Just a dick?

In what has become an impromptu series of "Sociopath, or just _____?" (e.g., sociopath, or just puberty? Sociopath, or just smart? Sociopath, or just depression? Etc., a reader wonders:

I'm well aware you get hundreds of emails from people who are desperate to become sociopaths, so they tell you how unfeeling they are and how they don't care about anybody. And after reading your blog for over a year a question began to fester in the back of my brain and I crave an answer. Why would people, at the slightest lack of empathy, jump to the conclusion that they are a sociopath? And the reason i bring this up is, i used to feel like them. At some point in my life i just decided, i love to hurt people, so i must be a sociopath. I now realize that i'm just a douche. I still enjoy seeing people crumble before me when i attack all of their insecurities at once, but I'm not a sociopath or a psychopath. But what i'm confused by is, why is it so hard for people to come to the realization that they are just dicks?

M.E.:

I think you may be confusing lack of empathy with sadism. Some people don't care about other people, but they have perfectly intact empathy. Other people know that they don't connect with people, and it looks (internally) and feels a lot more like what I would imagine autism would feel like. Their brain is not capable of processing empathy the most people's brains (apparently) do. They can pretend that those empathy and emotional connections things are going on, in fact, they can pretend so well that no one else suspects what's really going on.

Although there's certainly bound to be overlap between empathy-impaired people and dicks, a diminished capacity for empathy is different and doesn't necessarily lead to enjoying exploiting people, or even just taking a special pleasure in your own agenda at others expense. So which are you? 

It's not personal

The Godfather taught us that some things are just business, not personal. I've had to explain to a lot of people in the past few years that so much of what I do does not generate from any feelings of sadism or pleasure in the pain of others, but simple pragmatism/instrumentalism in which someone or something has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I thought this recent-ish comment described something similar:

"to sit and smalltalk with other people about weather, for no other purpose than "to do so", does not fit the average psychopath"

Well it certainly doesn't appeal to me. I love having one-to-one conversations about interesting topics but I admit it's for the purpose of deepening my understanding and widening my views.

Here's another sign of (my) socio Christmas: I never buy presents to my friends/family. I say that it's because I don't like the stress and Christmas should be about chilling out etc but really I just don't see the point and don't want to spend my money on others – except for my clients, in which case I consider it a marketing expense.

I'm not bothered about receiving presents either. I think quite often people think that sociopaths are people that want attention and gifts etc but I'm the opposite. And anyway I think people often confuse sociopaths and narcissists. I don't like giving affection and I don't want it back. I also don't like being admired and it actually sometimes really irritates me if I get those kind of vibes.

I guess I'm the type of a sociopath who doesn't feel the need for other people but I don't feel the need to hurt them either. It just sometimes happens that when people annoy me for whatever reason I ignore them or dump them or dismiss them and do something that they think is hurtful. But its never for the sake of harming others but more like the people just get on the way of what I want. This wasn't meant to sound like me giving excuses, I'm just thinking out loud.

Another thing I thought here is that maybe this is just more what a sociopathic traits look like when they manifest in a female who is also introverted?

It was a pleasure to burn

This was an interesting question posed in a recent comment:

I am wondering if a sociopath devoid of any narcissism and sadism could function at all in society. I would venture to say that perhaps a certain level of those traits is necessary to higher functioning sociopaths. What would be the motivation for them to get out of bed in the morning and interact with people in a manner that is engaged/engaging enough to keep them functioning in society? They have blunted emotional response to negative stimuli, so surely they need a bit of emotional response to positive stimuli (narcissism) or they need to get something out of affecting people in some way: either destructively (sadism) or constructively (back to narcissism) - Beware, tough, the constructive sociopath is probably out to get you :-) 

I actually am having problems conceptualizing a sociopath without any narcissism or sadism. Wouldn't his behavior be more akin to that of an autistic person then, uninterested in interaction with people? 

I realize I am oversimplifying things here, but I am very interested in any response, especially from Machiavellianempath and ME.

