Auteur

A friend recently called me an auteur. She meant that I seem to do things my own particular way, "you are so essentially you. You have such an M.E. signature. You leave an M.E. wake." It's interesting to think about it in those terms, it made me curious about the definition and origin of the word auteur, "an artist whose style and practice are distinctive." Literally meaning "author," it originated as a way to distinguish certain filmmakers whose unique style and artistic vision pervades their films, despite the many other participants in the process. Those filmmakers are the "author" of their films in ways that most filmmakers simply are not, due to lack of control or influence.

I wondered, if I am an auteur of my life, than what is my distinctive signature? I don't feel particularly definite, particularly rigid, or concrete in my beliefs or personality characteristics. My friend is right in that I do happen to have a set of preferences, though, and my choices always reflect those preferences. Although some of those preferences line up with decisions that others based on morality, I wouldn't say that it is a moral code anymore than you could say that Woody Allen's films are uniquely his due to his particular moral code, although it certainly would have some influence.

I don't know how I acquired my value system. I imagine that every aspect of it was once a choice, although it has been so long since I made those choices that I have long since forgotten how or why they were made, or even the very fact of a choice being made in most cases. I guess I just chose to be the way I am because I preferred it over all other options, at least at the time. There's nothing objectively hierarchical about my choices, no inherent judgment as to the choices of others. It's just what happened to happen due to a confluence of events (and genetics).

Recently I was flying over wooded areas demarcated by winding rivers. I wondered at the lack of logic that informed the flow of these rivers. Some of their path was obvious, avoid a hill here, follow a low land there, but some of it was absolutely random. I wondered at the initial water drop that moved in one particular direction over another, making a bend in the river. Maybe a little pebble forced it one way instead of the other, maybe even something as transient as the foot of an animal. The moment before was a universe of possibilities in which the water could have gone any number of directions. After, the cohesiveness of water molecules combined with the ease of repetition meant that every other water molecule would follow suit, self-reinforcing ad infinitum until the universe of possibilities added up to exactly one result.

We talk a lot here about what certain things must mean about a person. If you look at the end product without analyzing the process, you might be tempted to infer any number of different "truths" about a person, project any number of generalizations based on your own experiences, despite how paltry they are when compared to the universe of possibilities. The truth is that human behavior so often defies definition and explanation that any attempt to take such a pursuit seriously seems ill-fated and ignorant. I have been realizing lately that this futility in achieving real understanding applies equally (if not more so) to attempts at acquiring self-knowledge.

In other words, the more I learn about myself, the more I realize how little I know about everything.

Ethical sociopaths?

Can sociopaths be ethical? A certain type of ethical, certainly. But before we talk about potential sociopathic limitations, this NY Times article ("In Life and Business Learning to be Ethical") about the issues with ethics that almost all of humanity shares:

The problem, research shows, is that how we think we’re going to act when faced with a moral decision and how we really do act are often vastly different.

Here’s just one of many examples from an experiment at Northeastern University: Subjects were told they should flip a coin to see who should do certain tasks. One task is long and laborious; the other is short and fun.

The participant flips the coin in private (though secretly watched by video cameras), said David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern who conducted the experiment. Only 10 percent of them did it honestly. The others didn’t flip at all, or kept flipping until the coin came up the way they wanted.
***
[W]e need to be more aware of the ways we fool ourselves. We have to learn how to avoid subconsciously turning our backs when faced with a moral dilemma. And then we must be taught how to challenge people appropriately in those situations.

“When people predict how they’re going to act in a given situation, the ‘should’ self dominates — we should be fair, we should be generous, we should assert our values,” said Ann E. Tenbrunsel, a professor of business ethics at the University of Notre Dame who is involved in the EthicalSystems website. “But when the time for action comes, the ‘want’ self dominates” — I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to be punished.

“Our survival instinct is to want to be liked and to be included,” said Brooke Deterline, chief executive of Courageous Leadership, a consulting firm that offers workshops and programs on dealing with ethical situations. “We don’t willfully do bad things, but when we’re under threat our initial instinct is to downplay or ignore problematic situations.”

Sociopaths may not have the same set of ethics (or issues implementing ethics -- our survival instinct is not so much to be liked and included), but it's also possible for sociopaths to have a personal preference about how they wish to act, even if it is just a personal aesthetic as opposed to be a moral code. Webster defines ethics as many things, including "a guiding philosophy". Maybe for sociopaths that would look something more like utilitarianism or "the diamond rule", as opposed to a saint's altruism and golden rule, but even criminals have codes.

At the heart of any choice to ascribe to a set of ethics, whether empath or sociopath, is a belief that your choices matter -- that you and others around you are affected by everything you choose to do. You don't have to believe in right and wrong to understand that you are what you eat. And I wouldn't want life any other way. What would be the point of making choices if they didn't matter? And if you believe your choices matter, it's only natural to ascribe to some sort of "guiding philosophy" about how to make those choices. So yes, sociopaths can and are ethical. Could sociopaths ever be considered more ethical than empaths? 

Caring

People sometimes ask me if I like not having to care about anything. This question is absurd. Being a sociopath doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with no consequences, e.g. to your world view, the way your mind works, your vision of your self, your tastes and appetites, to say nothing of all of the societal consequences. If I start killing people, it will change me. Even if I steal from someone, it will change me. Every time I do something I ask myself, what are all the ramifications of this? How will this effect me or my life? Do I even know how yet? Is this something that I want?

Imagine that you were raised in a strictly religious household that followed basic Judeo-Christian theories of morality. After you leave and denounce your god, on your way to the tattoo shop, do you stop by your enemy's house to kill him? No? But you no longer believe there is a god! Wasn't the only reason that you weren't killing because God told you not to? What about if you suddenly woke up without a conscience? Now you would start killing?

There are legitimate reasons why things are considered socially reprehensible, apart from them also being morally "wrong" -- not always, but frequently. Living by the rules is an easy way to make sure you don't have to face unintended consequences -- the same reason that people might not want to eat street food, or even food from an off-brand label, or buy their prescription drugs out of the back of a van for cheap. If you are willing to take risks for something, there is a lot to be gained by being a social arbitrageur, walking the untread path, making your own rules, etc. But understand that it will entail risks. And people are unsympathetic if your risk taking involved something considered morally wrong, like seducing somebody's wife, and you end up with a bullet in your head.