A rose by any other name

As a follow-up to the sociopathy = criminality? post, this selection from Martha Stout's Sociopath Next Door on whether culture plays a role in creating a sociopath, or even more interestingly, "curing" one:

Apparently, cultural influences play a very important role in the development (or not) of sociopathy in any given population. Few people would disagree that, from the Wild West of the past to the corporate outlaws of the present, American society seems to allow and even encourage me-first attitudes devoted to the pursuit of domination. Robert Hare writes that he believes "our society is moving in the direction of permitting, reinforcing, and in some instances actually valuing some of the traits listed in the Psychopathy Checklist—traits such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of remorse."

In this opinion he is joined by theorists who propose that North American culture, which holds individualism as a central value, tends to foster the development of antisocial behavior, and also to disguise it. In other words, in America, the guiltless manipulation of other people "blends" with social expectations to a much greater degree than it would in China or other more group-centered societies.

I believe there is a shinier side of this coin, too, one that begs the question of why certain cultures seem to encourage prosocial behavior. So much against the odds, how is it that some societies have a positive impact on incipient sociopaths, who are born with an inability to process interpersonal emotions in the usual way? I would like to suggest that the overriding belief systems of certain cultures encourage born sociopaths to compensate cognitively for what they are missing emotionally. In contrast with our extreme emphasis on individualism and personal control, certain cultures, many in East Asia, dwell theologically on the interrelatedness of all living things.

Interestingly, this value is also the basis of conscience, which is an intervening sense of obligation rooted in a sense of connectedness. If an individual does not, or if neurologically he cannot, experience his connection to others in an emotional way, perhaps a culture that insists on connectedness as a matter of belief can instill a strictly cognitive understanding of interpersonal obligation.

An intellectual grasp of one's duties to others is not the same attribute as the powerfully directive emotion we call conscience, but perhaps it is enough to extract prosocial behavior from at least some individuals who would have behaved only in antisocial ways had they been living in a society that emphasized individualism rather than interrelatedness. Though they lack an internal mechanism that tells them they are connected to others, the larger culture insists to them that they are so connected—as opposed to our culture, which informs them resoundingly that their ability to act guiltlessly on their own behalf is the ultimate advantage. This would explain why a Western family by itself cannot redeem a born sociopath. There are too many other voices in the larger society implying that his approach to the world is correct.

As a tiny example, had Skip [previously mentioned sociopath in the book] the American been born into a strongly Buddhist culture, or Shinto, would he have killed all those frogs? Perhaps, or perhaps not. His brain would have been the same, but all the people around him would have maintained that respect for life was necessary. Everyone in his world would have been of the same mind, including his wealthy parents, his teachers, his playmates, and maybe even the celebrities he saw on television. Skip would still have been Skip. He would have felt no honor for the frogs, no guilt if he murdered them, no repugnance, but he might have refrained from doing so because his culture had unanimously taught him a lesson, something on the order of proper table manners, about how to fit in—a lesson that his perfectly good intellect had mastered. Sociopaths do not care about their social world, but they do want, and need, to blend in with it.

I'm curious whether Dr. Stout believes that the Shinto version of the sociopath Skip would still be a sociopath. In other words, if Skip's brain is the same, if Skip is still Skip and wanted to kill those frogs but refrained from cultural/spiritual beliefs or influences, does he remain a sociopath? Is a sociopath his behaviors or his thoughts and inclinations?

Defining conscience

I've been thinking recently about the definition and imagery behind the concept "conscience." Martha Stout in The Sociopath Next Door defines conscience as necessarily having an emotional component:

Psychologically speaking, conscience is a sense of obligation ultimately based in an emotional attachment to another living creature (often but not always a human being), or to a group of human beings, or even in some cases to humanity as a whole. Conscience does not exist without an emotional bond to someone or something, and in this way conscience is closely allied with the spectrum of emotions we call "love." This alliance is what gives true conscience its resilience and its astonishing authority over those who have it, and probably also its confusing and frustrating quality.