I've been thinking about this recently, particularly after coming across the novel Farenheit 451 again. I love Ray Bradbury, and this is a favorite of mine. The narrator of the story is a fireman, tasked with burning books, et al. in a dystopian oppressive regime. Although (spoiler alert) he eventually comes to see the folly of his ways, he still (and refreshingly) acknowledges with great candor the pleasures of his previous work:

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

I can also say with all candor that it was a pleasure to burn. Some of the worst things I have done in most people's eyes were great pleasure to me. That's why I did them. I understand that people wish that were not true, and I feel the same to an extent. I know some of my supporters wish that I was neither narcissistic or sadistic, but I suffer from both in varying degrees that flare up in different contexts. I don't feel like there is anything inherently wrong with these traits (as illustrated in the comment above) anymore than I feel like there is something wrong with deriving pleasure in destruction. It's more about how and the context in which they manifest themselves, right? And the particular standard of morality you adopt? And whether you are on the axis or the allied side? And whether you can control yourself or should know better or whether you embrace it or pretend otherwise or some other stuff? I don't know, I don't really understand it all, but I'm trying to also learn your perspective on these things, so thanks for being patient.

Responses to a hypothetical

Ok, we had a good split of responses from the hypothetical. There were 60 total. Approximately 29 people identified as sociopathic. Of those 29, six were diagnosed. Only 16 total people total were diagnosed with anything, including sociopathy. If you're curious to see all the responses, here's a link (there are 9000 total words).

My response to the hypothetical was that if extreme pain was an issue, we should pair up empaths with each other. If it is true that they feel each others' pain and find it painful themselves to inflict pain, then when an empath smashes another empath's fingers smashed with a hammer, that should be a twofer in terms of amount of pain juice. So my main thought was, given that we are in this situation, we should handle the task in the most efficient way possible.

I gave the hypothetical to me extreme empath friend. She suggested that she just wouldn't play. She would spend that time trying to find a way out or just die because she didn't think it was likely that we would be released after the fluid was collected anyway. Interestingly, she has always bucked what most people (including me) would just accept as their lot. For instance, as a child she refused to go to Kindergarten until her father started bribing her with coffee.

Her neurotypical significant other said that he would lock himself up in a room and just hope to avoid anybody, maybe even take a nap because that's how he deals with stress.

Using those three responses and what I predicted would be a fourth, I came up with four categories of responses: (1) cooperative (main goal is figuring a way to get it done, not necessarily to hurt people), (2) opposition (active resistance, (3) avoidance (passive resistance or noncompliance), and (4) sadism (primarily concerned with hurting people). I coded the responses accordingly (see document linked above).

Perhaps people who read this blog won't be surprised, but the large majority of sociopaths chose cooperating. As one person put it, once they heard the rules of the game they became "task-oriented." Why is this? I'm not entirely sure, but when presented with a game like this, sociopaths (high-functioning?) seem less likely to challenge the underlying assumption and more likely to find a way to game the system from the inside. As long as I'm pretty sure the game isn't rigged I'm most likely to play by the rules (and do it better than anyone else by being creative) than to completely subvert them. For instance, in my younger days I would scam people all of the time but didn't tend to outright steal from them.

Cooperative sociopaths were either coldly rationale about getting the job done or were trying to game the inherent weaknesses of the set-up. Interestingly while sociopaths seemed intent on trying to game the system, they were also concerned with the noncompliance of others and how they might try to enforce compliance. They treated the exercise as if it was a game of Diplomacy, tending to advocate for a more regimented and organized approach with due care to isolate the victims and rabblerousers lest their fear, panic, or rebellion spread. (Prompted by a fear of mob mentality? Desire to keep control of the group?)  While the cooperative sociopaths were concerned with emotions and psychological states to the extent they predicted individual behavior, the sociopaths were not concerned with minimizing psychological or emotional scarring, only physical (and they were oddly concerned about that).

In comparison, non-sociopaths who selected cooperation were often concerned about minimizing pain overall, and even emotional pain. Some were worried about minimizing their own pain or maximizing their own chances of survival. Some were primarily concerned with keeping some measure of at least an illusion of control over the situation, or at least being creative with the solutions to the problem.

Interestingly, most of the non-sociopaths answered both questions (how would you feel and what would you do), whereas far fewer sociopaths bothered to answer how they would feel. Even if the sociopath did address how he would feel, it was often in terms of non-emotional reactions, e.g. being impressed, sighing at the bad luck, or just being angry or frustrated.

