it weren't for Cassady. 

Anyway, in all honesty, I'm probably more like Keroac in temperament - a good bit more outgoing, but nonetheless, an introverted empath.  My best friend through much of my childhood and adulthood is the co-founder of a website that's a household name now.  To make a very long story short, he cut me out and threw me away when I was no longer convenient for him in the internet businesses, however I wouldn't trade the experiences and pain for anything.  It's the time in my life that's worth writing a book about (which I have), and if we're really all honest with each other, I would bet that its sociopaths that make life more interesting, and worth writing about in the first place.

By the way Ms. Thomas, I love your book.  I am now a practicing psychotherapist, a profession mostly populated by empaths, and your book provides the greatest insight into sociopaths of anything I've ever read, and I have a stack of books up to my chin about sociopathy.  

If you feel so inclined, I'd love to ask you some questions; I'll start with one: you said in your book that Mormons were some of the sweetest, most loving people you've ever met, or you said that about people at Brigham Young, I believe.  How do you as a sociopath react to sweet, kind people?  Do you see them as rich source for gain and opportunity, or do you enjoy the love you feel, or some combination of both?

My response:

I like sweet people as long as it comes from a genuine place. I think that most people who are self-actualized or able to see the big picture tend to be a little bit sweet and generous because they realize that life is short and there aren't really winners or losers (at least not in the rat race), so why not make friends with your seatmates. And a lot of Mormons are this way. It is like I said in the book -- Mormons believe that we are all spirit brothers and sisters and of course you're going to act more generously with your brothers and sisters than an enemy or non-relative, so there is generally a lot more social capital that I have with Mormons than other people.

But I guess to get more to the heart of your question, I like who I am around them. I'm really impressionable, like a chameleon, so when I'm around goodhearted Mormons, I'm more goodhearted myself. I'm also more willing to take risks and consequently I feel more effective, like I'm leveraging my assets in a way that is clearly making a difference in the lives around me. That makes me feel powerful. And I feel more in control of my own self when I am being that way, like it is my best self. It's one of the times when I feel most engaged in the world. Oddly one of the other times I feel most engaged with the world is when I'm playing a long con or mind game ("ruining people"). 

Iceland: Nation of sociopaths?

From a reader:

Thought you might find this interesting @ 21:10.



Iceland was originally largely founded and built by a large number of outcasts, sociopaths, murderers, and those that were allied with loosing warlords. They fled from the other parts of Scandinavia, largely Norway. Many names of places in Iceland are exact replicas of norwegian west-coast locations. Since much of the Viking population in Norway at that time was located there, it was only natural to see these names replicated.

Further in the video right after that time stamp I am showing you, they speak of how women from the British islands were enslaved and right out simply kidnapped and taken to Iceland, forming much of the initial female population. Needless to say, they picked the women they liked best. Perhaps a good step in evolution.

Here it is explained how 60% of the women were British while mostly the men were Scandinavian. I read once that genetic research suggests that 90% of male Y-chromosomes in Iceland are accurately Norwegian, while 80% of the women carry a marker in their X-chromosomes that is traceable to accurately Ireland and Scotland. But I guess they have been mixing a bit on these Islands, so I would not know how accurate that science is.

The whole of the Icelandic population is genetically mapped(ref: DeCode genetics). If you brain scan them as well, you could always do research on sociopathy and psychopathy looking for genetic- an brain signatures. Then write another book. I would read it.

And lastly, if you like slaughter, betrayal, manipulation and cold bloodedness you should read the Icelandic sagas. They are about real people in real places, a long time ago. I especially recommend "Egil Skallagrimsons saga", and "Saga of Grettir Asmundson."

