12 Years a Slave

I watched 12 Years a Slave recently and liked it, particularly for its portrayal of different types of people in different types of situations. You don't think (spoiler alert) that you'll be tricked by people pretending to be your friends, kidnapped, shipped thousands of miles away, and sold to someone who is "eccentric," possibly insane, but with the legal upperhand. But this ends up happening to someone and you see how he deals with these situations, as well as the reactions of countless others in related positions. People like to think that they would do the "right" thing in most situations, whether the morally right thing or the smartest choice in terms of survival and self-promotion. A dominant message of the film, at least for me, is to question this belief.

Instead, it seems that the popular reaction of viewers to the film is one of outrage or at least deep discomfort that almost seems to eclipse any other message. This is the theme (and criticism?) of this NY York Times review:

What had bothered me the first time is that the movie is basically an anthology of beatings and whippings, each one more severe than the last, culminating in a moment of deep horror when the hero-victim — Solomon Northup, a free black man shanghaied into slavery — takes the whip himself and administers skin-flaying lashes to a young girl (Patsey) whose only crime is wanting a bar of soap. It’s like the special-effects films that come out every other day where there is an escalation of mayhem: bodies and buildings blown up in ever more ingenious ways leading to a last scene in which everything in sight is blasted to kingdom come. In “12 Years a Slave,” the escalation is not technical — brutal realism, not video-game pyrotechnics, is the mode — but a ratcheting up of the level of pain for both the characters and the audience.

I felt no ratcheting up of pain. But sociopaths have a much different reaction to theodicy, or the problem of evil seen from a theological or existential point of view. In other words, we not only have different responses to the question "how could bad things happen?", we rarely ask the question, at least framed in that way. The truth is that bad things are happening this very moment, equally as brutal and hopeless as anything that happened in the film. I know that and accept it as reality. I think other people know that, but don't like to think about it. Instead they spend their moral outrage on things like people's choice of Halloween costumes or people's out-of-the-box solutions to climate change.  Some have suggested that not being aware of worldwide suffering is due to the downside to empathy, that we feel more strongly for victims that come wrapped in a package of pretty sick white girls whose photos are splashed on the covers of newspapers than babies dying of malnutrition out of sight.

The most interesting part of the film was seeing the different reactions people have to their situations. There is the mother who is so happy to see her lost son, that she lets her guard down and becomes kidnapped herself. There is the man who talks about uprising and is quickly dispatched when he makes the slightest move to protect a fellow prisoner. There is the very educated man who courageously talks almost Black Panther style until when he is freed by his master he clings to the sure slavemaster in blessed relief that he won't be sold to some unknown danger. There are also many characters whose actions and reactions may seem so foreign that it is tempting to write them off as being unfathomable -- those of a sociopath. Sarah Paulson discusses her "evil" character's motivations:

I think the only way to do it, for me, was to try and figure out the "why" of her behavior. The idea of playing someone who is just evil to be evil seemed really boring to me and not realistic. Because nobody does anything for no reason. It may not be one I agree with or one that makes sense to me, but there will be reason. What I really came up with was that she's a product of her time. She was probably raised by ignorant and racist people, and I don't think she's of a complicated enough nature -- or self-aware enough nature -- to challenge what she's been taught. I think she just decided what she was taught is the right and true way, which many people in this country, and this world, sort of live by. Then, you add into that the reality that she's deeply, deeply, deeply jealous, because her husband is in love with another woman right under her nose, in her own home. It's humiliating. So when you're dealing with a person who's not very self-aware, who was raised by racists, who is not a deep woman, and who deals with surface feelings and emotions and appearances, then you might behave the way she behaves. That's how I could get into it.

Interestingly, despite people's strong reactions to the film, I haven't really seen this perspective a lot -- "I could have done these things in a similar situation". But that is the awful reality. There is no way that in all of history, horrible things were always done by sociopaths or the deranged. Normal people did these things. Normal people who lacked a bit of self-awareness and didn't bother to question the dominant moral teachings of their time.

Another reaction that I have not seen is people -- nobody seems to have been moved to go out and dedicate time, money, or effort to prevent the various forms of modern slavery that are popping up in their own backyards. Instead, one of the more common reactions has been to criticize the previous Hollywood portrayals of slavery as being impossibly rosy: "the paternalistic gentry with their pretty plantations, their genteel manners and all the fiddle-dee-dee rest." It's an odd criticism to make when so much of most peoples' daily lives are spent in deep denial of the horrors around them.