More interesting still, when asked to imagine the reactions of their "opposites." sociopaths were most likely to focus on their emotions as opposed to what they would do. In contrast, non-sociopaths focused on what the opposites would do, not what they would feel. This suggests that sociopaths tend to see non-sociopaths in terms of their emotional reactions and non-sociopaths see sociopaths in terms of their actions.

Sociopaths also tended to see empath reactions more in terms of group dynamics (e.g., the sociopath would try to predict how they would act as a group), whereas non-sociopaths imagined sociopaths as operating as more of a lone wolf. Again, this is probably true to life -- statistically this situation would have only 1 or 2 sociopaths and the main thrust of the group dynamic would be from non-sociopaths.

I was pleased to see that empaths (at least the ones who visit this site) didn't assume that sociopaths would be uniformly sadistic. Rather, most of them correctly predicted that sociopaths would be rational and efficient (only two sociopaths were coded as sadistic, the other two sadistic responders were BPD and narcissism).

My favorite response about what your opposite might do was from an aspie: "I honestly have little idea."

Thanks for participating!

Song: She's Always a Woman

Even before I had ever heard the word sociopath applied to me, I always sort of identified with this song and it does seem to accurately portray the ups and downs with being with a female sociopath.

For more information, please visit our Web Community.

Sociopaths = sadists?

The NY Times reports on recent research about the "‘Everyday Sadists’ Among Us." The research suffers from a large degree of circularity, that is people who respond yes to questions like “I enjoy mocking losers to their face,” “I enjoy hurting people,” and “In car racing, it’s the accidents I enjoy most” also tend to be more engaged in killing bugs or inflicting loud white noise on opponents in a game? Ok. Not revolutionary or enlightening, in fact that may be the least controversial finding you'll read today.

What's more interesting is the characterization of how sadism fits into other related disorders like sociopathy:

In 2002, Dr. Paulhus and colleagues had proposed a cluster of traits they called the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. The traits are present in many people not currently in jail or in therapy.
***He has been investigating if everyday sadism should be added to the cluster — a Dark Tetrad.

“Psychopaths want to get things from people and don’t care about hurting them to do so,” he said. “Yet sadists look for opportunities to hurt people, and prolong it for their own pleasure.”

Studies also indicate that sadists will choose to hurt people without provocation, even if the act takes time and effort — the only reward being the pleasure of inflicting cruelty.

So psychopaths aren't necessarily sadists according to Dr. Paulus. But who are the sadists then? And how many are there? The sample size of the experiment was too small to make any sort of guesses about how much of the population is an "everyday sadist." But out of the jobs that people could volunteer for, over half chose to take part in bug killing rather than clean toilets or endure pain from ice water. So are over half of us sadists? Maybe even more because some sadists might happen to love (or fear) bugs? Or less because some people who love to kill bugs aren't necessarily getting off on the bugs pain, but may be into something else (sense of empowerment?).

Possibly the most interesting thing about this research is its attempt to pathologize yet another trait (sadism) that seems to actually be common in the general population. For instance, they list enjoyment of hockey fights and schadenfraude as clear examples of sadism. I guess that makes almost every sports fan and suburban housewife a sadist? It's pretty clear why people would rather think it was an isolated disorder rather than acknowledge its actual prevalence. As sociopath researcher Scott Lilienfeld said: “We prefer to think, ‘There’s sadists, and then there’s the rest of us.’ ”

The attempt to villainize some forms of enjoyment of violence/suffering while ignoring that most of the population watches violent media, plays violent video games, and has engaged in some form of intentional violence or hurtful activity reminds me of the song "Trouble" from the Music Man. The song features the protagonist making huge distinctions between the honorable game of billiards and the degrading game of pool in order to stir the people up into a morality frenzy of us vs. them: "Well, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community." Replace "pool" with "sociopath," "sadist" or the "scientific" label du jour helping to keep normal folk in a different category from evil doers, and it's basically a perfect parallel?

Thoughts = crimes?

Can you be punished for being a sexual sadist without ever having acted upon it? Apparently, yes, at least in Canada. The Star reports the sentencing of an 18 year old who shared his sadistic sexual fantasies with a classmate, then spent the next 77 days in pre-sentence custody and years of probation for it:

This sadist is a handsome, strapping young man, in his neat navy trousers and cardigan, nicely groomed. The observer imagines a teenage girl would be quite chuffed to receive a Facebook overture from so pleasant-seeming a boy. Except this sadist wrote: “I wanna cut ur stomach open and stick my d—k in it.’’

