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.

For more information, please visit our Web Community.

Quote: Power to the daring

"Power is given only to those who dare lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters: to be able to dare."

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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.

Is Twisted's Danny Desai a sociopath?

Twisted, an ABC Family teenage murder mystery drama along the same lines as their Pretty Little Liars, has a potential (likely?) sociopathic teenage protagonist -- Danny Desai. It's so likely that Danny is a sociopath that the original working title for the show was "Socio" and the abbreviation gets thrown around at least once an episode, along with plenty of accusations that he is a sociopath from his teenage peers, some amusingly framed in amusing pop culture references to The Good Son, The Bad Seed, and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

The show begins with Danny, now sixteen years old, having just been released from juvenile detention for having killed his aunt when he was eleven years old, starting high school with his former peers. In the pilot another girl gets murdered and Danny's past history (and the convenient timing of the second girl's murder) make him a prime suspect both in the eyes of the police and the townspeople. But perhaps the show comes closest to acknowledging that Danny is a sociopath when his mother goes to visit his court ordered therapist:

Mother: "So, how's he doing?"

Dr.: "Well, he's a smart young man."


Mother: "Yes he is. Dr. Reidy, I'm sure that you've heard of some of the hateful words people have been calling Danny... monster, freak, sociopath..."

Dr.: "I wouldn't let it get to you Mrs. Desai. It's a heightened time."


Mother: Oh I know, but as a mother, how should I respond to people calling him that. [Pause] I'm not being clear. What are the signs that someone is a sociopath, so that I can explain why Danny isn't one?"


Dr.: "Most sociopaths don't murder anyone, but they do exhibit glibness, superficial charm, an easy ability to lie."

Mother: "Right."


Dr.: "Let's see, what else, they love risk, they don't consider consequences, they have a talent for imitating human emotion -- grief, joy. It's never real, but they're good at making you believe it is. Is that helpful Mrs. Desai?"


The funny part is that Danny actually did murder someone, along with exhibiting all of the other traits of a sociopath that his therapist mentioned. But his mom stands by him, even after having her suspicions about his sociopathy essentially confirmed. She even helps (she thinks) him cover up another possible murder.

Even if Danny is not a sociopath, it's an interesting exploration of a teenage boy living with the stigma of having murdered someone (or at least having been convicted of murder), and how he deals with that (spoiler alert, by alternating violent outbursts against his enemies and charming himself back into the hearts of his already smitten followers), and how his friends and family deal with it (almost unwavering support). That he is such a likeable character (unambiguously so if Twitter is any indication) suggests that the millennial generation (the audience for this particular show) might be the first generation to really accept and even embrace sociopaths in their own lives. So, that's hopeful.

Fictional sociopaths: Iago

From Verdi's Otello:

I believe in a cruel God
who created me like himself
in anger of whom that I name.
From the cowardice of a seed
or of a vile atom I was born.
I am a son evil because I am a man;
and I feel the primitive mud in me.
Yes! This is my faith!
I believe with a firm heart,
so does the widow in the temple,
the evil I think
and proceeds from me,
fulfills my destiny.
I think the honest man
is a mockery,
in face and heart,
that everything is in him is a lie:
tears, kisses, looks,
sacrifices and honor.
And I think the man plays a game
of unjust fate
the seed of the cradle
the worm of the grave.
After all this foolishness comes death.
And then what? And then?
Death is Nothingness.
Heaven is an old wives' tale!

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.

Moonstruck and cages

This is not really that topical, but I was watching the film Moonstruck on the plane. There are two pieces of dialogue I had forgotten about. The one-handed Nicholas Cage character explains to Cher how he lost his hand:

                               RONNY
                         It's wood. It's fake. Five years ago
                         I was engaged to be married. Johnny
                         came in here, he ordered bread from
                         me. I put it in the slicer and I
                         talked with him and my hand got caught
                         cause I wasn't paying attention. The
                         slicer chewed off my hand. It's funny
                         'cause - when my fiancé saw that I
                         was maimed, she left me for another
                         man.

                                     LORETTA
                         That's the bad blood between you and
                         Johnny?

                                     RONNY
                         That's it.