"Some say he felt nothing when his father died, some say he cared." I remember that sentence from "Saga of Grettir Asmundson." I remembered it again when I read your book and you explicitly mentioned that this trait helped you get a diagnose. Grettir Asmundson was a sociopathic bad guy. Not because he was evil, he was also both a national hero and the oppsite. I identified with him alot, even though I am an empath, his trouble with society rooting in non-empathic traits were identifiable to me. I think you would identify with him too. Same goes for Egil Skallagrimson, however, he was never and outcast. Especially note the tone of the story telling as the violence takes place. It is ver un-emotional and straight forward, the way I imagine a sociopath would relate to anything, violent or not.

Breaking Bad: Is Walter White a Sociopath?

AMC's hit show, "Breaking Bad" returns this Sunday and some are asking "How Walter White Found His Inner Sociopath".  The show details the exploits of a chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin who finds his hands getting dirtier and dirtier until he seems to lose most of his humanity. Or does he? A.O. Scott writes for the NY Times:

In truth, though, his development over five seasons has been less a shocking transformation than a series of confirmations. Mr. Gilligan’s busy and inventive narrative machinery has provided plenty of cleverly executed surprises, but these have all served to reveal the Walter White who was there all along. The sides of his personality — sociopath and family man, scientist and killer, rational being and creature of impulse, entrepreneur and loser — are not necessarily as contradictory as we might have supposed.
***
Walter may have wanted us to believe — and may, at moments, have convinced himself — that he was a decent man driven by desperate circumstances to do terrible things, but that notion was either wishful thinking or tactical deceit. Viewed as a whole, in optimal binge conditions, with the blinds pulled down and the pizza boxes and chicken wrappers piling up around the couch, “Breaking Bad” reveals itself as the story of a man mastering his vocation and fighting to claim his rightful place in the world. 

But is he really a sociopath? He is great at lying. That's probably one of the most entertaining parts about the show. He is amazing at coming up with an answer that fits the facts, like a sort of WebMD for excuses that fit the symptoms perfectly yet innocuously. Where did all of this cash come from? He has a gambling problem. Why did his wife just have an emotional breakdown? She was having an affair and her lover is in the hospital. He is the master of deflection and playing upon not just people's emotions, but especially their expectations about him (as a loser, but ultimately harmless) and the world (that bad people are not your friends, relatives, and neighbors but people who seem "off" to you).

However, I don't think he is a sociopath. He may act like how one expects a sociopath to act (ruthless, disloyal, power hungry), but his motivations seem all wrong. If he was a sociopath, why does he constantly cling to an image that he's a good dad/husband/friend making the most of a bad situation? From the NY Times:

Walter is almost as good at self-justification as he is at cooking meth, and over the course of the series, he has not hesitated to give high-minded reasons for his lowest actions. In his own mind, he remains a righteous figure, an apostle of family values, free enterprise and scientific progress. 

For instance:

Walt: "When we do what we do for good reasons, then we've got nothing to worry about. And there's no better reason than family."

Here he extends his typical self-justification to his wife:

Walt: Skyler, you can't beat yourself up over this thing. Please. You didn't set out to hurt anybody. You made a mistake and things got out of control. But you did what you had to do to protect your family. And I'm sorry, but that doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a human being. 

Skyler: Stop it, Walt. Just stop. I don't need to hear any of your bullshit rationales.

And an incredibly insensitive and oblivious moment of self-absorption:

Walt: So how are you feeling? 

Jesse: Okay, I guess. Broke it off with Andrea. I had to. She's gonna tell Brock. I'm still gonna take care of the rent and stuff. It's the right thing to do, but, you know-- 

Walt: (interrupting) I meant this. (gestures behind) How are you feeling about the money?

And finally the over the top but insincere display of emotions and taking huge offense when the sincerity is questioned:

Walt: I am just as upset as you are. 

Jesse: Are you? 

Walt: Really? How can you say that to me? Jesus! I mean, I'm the one who's the father here. What, do I have to curl up in a ball in tears in front of you? 