From her end of the online chat, the girl responded blandly: “OK.’’

Sadist: “Break ur legs and (obscenity deleted) on ur face.’’

Girl: “k calm down.’’

That, De Filippis concluded, constituted the bodily harm threat, rejecting the defence’s argument that the Facebook conversation utterances were merely desires, not intended action.

And the girl (eventually) felt threatened, so pretty much that in itself is a crime?  

“I find that the defendant is a sadist,’’ the judge wrote. “The Facebook conversation reflects his need to cause bodily harm as a source of sexual gratification. He described the violent nature of the acts contemplated and sought the complainant’s submission to his desire. He also said he did not care if she consented.

Well, which is it? That he sought her submission or suggested he didn't care if she wanted it or not? And isn't playing at lack of consent one of the key elements of BDSM? Is there any way to criminally sentence this guy without criminalizing a host of other sexual "deviants"?

“I have no doubt these words were meant to be taken seriously and that they intimidated the complainant. Indeed, I am confident he derived pleasure from the threats themselves.’’

This is a crime in Canada? To proposition someone and have them be intimidated by it? What if someone propositioned the girl for "normal" sex, which she declined? Also a crime? Makes you want to be careful about who you reveal your fantasies to, right?

At that point, the boy says, “I don’t wanna hurt u so bye,” as if warning her off. Yet she won’t let him get away. “Stop — I do have feelings for you … but u can’t force me into s—t … . I’m not like that. I don’t want to lose what we have but if u can’t respect me then … maybe we should just stay friends.’’

***

“If I hurt u, but not badly, are u okay with that?’’ he asks. “Like if cut u? ... Bruise u … I want to cut u.’’

***

“No u can kiss me and u can only slap my a--.’’

It was entirely a “reciprocal’’ conversation, court heard, and the girl laughed when the youth said he’d masturbated over a picture of her.

Close enough to a crime in the eyes of Canada. He gets probation, including a prohibition on certain internet and mobile phone use and restrictions about what he is allowed to read or view (including no "smut"). But also, 50 Shades of Grey is popular and mainstream enough to be made into a movie... 

In related "shoot first and ask questions later" news, the NY Times reports that a security guard at the Western Wall in Jerusalem recently shot and killed a Jewish man. For what offense? The man had his hand in his pocket allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” The guard shot him multiple times, "apparently suspecting him of being a Palestinian militant about to carry out an attack." Sound like Trayvon Martin? Or how about drone attacks murdering innocent people for saying a few magic words like "jihad" in a mobile phone conversation? People tend to have a quick trigger finger for those whom they believe to be a threat, even if they've done nothing wrong. 

In still more Philip K. Dick's Minority Report related news, a recent study suggests that we can identify criminals likely to be recidivists via their brain scans. Wouldn't that be so great to be able to identify evil-doers before they can even get around to committing evil? And yet people are decrying the violations to their own civil liberties from government monitoring (NSA), for similar prophylactic measures. But if people have nothing to hide, they have nothing to worry about, right? As long as you manage to avoid being labeled something evil like sadist or sociopath (or shouting common religious phrases in public or wearing a hoodie at night or having opposing political beliefs as the party in power, or saying "that's the bomb!" in Afghanistan or standing next to someone that did), you're safe, right? Because we basically have a foolproof method of identifying bad people and punishing them.

I feel like this is somehow relevant:

Scientology: L. Ron Hubbard

From Medusa (a reader):

Not sure if you have ever covered Scientology, but now's a good time as any.

I found this 1983 Penthouse interview with L. Ron Hubbard's son to be extremely fitting to the blog.

Here's a little taste:

"Hubbard: Well, he didn't really want people killed, because how could you really destroy them if you just killed them? What he wanted to do was to destroy their lives, their families, their reputations, their jobs, their money, everything. My father was the type of person who, when it came to destruction, wanted to keep you alive for as long as possible, to torture you, punish you. If he chose to destroy you, he would love to see you lying in the gutter, strung out on booze and drugs, rolling in your own vomit, with your wife and children gone forever: no job, no money. He'd enjoy walking by and kicking you and saying to other people, "Look what I did to this man!" He's the kind of man who would pull the wings off flies and watch them stumble around. You see, this fits in with his Scientology beliefs, also. He felt that if you just died, your spirit would go out and get another body to live in. By destroying an enemy that way, you'd be doing him a favor. You were letting him out from under the thumb of L. Ron. Hubbard, you see?"