                                     LORETTA
                         But that wasn't Johnny's fault.

                                     RONNY
                         I don't care! I ain't no freakin
                         monument to justice! I lost my hand,
                         I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand,
                         Johnny has his bride! You come in
                         here and you want me to put away my
                         heartbreak and forget?

Later she tells him what she thinks of him:


LORETTA
                         The big part of you has no words and
                         it's-a wolf. This woman was a trap
                         for you. She caught you and you could
                         not get away.
                              (She grabs his wooden
                              hand)
                         So you chewed off your foot! That
                         was the price you had to pay to be
                         free.
                              (throws his hand down)
                         Johnny had nothing to do with it.
                         You did what you had to do, between
                         you and you, and I know I'm right, I
                         don't care what you say. And now
                         you're afraid because you found out
                         the big part of you is a wolf that
                         has the courage to bite off its own
                         hand to save itself from the trap of
                         the wrong love. That's why there has
                         been no woman since that wrong woman.
                         You are scared to death what the
                         wolf will do if you make that mistake
                         again!

Later he tells her what's up with her life:

 RONNY

                         And what do you know? You tell me my 

                         life? I'll tell you yours. I'm a 

                         wolf? You run to the wolf in me, 

                         that don't make you no lamb! You're 

                         gonna marry my brother? Why you wanna 

                         sell your life short? Playing it 

                         safe is just about the most dangerous 

                         thing a woman like you could do. You 

                         waited for the right man the first 

                         time, why didn't you wait for the 

                         right man again?

I thought this was such an interesting concept -- "playing it safe is just about the most dangerous thing a woman like you could do." I sometimes feel this way when I think about things that might be considered "playing it safe," like planning on being in a job for longer than three years, being in a committed relationship, otherwise locking myself into something, caging myself in or allowing myself to be caged. I realize it is actually a dangerous thing for a person like me to do. I realize that I probably won't be able to stay locked up like that forever and that when I finally try to extricate myself, there may be significant damage to myself and others.  

It reminds me of the letter Amelia Earhart wrote to her husband George Putnam before they wed: "I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage." And commenting on her own capriciousness in a letter to a friend, "I don't want anything, all the time." So true.

Sociopaths in fiction: Phantastes

But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell. . . But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely — with a self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly wearing her away within, till, at least, the decay will reach her face, and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she be vanished forever"

--George MacDonald

Sociopaths on television: Pretty Little Liars

I started watching the television show Pretty Little Liars (don't judge me, I was sickly sick all weekend and didn't have the stomach for anything more substantial).  I haven't seen that many episodes, but from what I've seen, the pretty little murder victim Alison seems like a bit of a female teenage sociopath.  I'm too lazy to look up with a better example, but here is at least a typical example of an exchange between her and her friend:


Ali: I made you Spencer.  I made all of you.  Before me you were just some goody goody in plaid who did whatever mommy and daddy told her to.  

Spencer: You're so full of yourself.  You think that just because you brought us together you can treat us like puppets?

Ali: But you are.  Don't you see that?  You don't exist without me.


She trades in secrets like they were the most valuable things on the planet, and in her hands they really are decent weapons, keeping everyone else around her on their toes and doing her bidding.  Her friends frequently remark on how ruthless she was.  She's also cunning.  After police arrive at a fraternity party that she and her friends crashed, instead of trying to sneak away in an attempt to avoid getting caught for underage drinking, she walks right up to a policeman and asks him to take them home.  She explains her chutzpah thusly: "The bolder the move the less anybody questions it."

She's manipulative, but everyone still loves her, which is a dynamic that is actually explored in an interesting way on the show.  Even after all that her associates learn all sorts of bad facts about her after her disappearance (death?), they still self-confessedly love her and admit that their lives will always bear her imprint.

In rehearsing a school play, "The Bad Seed," her friends are discussing some of the moral issues in the play, including the question of whether people are born bad or made bad.  One of the characters remarks, exasperatedly, "I'm having a hard time figuring out who's evil and who's just naughty."  The same goes for the show.  It's not clear who anybody really is and the characters that are the most well-meaning are often the characters who do the most dastardly deeds -- much worse than the actual sociopath herself.  So in that way it is true to life.  But it also makes us question, should people get a pass because they're being naughty rather than evil?