Or as a reader recently wrote to me:

People often think sociopaths are creepy for compartmentalizing and being able to hurt other people.

But  how great is empathy, if it allows normal people to go along with slavery? How can they take the moral high ground?

Sure, I'd be the sort to be a bounty hunter and track down slaves, happy to bring them back to the plantation and get paid. Or I'd be happy to punish a bad slave.

But what happened to normal people, that they went along with slavery? Maybe they aren't that different from sociopaths after all. Maybe they beat up on sociopaths because we remind them of their character traits that they hate the most.

The virtues (?) of victimhood

For a lot of spiritual/religious people there is the interesting issue of theodicy, the problem of evil: “how we justify the existence of suffering with belief in a God who created us, who loves us, and who providentially manages the world.” I've noticed that people (here in the comments and in my real life) seem to want to give meaning to bad things, typically in one of a few ways: (1) that God is testing them (and so presumably as long as they hang in there, the bad thing gave them a chance to prove themselves and is at worst neutral), (2) that they suffer to make them stronger (so the bad thing is really a blessing in disguise), or (3) they suffer as a testament to the evil of other men (and those men are going to be condemned or punished, so a net negative). This last reason is the most troubling to me. A lot of people come to the comment section with judgment on their tongue and calls for blood for the sociopaths that have wrecked their lives and so deserve untold horrors.. For some of these people, this one experience has come to define their existence.

When religious people think of someone who really had it rough, they frequently will think of Job. Job not only lost everything, all of his wealth, family, friends, he suffered immense physical pain. Job basically had it about as bad as you can get it. But there was no one for Job to hate except God, which he declined to do. As his reward, God gives him double what he had before. Dostoevsky writes in the Brothers Karamazov:

God raises Job again, gives him wealth again. Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be? But he could, he could. It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy.

But I have a feeling that for a lot of the victims that come here, having their lives restored wouldn't be nearly enough for them to relinquish their claims to victimhood. In their mind, giving up their hurt would also mean giving up the meaning and sense of purpose they've assigned to that hurt. Giving up their pain would mean giving up their hopes for justice -- that the wrongdoers will eventually suffer commensurate to their misdeeds. These people would rather live a life of eternal victimhood than they would a world in which things eventually get better.

The Brothers Karamazov is one of my favorite books. One of the characters Ivan struggles with this desire for justice:

I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have believed in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.

Apart from the established health benefits of forgiving and letting go of past hurts, Ivan's position is simply inconsistent with reality. There is no perfect justice. To keep clamoring for it suggests a significant break with reality. This is particularly true of justice against people like me, who don't really believe in “right.” Everything just is. If bad things happen to me, I wouldn't recognize them as any sort of retribution for past wrongs. I do not believe life is "fair" that way. I wouldn't actually feel like I was being punished, so what's the point? 

Sociopaths and theology

People often express a certain level of discomfort with the thought that sociopath minded people exist in the world. I'm not a theologian, but it seems that many common deities or religious beliefs directly suggest sociopaths or implicate sociopathic traits. For instance, the Christian's Jesus (because it is his special day) may have seemed friendly when he was in his mortal incarnation, but as the God of the Old Testament he has been called "the ideal sociopath."

A part time theologian friend of mine has been working on a theological "take on sociopathy" based on "theological anthropology":

Theological anthropology is the academic name given to the study of the human in relation to God. Both in terms of the innate nature of human beings (e.g. body vs. soul, body vs. soul vs. spirit, or monism) and in terms of the biblical doctrine of imago dei (we are somehow an "image of God"). What this doctrine entails has been hotly debated through the centuries. The primary issue is one that is connected to the notion of theodicy (the so-called problem of evil). If God is Good and we are made in God's image, why are we "bad", i.e. sinful? The traditional explanation is original sin, but that doesn't help much because there is so much disagreement about what that means, too. One can ask, as certainly many have in the past about gay people, "Is the sociopath made in the image of God?" If we hypothesize that sociopaths, as homosexuals, can attribute their status to some combination of (a) pre-natal disposition; (b) post-natal socialisation and (c) personal affirmation, then what does that mean for theological anthropology?