Walt in all of his self-centeredness clearly thinks that not only do his ends justify any means he chooses, but it's clear that this process of justification is important to him. If he were a sociopath, why he would care at all? As a corporate executive put it upon seeing Walt and his team balk at killing two innocent witnesses, "I thought you guys were professionals." But there's hardly anything professional about them. Despite being extremely clever and calculating (he fakes an emotional breakdown in his brother-in-law's DEA office to tap his phone), he seems like a prototypical narcissist who lets his emotions rule him, particularly his feeling that his talents were never truly appreciated and so he is finally going to make them realize that he is a force to be reckoned with. A sociopath would not care what people thought of him, as long as he was getting and doing what he wanted to get/do.

Walter White is also a great example of why I don't value people's "good" intentions--because they're incredibly subjective, often misplaced, and sometimes used to justify horrible atrocities. People never feel that they have done anything wrong as long as their intentions were not malicious. It reminds me of this recent comment from a reader:

Intentions don't matter. Hitler's intentions were good. What are good intentions? It depends who you're talking to. If you talk to the chicken just before you kill it and tell it "Hey chicken, my intentions are good, I don't want to be misunderstood, I'm just gonna eat you and share you with my family."

And also from this NY Times review of Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion:

Traits we evolved in a dispersed world, like tribalism and righteousness, have become dangerously maladaptive in an era of rapid globalization. A pure scientist would let us purge these traits from the gene pool by fighting and killing one another. But Haidt wants to spare us this fate. He seeks a world in which “fewer people believe that righteous ends justify violent means.” To achieve this goal, he asks us to understand and overcome our instincts. He appeals to a power capable of circumspection, reflection and reform.

Fictional sociopaths: Tom Ripley

A reader sent me a movie clip with this description:

Also, here’s another video that I always resonated with. It’s John Malkovich’s portrayal of Tom Ripley in Ripley’s Game. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen that movie, but it’s nicely done. You could say Ripley’s game boils down to manipulating what had been a relatively innocent man into committing murder. In fact, the scene starts right after they’ve killed several mobsters on a train. They got off the train and are in a station restroom (the relevant part starts at 3:40 and ends at about 5:10). “The one thing I know is we are constantly being born.” Very true indeed, truer than most people realize.


[Ripley has just helped Jonathan kill three mobsters]

Jonathan Trevanny: [crying] I know I should thank you, because I wouldn't be alive now if you hadn't helped me.... but I can't. I can't say thank you. I don't know anything about you. Who are you?

Tom Ripley: I'm a creation. A gifted improviser. I lack your conscience and, when I was young, that troubled me. It no longer does. I don't worry about being caught because I don't think anyone is watching. The world is not a poorer place because those people are dead — it's not. It's one less car on the road, a little less noise and menace. You were brave today. You'll go home and put some money away for your family. That's all.

Jonathan Trevanny: If you "lack my conscience," then why did you help me on the train?

Tom Ripley: [smiles] I don't know, but it doesn't surprise me. If there's one thing I know, it's that we're constantly being born.

Jonathan Trevanny: But why me? Why did you pick me?

Tom Ripley: Partly because you could. Partly because you insulted me. But mostly because that's the game. [checks watch] We need to catch this flight. Shall we?

John Malcovich's are some of the most convincing portrayals of a sociopath I've seen.

Famous sociopaths: Amanda Knox?

It's a boom season for memoirs written by young female sociopaths, or is it? I did not follow the Amanda Knox trial while it was happening but after I heard about her book I was curious to see why why people think she's a coldblooded murderess. Mainly people's opinions of her guilt seem based on circumstantial evidence and the fact that she didn't respond the way that "normal" people (or at least normal, non guilty people) would react to being a murder suspect? But how would you react "normally"? Cry? Suffer some sort of emotional or nervous breakdown? Especially for someone who seems to not quite have a typical emotional palette (her memoir is described as being written with "brutal honesty, clarity, and conviction"), how was she expected to act?