I don't know if I agree with that definition, but maybe my opinion doesn't count for much. I do find it interesting that there are basically two types of imagery used to portray conscience: (1) the devil and the angel on the shoulder and (2) a separate entity telling you to do the right thing, e.g. Jiminy Cricket. The origin of the devil and angel is obvious -- Judeo Christian beliefs include the concept of the "holy spirit" and guardian angels, and even God telling you what to do, and there is also a fallen angel, the devil, tempting you to do wrong things. The origin of Jiminy is less clear, but I would imagine that most non religious people would associate their conscience with this type instead of the angel/devil. When I asked my friend which he thought was most accurate, he said:

Friend: Jiminy Cricket

M.E.: Yeah, interesting. So it is a separate person? eparate little part of you?

Friend: I don't know, you can "tap into" your conscience, or suspend it, push it aside...

M.E.: So sort of separate, right?

Friend: I guess so, right?

M.E.: Hard to know. I guess it has to feel separate from us, otherwise we wouldn't come up with a separate name for him.

Friend: I feel like it doesn't feel separate most of the time until you feel fractured about it, when something disturbs it.

M.E.: Like a bone or your kidney?

Friend: Yeah, exactly.

Is a conscience like other organs in our body? We never notice it until we hurt it? And if so, is it more like the heart? The lungs? Or the appendix? The gall bladder? Is it something else? If we're defining sociopaths based partially on a lack of conscience (e.g. Robert Hare's book, Without Conscience), what is it that other people have that sociopaths lack?

Fearmongering called out

Reader D. Birdick shares a pretty charming book review of one of the more alarmist of pop sociopath "literature":

Hey, how goes it?

I came across this review of Martha Stout's book The Sociopath Next Door on Amazon that I thought you might find amusing and even a bit insightful:

Dark Mechanicus JSG "Black Ops Teep"
Welcome to my World!

Yep, many have called me a sociopath in my day. Only one of them, however, got to say something after that, and that was only because the gun jammed.

Ha! Ha! Kidding. Martha Stout has put together this slender little tome, packed with pop science and plenty of white desert-like margins, that sets out to let you know that:

1)Four percent of the population exhibits sociopathic qualities. For the mathematically challenged---that is, pretty much 96% of the population---that means 1 out of 25.

Think about that statistic for a minute.Take an office with 25 people, and chances are Herbie the Courier Guy or Roald (you know, Roald, the guy with glasses and the shaky sweaty hands, the Quiet One. Roald. Sheesh) has invested in some XP-142 Night Vision goggles and a serrated knife, and, um, a GPS device that might lead him to your front door.

At 2 in the morning. Just so we're clear.

2) These sociopath guys, like the Wu-Tang Clan, ain't nothing to mess with. No sir. They can't love. They don't feel emotion. They're Republican. They're corporate chieftains. They ride in the Lear, the Limo, the Maybach. They invented War. They smear cats with napalm, then duct tape them to the underside of your car, right by the rear exhaust, with a tricked-out bic lighter just waiting for ignition.

Sorry, I made that last one up. But you get the general gist of the book.

"Sociopath Next Door" is simply not scholarly, and verges on dangerous. Sociopath is a pop-term, like psycho, like axe-murderer, like boogeyman, El Diablo, or Janet Reno, with about the same level of erudition & exactness. It's jarring to see the term used so callously. Isn't it dangerous to fling terms and profiles, particularly ones as crudely formed and ill-defined as this, in what is essentially piece of pulp pop-science?

"Sociopath" even tries to put together a home-made psycho alarm for the Gentle Reader, the better to ferret out whether weird Mr. Fishbein, the crazy coot who lies next door, lies awake on his bed at nights dressed only in a giant plastic baggy whispering to his AK-47 and plotting your demise. Guess what should set off alarm bells & unleash the hounds?