So we must explore the concept of "conscience." The conscience is what humans are endowed with--an internal guide--to tell us God's will and help us do the "right thing." The "right thing" has always been defined, or at least seriously impacted by, human notions of what is right and good. To explore this, Kierkegaard posits the "Knight of Faith." This figure places her faith in herself and in God; she is not influenced by the world. This is the Individual writ large, without connections and pretensions. Kierkegaard (or really his pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio) identifies two people as Knights of Faith--Mary, Mother of Jesus and Abraham. He uses the biblical story of Abraham to demonstrate the relation of ethics to the Knight of Faith. The world, with its ethics, would find Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son completely abhorrent. Abraham operates, however, in a realm of faith. He draws the knife to pierce his son's heart, because that is what God (the sublime) demands. This connected with what Kierkegaard calls the teleological suspension of the ethical.

In any case, it seems society would likely label Abraham as psychopath or sociopath if he had murdered his son. In fact, the world would probably do so if it discovered that Abraham even was willing to do so. I think some sociopaths are like the Knight of Faith. What is ethical or conscience-driven, in a teleological sense, is much less clear than society wants to think. Who is to say that any particular sociopath is not a Knight of Faith, formed in the image of God? My point is, how can we judge this, as humans in the world? We can certainly say that certain behavior is criminal and must be addressed and punished . . . my point is not to abolish human law. But to recognize that what is considered a crime or a violation of standard decency or ethics is a human judgment is important.

Then, of course, there are passages in the Bible that show God acting like what modern-day psychologist might deem a "sociopath." Some Protestants refer to this as via negativa or divine darkness. I've been thinking about this, too. Perhaps sociopaths are more directly the image of God. And that is why many of us admire them and are fascinated on some level we don't completely understand.

London in an efficient week

I met so many people in London, it was my busiest time traveling. So I'll give you a brief rundown:

First day back in London I meet up with M to attend Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Worth going! Also worth it to get in line early to get better seats (see photo from my very fancy seat). Afterwards we walk north to Trafalgar Square and eat in the crypt of St. Martin in the Fields. He is a therapist and practices meditation. He taught mea simple breath focus meditation, which was actually very nice to do and even though I have since been bad at practicing it, I do sometimes try to do a form of it when I have a gap of time or want to collect my thoughts. M was an interesting non sociopath guy to talk to because he had this sort of past history of not choosing right things and not loving people the right way. But he learned that being a channel of peace augments him and he becomes more peaceful more grounded. Evil depletes him and gives him pain, as well as other people. It's purely self interested to choose peace because you like the results. Altruism is just selfishness.

I liked this attitude. It reminded me of my own belief that it seems like we are all cells of the

multicellular organism of humanity and to oppose another person is really to oppose yourself.

The next day I went to the Harry Potter Exhibit at the National Library (the magna carta!) and met another new friend (he identifies a little aspie) at the Natural History Museum and walked around a bit. Natural History Museum had some of his favorite architecture, and it was really beautiful inside, particularly the huge whale skeleton. This is by a bunch of other museums you could check out, but we went to South Kensington (I think!) for tapas. Lovely neighborhood, good food and good company. We hang out talking about the writer's life visiting several pubs (diet coke!), ending up at a Covent Garden pub.

The following day I walk around Parliament area (spent 10 minutes seeing a ceiling full of Titians in the Whitehall Banqueting House, which was beautiful, but I did it for the toilet and because free with London Pass -- really exquisite toilets) the river cruise to the Tower, all London Pass items, and meet a new friend H. H relates with some aspects of sociopathy but not all. She tells me about how her work involves monitoring other employees at the same office. There's one person in particular that people love to hate at her office. She targets him as well in her professional capacity, but she is careful to never target him for the same behavior twice. Why? because then he would get fired and she would no longer have anyone to play with at work. She can't pick on just anyone, for instance not the older lady who brings baked goods for everyone after long weekends. That would make her a monster in the eyes of her co-workers. So she keeps this guy around, like a cat playing with a mouse. We got on a Jack the Ripper tour with a walking tour company that was excellent and does a lot of other walking tours around London. I think the London Pass offered some discount or something free, but still paid 10 pounds or something.