Sidetalking sociopath

The thing I like most about the existence of Dexter as a television show is that it is so widely-liked. This makes talking about sociopath issues without outing yourself very easy. I understand that some sociopaths are incognito, even amongst their friends and family. I myself am pretty out, and am always looking for others to bring into my inner-circle, which is why I am so happy about Dexter. It makes the perfect feel-someone-out-about-how-they-would-feel-knowing-that-their-friend/significant-other/family-member-is-a-sociopath conversation starter. After someone has told you they like it, you can query relatively harmlessly why they do. They may say that they love Dexter the character, or have respect for him, and you can follow up with what exactly it is about Dexter that makes him so likeable. Obviously he does bad things and at the very least has bad tendencies that he has to deal with. Does the way he deals with those tendencies somehow make up for his deficiencies? You can ask if they think he is an accurate portrayal of everyday sociopaths. Does this person believe that sociopaths like Dexter live in real life? Why or why not? If they are doing well so far, maybe ask, do they think that they have ever met a sociopath and not known that the person was a sociopath? If they start getting suspicious, back off. If they start asking you why you like Dexter, say, "Oh, just the same reasons you said." There is a lot of information to be gleaned by sidetalking about sociopathy this way. I'm trying to think of what would be a good analogy in a non-sociopath realm... being in the mafia and talking to people about the Sopranos? Being a spy and talking about Burn Notice? Being gay and talking about Queer as Folk? Being an ex-African warlord and talking about Hotel Rwanda?

Sociopaths in literature: Interview with the Vampire

I was given Interview with the Vampire by a friend and have been reading it over the past year on airplanes.  I was not surprised to see many parallels between the vampire protagonist and sociopaths.  I thought before I finished the book and discarded it in the seat of my next plane, I might share some passages that I thought were particularly relevant, like this one:


"Babette, the way you speak of her," said the boy. "As if your feeling was special."
  
"Did I give you the impression I could not feel?" asked the vampire.
  
"No, not at all. Obviously you felt for the old man. You stayed to comfort him when you were in danger. And what you felt for young Freniere when Lestat wanted to kill him . . . all this you explained. But I was wondering . . . did you have a special feeling for Babette? Was it feeling for Babette all along that caused you to protect Freniere?"

"You mean love," said the vampire. "Why do you hesitate to say it?"
  
"Because you spoke of detachment," said the boy.
   
"Do you think that angels are detached?" asked the vampire.
  
The boy thought for a moment. "Yes," he said.
  
"But aren't angels capable of love?" asked the vampire. "Don't angels gaze upon the face of God with complete love?"
  
The boy thought for a moment. "Love or adoration," he said.
  
"What is the difference?" asked the vampire thoughtfully. "What is the difference?" It was clearly not a riddle for the boy. He was asking himself. "Angels feel love, and pride . . . the pride of The Fall . . . and hatred. The strong overpowering emotions of detached persons in whom emotion and will are one," he said finally. He stared at the table now, as though he were thinking this over, was not entirely satisfied with it. "I had for Babette . . . a strong feeling. It is not the strongest I've ever known for a human being." He looked up at the boy. "But it was very strong. Babette was to me in her own way an ideal human being. "

Fictional sociopaths: Don't trust the B in Apt 23

A reader sent me this article about a new television show.  From an article entitled: "Chloe From Don’t Trust The B In Apt 23 Could Be The Sociopathic BFF You Always Wanted":

Never in my life did I think I would actively pursue a sociopathic roommate that makes my life more challenging and more dangerous on a weekly basis. But after watching Don’t Trust The B in Apartment 23 this season I’m adding it to my list of “people I want in my life.”
***

There’s something magnetic about her character Chloe. Something that makes you root for her even after she does the unthinkable. Like taking in a foster child to use as a personal assistant or secretly selling June’s baking videos to a sexual festish site to make rent money. And yes, by the end of every episode she learns a lesson about morals and human decency. But never quite the right lesson.