Sometimes I imagine what it might be like to be a young, sociopathic Amanda Knox, who may not have killed her roommate (maybe it was a coincidence?), but now she is a suspect and she knows she's being watched. What sort of show should she put on? What sort of manual is there, or prior experiences to draw upon in knowing how to appropriately respond to be falsely accused of murder? A roommate that you hate and barely know gets killed in a foreign country while you are with some guy you just started dating. Even if she weren't a sociopath, I could see how she wouldn't be that broken up about the whole thing. It would be really hard to fake normal reactions in that situation, even if you were innocent.

In that same vein, "This American Life" features an odd story of an upstanding doctor in a rural town who brutally murdered his father -- Vince Gilmer. Even though he is serving a life sentence for the murder, everyone in the town had glowing stories to tell about him: "Generous to a fault." The show features many people trying to make their own determinations about what is the deal with Gilmer -- cold-blooded murderer? Or a man who finally snapped due to provocation from an incredibly abusive father. It was hard for people to tell because when questioned by the police, he was not manifesting authentic remorse or mental illness, but rather seemed to be "hamming it up." He would start crying, seemingly strategically: "either he was having tremendous mood swings, or he was trying to avoid the question." "So we set up a camera on the rec yard and invited the inmates to play . . . . And then we purposefully sent the officer . . . and Mr. Gilmer saw the officer he immediately began to shake his head and arm" as if he were suddenly sad. When the officer left the rec yard, Mr. Gilmer went back "It seemed as if the victim was exaggerating his symptoms" for the sake of the psychiatrist.

It's sort of odd hearing the people on "This American Life" discuss the Gilmer case or reading the followers of the Amanda Knox trial trying to suss out what is the truth based on what little anecdotal evidence they have to cling to. The judge in the Gilmer trial thought "it was clear" that the murder was premeditated and yet many still have doubts (it turned out that Gilmer had Huntington's disease, a neurological disease which his doctor said would explain his appearance of faking symptoms). Amanda Knox was acquitted, but the Italian appeals court reversed.

"I'm still confused about whether he was good or not."

Gilmer's doctor laments about his patient's poor treatment and why it took so long to get him properly diagnosed: "They have a pre-conceived idea about what's going on and that's it. They're inflexible. . . they have a stereotype . . . and they won't budge beyond that."

Q&As (part 4)

(last one)

You believe that ambiguous sexuality is one of the best identifying traits of a sociopath, relying on it more than any other one trait to form your own opinion about who is and isn’t a sociopath. Why?

For whatever reason there are sociopath “wannabes” out there. They tell their stories to highlight how cold they are. I frequently use ambiguous sexuality as a litmus test with these types to determine whether or not they are legitimate. If they freak out at the mere suggestion, as so many “normal” men do, I usually conclude they’re poseurs. A sociopath would not find their ego threatened by the suggestion that they are gay; in fact, that might be one of the least offensive things a true sociopath would ever be accused of in his life! They don’t have a strong identity of being straight, and don’t share the common moral assumption that homosexuality is sin.

What do you believe is the most important message of your book?

Sociopaths should not have to justify their very existence amongst other equally flawed examples of humanity, but if they did, there are some legitimate reasons to think they’re not as bad as they are made out to be. Also, child sociopaths perhaps best illustrate the fact that people don’t ask to be sociopaths. Sociopaths are not going away, so it is in society’s best interest to find a way to live with and benefit from them.

Are sociopaths capable of having healthy relationships with non-sociopaths?

Yes. I have relationships with non-sociopaths. It’s not for everyone, and particularly not for the faint hearted. A relationship with a sociopath seems to work best if you are either not sensitive or are extremely sensitive, enough to empathize enough with even a self-centered sociopath. As a friend put it, “it’s like owning an exotic pet.”

People often ask you if you think certain celebrities are sociopaths. Why do you consider it unlikely that they are?