The next day I do the hop on hop off bus tour, but it is Lent so St. Paul's is only open for worshippers. I worship! In the afternoon I meet up with my new friend M, who is a full dandy and one of these charming sociopaths that can (and possibly has) conned a lot of people out of their money. He meets me in the National Gallery (after I think I mistakenly told him the National Portrait Gallery) and takes me on an impromptu tour of all his favorites, because like all good seducers, he knows enough about everything to make him seem like an indispensable dinner companion. How is Caravaggio so sensual! (Pictured) After, he gets wine and I get tea but we sit (allegedly) in the wrong place. How do others react to this, I wondered, as I watched him charmingly sidestep the server's rudeness while also placating her by asking for a menu. We sat there for hours while he tried (pretty successfully!) to convince me that conspiracy theories often have truth to them. I know from experience how easy it can be to manipulate people, particularly into believing things that they would rather believe than what may be an unpalatable truth. That's how he acted, but the things that I found most compelling (and probably most honest) were his struggles to find meaning after his father's death. We spoke about theodicy and how in his mind the "moral lesson you get from studying the world is whoever created it is morall horrible because every situation ends in the death of the person who is playing." He also has an Ann in his life, a person who is a guide to the world of people that he doesn't understand and explains he funny feelings that he provokes in others either on purpose or on accident that can either help or hurt him -- explain to him the assumptions that people make about him and helps make him more aware of what aspects of him provoke these reactions. He told me "I'm just interested in brilliance," and only as I write this now do I see how this sort of attitude could provoke the ire of people around him that are perhaps less secure in their own luster. I understand a little better now the reaction that many people had when reading about me, that I came off as being intolerably narcissistic. He even shared with me some reactions from friends who had grown increasingly intolerant of him. But I did not experience him that way, and I was sad to think about the people who (I believed) had mischaracterized and misunderstood him.

The next day I do a bunch of other London things on the London Pass, like the Shard viewpoint, the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge Experience (they pointed me out as the witch and were going to burn me?) and then meet up with my new friend V at the Barbican because he finds brutalist architecture to be soothing. Also close to the Roman wall. V says something that I have repeated a lot before, that one of the first ways he looks to identify sociopaths is that they struggle to find meaning. If the hollowness is unbearable to the person, that's likely just depression or something else. If there's no real emotional value placed on the lack of meaning, if there's just a straight acknowledgment that it's there, that person is more likely a sociopath. He has sociopathic traits himself. He needs a lot of novelty. Every place he has quit from is because he "ran out of dragons, after that it was just the grind." He has a friend that is probably more sociopathic than he is. She has a similar love hate relationship with work. She uses it to to give her less of a sense of emptiness, but when she is worn out she dreams of being the CEO of her own company. He thinks the only reason she hasn't don't it yet is because she's very half-hearted about things. She says things like "will I ever feel anything again?" His friends say he's manipulative. His mom says he just wants ohter people to be his puppet. He admits he likes to mess with other people. "I'm the main hero in my own work of art." "I am the work of art." This is the sort of statement you'd expect to hear from a total blowhard, but he isn't at all. He's soft spoken, unassuming. Compared to the dandy, he is much more likely to just blend in. If I met him outside of this context (in real life), I would never suspect him of having sociopathic tendencies. But when you talk to him, it's clear that a lot of his choices are motivated by sociopathic thinking. For instance, he says he doesn't do revenge, he does payback. He also has characteristics that sociopathic minded people who are higher on the trait of conscientiousness have, e.g. his therapist says that he struggles with perfectionism. He is very principled.

He thinks we can think nicely about stuff but we first need to get real about what we do. He believes that it is best to harshly acknowledge your own thoughts. For example, if I got annoyed at the person on the escalator (story from the book) because I am annoyable and I acknowledge that about myself, I have a greater opportunity to control my behavior that stems from my annoyance. He believes that the purpose of life is the Project of Being -- that existence in itself is a force and a project. H believes we're not living for ourselves, we're just a part of being and we need to not be petty and dwell on our sufferings. So he sounds a little almost Buddhist influenced, and cites Socrates as an influence. But also his favorite column is Modern Love in the New York Times. He avoids lying because at some point there will be some resolution between the lie and the truth. He thinks of love as a choice, as a project that he has decided to take on. But in general he tries not to pretend to be anything he's not, even though people think that though "sociopath" is seen as a disorder and it puts people off. But his mom taught him to never pretend to be something he's not. And he believes that ultimately the cost benefit doesn't make pretending worth it. "never being something you're not makes you invulnerable." "If you never pretend, it teaches you fearlessness." This absolutely resonates with me.

My last day in London was spent doing some clean up for the London Pass activities and meeting up with a young man at the Tate Modern, a man who had a high school classmate who was sociopath and one who had asperger's and we chatted about how those two interacted. Heads up! Don't eat mushy peas by themselves, just with the fish and chips. 

Taking the underground was really easy and efficient for me. They have an Oyster card you can get and just get a week pass. Look into this, but there's something more efficient about getting the Oyster card in London, rather than getting a traveller version. If you have touchless credit cards, you can also just use those? Or Apply Pay. I would suggest going that route.