It’s like if Danny Tanner lectured DJ Tanner about the evils of smoking cigarettes and she turnd to binge drinking instead. Chloe listens and Chloe comprehends and Chloe interprets the lesson in her own way. It’s magical and it’s slightly wrong and it’s something you rarely see on TV. And that’s exactly what makes it so refreshing.
***

How cool is it that there’s a female character on television who puts herself first. She may not always put herself first at the right time or in the right situations, but she always puts herself first. She knows what she wants and she does what she needs to do to get it done. Yes, she has moments where she tires to help June and James.

But if it comes down to her happiness or theirs, she’ll choose her happiness any day of the week. That’s what probably what makes her a sociopath, but it’s also what makes her some kind of backwards role model for women who are so used to pleasing everyone else in their lives.

After watching so many characters on TV like June, who are go-getters sacrificing their youth to acheive their career dreams, it’s so wonderful to see a character just enjoying her life. A character who exemplifies selfishness in its human form and reminds us that it’s okay to look out for yourself. It’s okay to care about yourself more than you care about others.



I confirmed this with my friend, that with regard to being friends with a sociopath, "the pros outweigh the cons."

Violence in movies

There is something about violence in movies that I find so appealing.  I'm sure part of it is that it is dramatized in all the right ways to thrill rather than cause any anxiety or harm.  I was thinking about that today on the way to work.  I was driving.  I thought, if you take some people seriously about what they say about sociopaths and loving violence and senseless destruction and power over people, then why is it that I don't cross my lane line to collide head-on into the auto approaching me?  Wouldn't that scare people?  That would be some good fun, right?  I would get to scare the other person half to death, maybe there would be some carnage or death, definitely I would make people "jump."  It's odd that sociopaths can manage to get where they're going half the time without giving into that temptation, right?

But it's not a wonder.  Actually, I thought that was a ridiculous thing to believe.  Except perhaps when we're acting on impulse, sociopaths are generally making rational, cost/benefit decisions in which we determine that the cost, e.g. of damaging our car and risking our own life and health, does not exceed the benefit of "making someone jump" in most situations.  And aren't you glad?  Can you imagine a world in which there actually existed a class of people that were not constrained in any way at all?  But of course it makes sense -- how could an existence sans any restraint ever be evolutionary advantageous enough to outweigh the obvious negatives?  I don't know.  Sometimes I wonder how people can believe the odd things they believe about sociopaths.  There's no logic, just myth and fear mongering.  

But it is true I do like violence when it comes cheaply, like in movies.  And I like this supercut.  I wish that it included some clips from Watchmen and Public Enemies, maybe some others that aren't springing to mind.  Favorite violent scenes, anyone?

Jake Gyllenhaal as psycho killer

Is anyone else not surprised that he is a fencer?

Fictional sociopaths: anime

I don't know if it is because I don't watch anime that frequently or I have an odd view of japanese culture in general, but I am surprised at the number of anime series that people flag for my attention as including a sociopathic character or sociopathic themes.  I've already featured them here and here.  Could there some deeper explanation for the connection?  Repressed but ruthless Japanese culture?  I would just be guessing...

 From a reader:

I'm not sure exactly how interested you are in anime, but I thought I'd recommend Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It's a 12 episode anime which at first, due to the title and opening song, appears very much like some terrible fantasy anime made for eight year old girls, but probably by episode two you'll start to see why I would recommend it to you. The show is basically about how an alien creature named Kyubey, promises to grant one wish to teenage girls in exchange that they fight witches. Throughout the series you'll learn his real motivation, and what sort of emotionless, selfish lives these girls must learn to lead in order to protect themselves. Yet throughout all the times they're suffering, he's just smiling and cute and completely unaffected. Where he comes from, emotion is a mental disorder. 

Also looking this up, I came across the concept that Daleks are sociopaths. Ahaha maybe.

Sociopaths = vampires?

Does this seem familiar? The plot of the Swedish film "Let the Right One In":

A fragile introverted boy, 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. His wish for a friend comes true when he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), also 12, who moves into the apartment next door with a man who is presumably her father. But coinciding with Eli's arrival is a series of disappearances and macabre murders—a man is found strung up in a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten in the neck.