That's right: someone who asks for pity. For mercy. For clemency. A pity-junky, according to this book, is a ravening sociopath probably plotting to get you fired, pour acid on your car, and eat your firstborn child with some fava beans and a fine chianti.

"Sociopath" also spends some time talking about the supposed human superstition against killing: according to her, people really kill only when supervised by (you guessed it!) a drooling sociopath. The irony here: the author indicates one means by which men make their subjects kill is by de-humanizing the Other: using language to demonize, to turn the Outsider, the Pariah, the Unclean (usually some target ethnic or religious group), into an "It".

It's a fair point.. But skim her book, and simply replace sociopath with any ethnic epithet and take a look at how it reads. Avoid the devilish sociopaths. They don't feel. They're not human. They have cold blood. They're killers. Four percent of the planet is responsible for all the rape, the killing, the torture, and the endless popularity of David Hasselhoff.

Hasn't this book demonized sociopaths as brutally, as unfairly, as unjustly, as anything any Monster of History did with their fave victim class? Where's the Love for the American Psycho? Are we not also Human? Cut* us, do we not bleed? Cut us twice, do we not make you bleed more?

But what "Sociopath" edges away from is the really interesting question here: what if sociopathy is not a malady? What if it's evolution? What if the guy who doesn't get all weepy over "Beaches" is really Humanity New New Thing, the silver-suited astropath who will transcend this miserable mortal coil and help us defeat the Ichthyoid Nasties from Betelgeuse 14?

In the meantime, using the book's 'method' for spotting psychos is about as useful as playing spin the bottle. Intuition, instinct, and your own experience probably cuts the mustard, and you don't have to waste your money on this one-way ticket to Paranoia. Granted, instinct isn't perfect.

But it sure beats fretting over whether your trip next door to borrow the lawnmower should include a can of mace, a sawed-off 12 gauge, and kevlar body armor.

JSG

Conversation with a Friend: "only 50% of criminals are psychopathic"

M.E.: One in 25 people are sociopaths, apparently. Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door is all about how to spot them, out them, and/or avoid them.

Friend: Failure to conform to social norms, being deceitful and manipulating, being impulsive, being irritable or aggressive, being unconcerned about the safety of the self or anybody else, being consistently irresponsible, and being unconcerned and unremorseful for hurting or stealing. You need to have three of these to be sociopath. Okay, you do.

M.E.: Ha, which 3?

Friend: Failure to conform, manipulating, unconcerned about safety of self.

M.E.: :( iz fine

Friend: It is fine. Those are like the least offensive ones. I mean, are we worried you're going to be a bomber or something? Cause i mean, it seems like bombers are not necessarily sociopaths at all.

M.E.: At first I was a little excited about the book because I thought it would get the word out that sociopaths are an unrecognized minority with special needs. But I guess people just want to hate the differences.

Friend: No, it's more like hunt them down and kill them. But I mean, clearly sociopaths must feel love, have families, etc., if there are so many of them. Do sociopaths self-identify? Do they know they can't/dont love? I dont think so. Crucial to her argument is showing what an unhappy state of mind sociopathy is. It's not some Nietzschean imperviousness to the sheep morality of the masses, but rather a stunted, empty, unfeeling disconnection from the human community, a life with a void at its center.

Stout expertly conveys the tedium of sociopathic lives to the point of creating a cautious sense of pity. Sociopaths, after all, live lives devoted to calculations designed to accumulate and manipulate to no conclusive end. For all their possible achievements and grand machinations, without the capacity for any kind of existentially grounded sense of happiness, it's all squirming on the hook of their broken selves. Cautious pity, I repeat, because Stout claims that, in interviews with sociopaths, they cite people's capacity for compassion, especially hard luck tales of childhood abuse, as one of the most useful ways to keep someone embedded in their web.

They are "clinically unsalvageable"? Hmph, you know I love sociopaths.

M.E.: I know you do.

Friend: Only 50% of violent criminals are psychopathic.

M.E.: Yeah, only.