Many other quotes just as good, worth the read.

Ramzan Kadyrov

A reader discusses this photo of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov:

In regards to your recent post "Say it loud I'm S and I'm proud" I couldn't help remembering a picture I found of current Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov who is widely known to be a sadistic and dangeous s.o.b., many also say he is extremely charming, fits the profile of a sociopath. I attached a picture of him that needs no further description. Look at it carefully, notice the smirk and the t-shirt. Made me laugh, thinking he is proud of his reputation, and how you put it "I'm S and I'm proud!".

If you're going to write about Kadyrov, do a quick search on him, you'll find plenty of very interesting information. I remembered the charming part from an interview with him that I read somewhere, can't remember which magazine I read it in though, but the reporter specifically used the word charming when describing him, it stuck in my head. The reporter was questioning how could such a well mannered and charming man be considered such a ruthless dictator. He also likes paying celebrities to party with him, he enjoys being seen with famous or important people, it gives a boost to his fragile ego I guess. Also plenty of info on the torture he applies to his political enemies including the now infamous boiling alive of some of his opponents and some rather interesting speculation of him having a prison in which he enjoys making his prisoners watch him while he has sex. Interesting paralel between him and Saddam Hussein, which is why I got interested in Kadyrov in the first place. While both privately more or less neutral towards religion, in public they made efforts to appear devout muslims. Saddam especially in the later part of his rule, shaped his image after Salah ad Din (popularly known as Saladin), which was a brilliant military commander, devout muslim and national hero of Iraq and the arab world. Even statues or artistic representations pertaining to Saddam's cult of personality were modeled after ancient representations of Saladin. I was wondering if it was just simple politics or the power they held made them see themselves as divine or under divine protection. After the first Gulf war, even though the coalition defeated Saddam and drove him out of Kuweit, he interpreted it as a divine victory, added God is Great to the Iraqi flag, and started presenting himself as a very devout man.

This sort of reminds of me of a NY Times article I read recently of a Russian man who was barred from attending the memorial service of a 2002 airplane crash because he killed the air traffic controller whom he blamed for the murder of his family:

“The German authorities apparently do not want to let me attend the mourning ceremony,” Mr. Kaloyev told the Interfax news agency in a telephone interview. “They think for some reason that my presence there is unnecessary, although all my family perished in the plane crash.”

In the nighttime accident on July 2, 2002, a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev passenger jet filled with children headed for a vacation collided with a DHL Boeing 757 cargo airplane, killing 71 people, including 52 children.
***
The only controller on duty at the time, Peter Nielsen, a Danish citizen, had instructed the Russian jet to descend, after noticing that the planes were on a collision course.

Partly because radar data was delayed, owing to technical repairs taking place at the time, and because a colleague was sleeping, Mr. Nielsen was slow in delivering the instruction to descend to the Russian pilots.

But the onboard collision-avoidance systems on the planes issued contradictory instructions, telling the Russian pilots of the passenger plane to ascend, while instructing the DHL jet to descend. The Russian pilots followed the air traffic controller’s advice and the two descending planes collided.

The Boeing’s tail fin severed the Russian fuselage, and both aircraft crashed, scattering debris and bodies over the surrounding countryside.

A German investigation partly blamed Skyguide for the collision.

After learning this, Mr. Kaloyev, an architect said to be overwhelmed with grief, flew to Switzerland in 2004, found Mr. Nielsen’s house and stabbed him to death in a garden. Mr. Nielsen’s wife and three children were home at the time. Mr. Nielsen was 36.

After the killing, Swiss police detained Mr. Kaloyev at a nearby hotel. A court sentenced him to the eight years in prison for murder in 2005, but the authorities released him after he had served two years of the sentence.

To the annoyance of the Swiss, he was welcomed back to his native region of North Ossetia as a hero; the region has a deep tradition of tolerating vendettas.

The story reminded me of this post about how certain societies really are more sociopathic seeming than others.