Captivated by the gruesome stories and by Eli’s idiosyncrasies (she is only seen at night, and unaffected by the freezing cold), it doesn't take long before Oskar figures out that Eli is a vampire. Nevertheless, their friendship strengthens, and a subtle romance blossoms as the youngsters become inseparable. In spite of Oskar’s loyalty to her, Eli knows that she can only continue to live if she keeps on moving. But when Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can...

Based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a haunting and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

The connections between sociopaths and vampires are obvious. Sociopaths are sometimes described as emotional vampires, and modern day vampire covens seem to be all about the psychopath. Some think that the vampire myth originates from vampires. It makes sense: life-sucking, preternaturally powerful, charming, seductive, dangerous... and somehow always falling in love with or befriending normal humans. Hard to know why that is, but I hope all the vampire love will spill over a little onto the sociopaths.

Fictional sociopaths: Hurt Locker

A psychologist suggests a fictional depiction of a psychopath is the protagonist from the Hurt Locker:

Patrick Bateman in the film American Psycho inserts a chainsaw into a prostitute. Alex in A Clockwork Orange fantasizes about torture and slaughter while listening to music. 

But psychopaths can wreak havoc in workplaces without stabbing, or eating, their colleagues.
"It's a much more ordinary condition than those movies portray. They aren't more intelligent than the rest of us," Dr Polaschek said. 

She suggested another movie character for a different look at psychopaths: Sergeant First Class William James in The Hurt Locker. 

James joins a bomb disposal team in Iraq and quickly earns the distrust of his comrades through his lack of care. 

"He could well be a psychopath, but he doesn't do anything to hurt anybody. He's a bit of a cowboy and does a fearless kind of work tracking those improvised explosives, and he doesn't work well in a team."

The researcher goes on to opine:

Dr Polaschek said it was a complex disorder - there was no clear line dividing a common and commendable display of boldness from full-blown psychopathy. 

"But there probably isn't such a thing as a harmless psychopath. People who live for themselves and for the day will tend to blunder around, causing harm to people - because that's not how society works." 

I think this sign represents his character well (and the awkwardness of a sociopath trying to deal with someone's very emotional state, rather unsuccessfully):



Sergeant JT Sanborn: I'm ready to die, James.
Staff Sergeant William James: Well, you're not gonna die out here, bro.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: Another two inches, shrapnel zings by; slices my throat- I bleed out like a pig in the sand. Nobody'll give a shit. I mean my parents- they care- but they don't count, man. Who else? I don't even have a son.
Staff Sergeant William James: Well, you're gonna have plenty of time for that, amigo.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: Naw, man. I'm done. I want a son. I want a little boy, Will. I mean, how do you do it, you know? Take the risk?
Staff Sergeant William James: I don't know. I guess I don't think about it.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: But you realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it's life or death. You roll the dice, and you deal with it. You recognize that don't you?
Staff Sergeant William James: Yea... Yea, I do. But I don't know why.
[sighs]
Staff Sergeant William James: I don't know, JT. You know why I'm the way I am?
Sergeant JT Sanborn: No, I don't.

Dexter = whipped

This NY Magazine article discusses the transformation of the fictional character Dexter, from cold-blooded killer to soccer dad:

Dexter returns for its sixth season on Sunday, and with it comes the requisite gore deftly contrasted with the brutal sunshine of Miami. Some things never change! But some things really, really do. Like Dexter. Over the course of the series, he's gone from stone-cold sociopath to slightly-less-cold lovable vigilante. Whatever moral ambiguity the show used to embrace — is it okay to ... root for a murderer? — is gone, replaced with a strange certainty (definitely root for this murderer!) that takes a lot of the creepiness away from the show. How did Miami Metro's favorite blood-splatter analyst go from his pas de deux with the Ice Truck Killer in season one to trying to get his son into a prestigious nursery school in season six? By following this plan to go from scary serial killer to soft suburban dad in these seven easy steps!

People ask me whether I think Dexter is an accurate portrayal of a sociopath. I say that in the first season, maybe second, it was so eerily accurate on some of his internal dialogue that I thought there must be someone on the writing staff or a consultant who was a sociopath themselves. Now I still watch it and it is entertaining and makes me want to live in Miami, but not so much accurate.