Celebrities are much more likely to be narcissistic rather than sociopathic. Sociopaths don’t like to be center stage. They’re much more likely to be the producer than the actor, the vice-president or chief of staff than the President. Sociopaths prefer to operate undetected, pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Center stage would bring too much scrutiny, which is dangerous when you’re trying to hide so much.

Famous sociopaths: Ada Lovelace?

I know just a little about Ada Lovelace (daughter of Lord Byron, famous female 19th century scientist), but I was pleased to read this ruthlessly flattering assessment of herself, written to her mother at the age of 26:


Dearest Mama,

I must tell you what my opinion of my own mind and powers is exactly—the result of a most accurate study of myself with a view to my future plans during many months. I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me preeminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature.
***
Firstly: owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have perceptions of some things, which no one else has—or at least very few, if any. This faculty may be designated in me as a singular tact, or some might say an intuitive perception of hidden things—that is of things hidden from eyes, ears, and the ordinary senses…This alone would advantage me little, in the discovery line, but there is, secondly, my immense reasoning faculties. Thirdly: my concentrative faculty, by which I mean the power not only of throwing my whole energy and existence into whatever I choose, but also bringing to bear on any one subject or idea a vast apparatus from all sorts of apparently irrelevant and extraneous sources. I can throw rays from every quarter of the universe into one vast focus.

Now these three powers (I cannot resist the wickedness of calling them my discovering or scientific trinity) are a vast apparatus put into my power by Providence; and it rests with me by a proper course during the next twenty years to make the engine what I please. But haste, or a restless ambition, would quite ruin the whole.

I also find myself not able to resist wickedness sometimes. And they do say that sociopathy is genetic.

In all seriousness, I am often told that one of my most prominent sociopathic traits is megalomania. But I can't help the feeling that at least some of it is actually justified...

How to become a (good?) sociopath

I was recently asked whether there are any famous good sociopaths:

Famous good sociopaths? I don't think you would ever say that a sociopath was "good," per se, the same way you might about Mother Theresa, etc. They're always complicated. They can be good in the fact that they aren't bad... they can also be great, without necessarily being good. Is Dick Cheney bad? What about Julius Caesar? Sociopaths often lust for power, which can put them at odds with the people that they rule, but they can also do a lot of good things like keeping governments stable, or fighting off the invading hordes, or being a spy, or whatever else. Does that make them good? I don't think sociopaths have any sort of urge to do good things, just scratch their power-hungry itch. A lot of sociopaths specifically choose to use their powers for good instead of evil, but they're end game is not doing good, it's power or whatever else the sociopaths is after.

I think that a good analogy would be a corporation. There are a lot of corporations that do things that you like, maybe even good things, but the primary motivation is to make a profit. But just because you are trying to make a profit doesn't mean you can't do it by doing things you like, or that you are good at, or that comport with the way you see the world or want the world to see you. I terrorize bullies. Is that good? I help out friends and neighbors for all sorts of reasons. Actually, coincidentally, one of my readers sent this to me recently -- it deals with the idea of not having the same sort of of emotional connections to your actions as empaths do: "a comprehensive beginner's guide to becoming a sociopath." When I read it, I thought all of the good things were things that I might actually do or have already done. My bad things were different, though -- I guess I just have different tastes. But I see what the point of the exercise is -- divorce your normal emotional reactions from certain behavior. I bet it would work. I bet there a lot of things people would want to be a little sociopathic about, like having no fear if you do a lot of public speaking, or not having an emotional connection to food (I would bet the percentage of obese sociopaths is 1%, for purely genetic reasons). But maybe it is difficult to do, like being a little bit pregnant. A little bit anorexic? Or alcoholic? Or blood thirsy?