By the way, how to achieve your own predatory stare? Practice a half smile in front of a mirror, then while maintaining the smile, add a sneer gradually until you get just the right mix of sinister masked by friendly.

Benign neglect: Rizzoli and Isles

In response to the Fringe and Breaking Bad post, a reader mentioned the character Dr. Maura Isles from the television show "Rizzoli and Isles" as someone to watch out for. In the episode "I'm Your Boogie Man," the (Asperger's? Autism? Sociopath?) sometimes odd acting Isles questions a serial killer's statement that she is not afraid of him because she is just like him:

Rizzoli: You okay? Come on, Maura, talk to me. He's a freak. He gets to everybody.

Isles: I didn't -- I did a lot of research into his background; his childhood. Maybe he's not wrong.

Rizzoli: What are you talking about?

Isles: Maybe I am a little bit like him.

Rizzoli: You are nothing like him.

Isles: I don't -- I don't know, Jane. I was a weird kid.

Rizzoli: Were you killing small animals?

Isles: [laughs] No, but I dissected a lot of frogs.

Rizzoli: That's different.

Isles: I just started to think about things that I never really thought about before.

Rizzoli: Here it comes. There are bodies buried in your basement.

Isles: I spent a lot of time alone. I was adopted, my father was a professor and my mother she -- she came from a wealthy family and was an only child. I just realized something when I was reading about Hoyt. It just never occurred to be before. There was a lot of benign neglect. It's not that they didn't love me. It's just that I didn't ask for much. I don't think I really knew how, and the less that I would ask for the less time that they have for me. They were just very, very involved in their own lives and into each other. They sent me to boarding school when I was ten. I actually think that I sent away for the brochure myself. [smiles with Jane] They were delighted. I was really lost.

Rizzoli: Come here. [takes Maura's hand] No matter what happened to you, you are nothing like that monster, okay? You're a little anti-social maybe, goofy, but that's not the same thing.

Isles: [crying] Thank you.

This was interesting, this idea of benign neglect. I think it's easy to write a character like this off as being a relatively harmless Aspie, but do negative environmental factors like this trigger autism or Asperger's? Even if she is Aspie, or even just an introvert, apparently the way she was raised has led her to become an antisocial, relatively unfeeling and unempathetic brand of humanity, which really isn't that different from her foil the serial killer.

Can benign neglect trigger sociopathic behaviors? Maybe. Or probably.

Fringe: Parallel universe serial killers

On the most recent episode of Fringe, there was an interesting analysis of how a serial killer develops from a genetic predisposition to a full blown mass murderer. Spoiler alert, but Fringe is a television series that (I believe) sees itself as a modern X-Files, exploring "fringe" science with a team of genius scientists and pragmatic law men and women. One of the major story arcs is the existence of a parallel universe (oddly just one) that resembles our own in many ways, including having most of the same cast of characters. In the episode "One Night in October," this concept of parallel universes is exploited quite nicely where in the one universe a man has killed at least 40 victims, on the other side he is a professor of abnormal psychology with a specialty in serial killers. The professor version of the man later confesses that he has always struggled with an urge to kill, but that there had been an early intervening force in his life that guided him to a different path. The killer version of the man had no such intervention. As one blogger puts it:

It turns out that was it not for a single choice, made one night in October, [Professor] would likely have ended up in the same situation as the serial killer. Naturally, he escapes to try and explain things to his bad guy self; there’s a choice to be made, and he’s living proof that his urges can be controlled. That while we are who we are and our natures are innate, it’s possible for decisions to accumulate and snowball into drastic differences.

“One Night in October” had a lot to say about some big questions about identity, which makes sense for a show like Fringe to take on. . . . No one is dictated exclusively by nature or nurture, but by a combination of things they can and can’t control. It’s what we do with the information we have that defines us.

Apart from some very trite stereotypes for serial killers and human development in general, I think it was an interesting exploration of some of these questions. Also, professor version says this:

"I don't think that we can underestimate the role that empathy plays in the structuring of the self, or the lack thereof"

I wasn't aware that there was a connection between lack of empathy and sense of self, but it made me curious. There are a couple of articles I found that I will read. I'll do a post on them if they seem promising.