Sociopaths in film: Seven Psychopaths

I saw this film recently. I thought it was pretty funny, not terribly accurate? Probably the most interesting aspect of the film is how the psychopathic characters view the one empath character's alcoholism. They sort of wonder at it -- why might someone be drinking themselves to death. It doesn't make sense to them. And even though they are going around killing people, they express the same or more moral concern about whether or not the alcoholic should be driving drunk. It's a little hilarious because typical empath viewer would obviously think of the murdering as more serious than the drunk driving, but not the psychopath characters.

Sociopaths in poetry

On the nature of understanding

Say you hoped to
tame something
wild and stayed
calm and inched up
day by day. Or even
not tame it but
meet it halfway.
Things went along.
You made progress,
understanding
it would be a
lengthy process,
sensing changes
in your hair and nails. So it’s
strange when it
attacks: you thought
you had a deal.

Kay Ryan, The New Yorker July 25, 2011

Famous sociopaths: Louise Nevelson

American sculptress Louise Nevelson (1899-1988): "I knew I was going to become somebody very special. No . . . that I was somebody very special." The article notes that the actress who was playing Nevelson was able to "suggest Nevelson's chilliness as much as her charm, her dead heart as well as the life of her mind."

Famous sociopaths: Mitt Romney?

I was reading a profile about Mitt Romney in the New Yorker. One of the themes was how he doesn't seem to have principles or emotions but how he defines himself as being just an efficiency machine? Or that's sort of what I got from it:

• Private equity is business on steroids: seek efficiency and economic return, not large social goals (unless you think those are large social goals). 
• “Most religions come to believe in the Zeus model of God. He was outside the universe and created everything. Latter-Day Saints believe that God is in the universe and his power comes from understanding the rules of the universe perfectly. Everything we learn makes us more like God. The impetus to learn is so strong because it helps us to become more like God.”
• Kim Clark says that Romney was “very smart, but also great with senior executives, really capable of developing relationships with them. You have to be really good on your feet, good at understanding what people’s concerns are and how they think.”
• "Mitt is so persuasive. He could get rich selling used bubble gum.
• Romney has done a lot of meeting and a lot of selling during his rise in business and politics, but mainly indoors, in small groups of peers. He’s as adept in that setting as he is unnatural talking to a big crowd. Unlike most candidates, he did not communicate a sense either of being too restless to give you his full attention or of having to establish that he is the alpha and you the beta. He was direct and pleasant and engaged. His voice sounded husky, rather than flat. His gestures seemed spontaneous, not staged.
• “Value, in the way I’ve defined it, is the score that shows up on the scoreboard,” he said. “It’s not the objective. It’s not the strategy. 

If that doesn't convince you, this New Yorker article titled "Romney Sets New Personal Best for Faking Empathy"?


“Mitt Romney has the facial expressions of someone who cares about me.”

Moments after the debate, Mr. Romney pronounced himself “thoroughly drained” by the forced display of humanity.

“This empathy stuff is exhausting,” he told reporters. “On Day One, it’s going to stop.”


I actually don't think that Romney is a sociopath, although it's possible. I do think it's funny that people seem to value people who have empathy -- would rather have those people in stressful situations making emotional decisions rather than a sociopath? Or maybe people are actually aware and ok with the fact that politicians tend to be more sociopathic than non?

Sociopaths in literature: Washington Square

“Do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?”

“Good for what?” asked the Doctor. “You are good for nothing unless you are clever.”

Big Brother Sociopath: Janelle Pierzina

From a reader's (by now somewhat dated) email:


One of your posts reminded me of a possible sociopath on reality television right now: Janelle Pierzina, who will probably be evicted from Big Brother tomorrow. A few episodes ago, she admitted she didn't cry during labor and doesn't at funerals. I didn't watch her previous seasons religiously (she got 3rd place twice), but she is a ruthless physical competitor and never shows empathy for her enemies in the house. Her competitors have finally figured her out, though--one had a confessional in a recent episode about Janelle's not having feelings being an advantage in the game--sounds like sociopathy to me!

Some good stuff is from 11:00-12:00 in this video.