Friday, January 9, 2009

How to fight a sociopath -- and win!

A book like that would be an instant bestseller. If you figure there are 50 million sociopaths in the world and every one of them knows about 200 people, that's ... that's a lot of people who would be buying the book. It seems like most empaths can't tell how to spot a sociopath, so you go reading all these books and looking at all these websites purporting to tell you how. The problem with those sources is that they may be have some valid information, but they're about as useful as a book about becoming a millionaire. Maybe some of those methods would work with some empaths looking for some sociopaths some of the time, but there is no surefire method. That's why you have all those books and websites.

Still, I sympathize with your position, empaths. You're creeped out that there are these otherworldy beings wandering around making your life miserable for their own sport.

The truth is that sociopaths are largely harmless. Just ask Andrew Bird. Sure, we may play with your minds a bit, but with me it's more like teasing than anything else. Let's say you had a younger sibling who you liked to give a hard time. Or when you're out and about and you see a little girl dressed up like a princess or a little boy dressed up like a pirate, what do you do? You say, "Wow a princess!" or "Oh no, a scary pirate!" You play along with the kid because you can. It's sort of fun and you get to feel like you are being superior and nice at the same time -- so superior that you can afford to condescend to their ridiculous level and play along with their little fantasies for a while. Empaths are for the most part harmless too, so why not go along with their make-believe? Meet an empath who thinks he's beautiful or smart or talented? Feed that belief. That's pretty much all the sociopath interactions you'll see in your lives. All we do is tell you the equivalent of "Santa is real." Is that really so bad? Those of you who are smart probably realize it's just for your own good.

But with that said, I can predict situations in which you might want to beat a sociopath at his own game. What next? Well, as mentioned in earlier posts, one of the sociopath's main tools is mimicking human emotions. How do they know what to mimic? By watching you. How do you trick them? By feeding them false information. A sociopath's ability to act normal is only as good as the information he has available to him about what you expect. When you feed him false information, it ends up like one of those dry British farces where misunderstandings and confusions abound. But you're not confused because you know what's going on. And then you've beat him. That's all there is to it.

Congratulations, you fought a sociopath -- and won! Was it worth the effort? How about a nominal charge for a bestselling book of the same name?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Sociopaths, mimicry, and blank slates

"I pick up on accents." That's what I always tell people when they ask where I get my accent from. When I hear someone speaking with a distinctive accent, I adopt it for my own, at least for that moment while I'm with them. It can get particularly offensive or dicey when I adopt the accent of someone of a different race or class from me and they think I'm making fun of them. I do it very naturally and the result, like that of many aspects of having a personality disorder, is that I don't really have the accent of my nationality or place of birth -- the default. What I have instead is a hodgepodge where people assume that I'm foreign, but no one can quite put a finger on where I might be from.

For sociopaths, mimicry is their metier, their bread and butter.
Hare once illustrated this for Nicole Kidman, who had invited him to Hollywood to help her prepare for a role as a psychopath in Malice. How, she wondered, could she show the audience there was something fundamentally wrong with her character?

"I said, 'Here's a scene that you can use,' " Hare says. " 'You're walking down a street and there's an accident. A car has hit a child in the crosswalk. A crowd of people gather round. You walk up, the child's lying on the ground and there's blood running all over the place. You get a little blood on your shoes and you look down and say, "Oh shit." You look over at the child, kind of interested, but you're not repelled or horrified. You're just interested. Then you look at the mother, and you're really fascinated by the mother, who's emoting, crying out, doing all these different things. After a few minutes you turn away and go back to your house. You go into the bathroom and practice mimicking the facial expressions of the mother.' " He then pauses and says, "That's the psychopath: somebody who doesn't understand what's going on emotionally, but understands that something important has happened."
I think mimicry is interesting, and I think a lot of empaths think it's freaky. What I find more freaky is what constant mimicry suggests -- that you have no baseline "you," that you are always just reactions to outside stimuli.

I have a good friend who was initially very frustrated that I didn't seem to have defaults: no default understanding of right and wrong, no default beliefs, no default personality even. Everything had to be reasoned, everything had to be constructed anew. It can be frustrating for me too. It's time consuming. And sometimes it disturbs me how impressionable I am. Being a blank slate, sometimes I can surprise even myself with non sequiturs or unpredictable behavior. It's sort of scary.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Interviewing tips from a sociopath

I had an interview today for something I want. Sociopath skills are never so useful as they are during an interview, but I imagine uber-empaths can be very good at them as well.

Interviews are interesting in general because the interviewee is clearly looking for the "right" answer. When they keep looking at you expectantly, you keep talking. If it is a double interview you keep talking until the two interviewers make that knowing eye contact with each other. Sometimes you'll get a real amateur who is checking things off his list. Most of the time, though, you have to do what sociopaths do best -- tell people what they want to hear.

Do they know I am pandering to them? Do they know that I am essentially recreating that scene from Being John Malkovich where you just say anything and everything until you get some sort of response:

CRAIG
How about this, if I can guess your
first name within three tries, you
have to come out for a drink with me
tonight.

MAXINE
Why not?

CRAIG
Great.
(watches her face as he guesses)
Buuuhhppaahhhhnnn. . . . .
Muhhhahhhhh. . . . . ahhhnnnaaa. .
nollltuuukkkaaaaralllll. . .
tashabararassssssuuuuusaaaaaaa. . .
nnnnnnnaaaaaannnnnnnnncccccceeeeeee
Mwaaaaaa. . . . .Mahhhhhkkkkk. . .
sssseeeeeen. Maxine?

MAXINE
Who told you?

CRAIG
I'm right?

MAXINE
Who told you?

CRAIG
That's incredible! Nobody told me!
I swear! It's kismet. Maxine!
It's a beautiful name. There's a
psychic connection. Don't you see?
It was meant to be! Maxine! Maxine!
Maxine! I will shout it from the
rooftops!

MAXINE
Somebody told you.

CRAIG
Oh, Maxine, nobody told me. Maxine,
Maxine. It just came out of me like
a song, Maxine. A beautiful crazy,
song, Maxine. Maxine. Maxine!

Harmless sociopaths

I don't know what it means, but I like the good publicity of Andrew Bird's song "Oh No":
in the salsify mains of what was thought but unsaid
all the calcified arhythmitists were doing the math
it would take a calculated blow to the head
to light the eyes of all the harmless sociopaths
oh arm and arm we are the harmless sociopaths
oh arm and arm with all the harmless sociopaths
calcium mines were buried deep in your chest
oh calcim mines you buried deep in your chest
oh no we're deep in a mine
oh no a calcium mine
so let's get out of here
past the atmosphere
squint your eyes and no one dies
or goes to jail
past the silver bridge, oh the silver bridge
wearing nothing but a one-sie and a veil
oh oh deep in a mine,
oh oh a calcium mine
arm and arm we are the harmless sociopaths
arm and arm with all the harmless sociopaths
in the calcium mines buried deep in your chest
oh the calcium mines buried deep in your chest
oh oh deep in a mine
oh no-- calcium mines oh no

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Why Sociopathworld?

Some have wondered where the title "SociopathWorld" comes from. It comes indirectly from a book by Dr. Robert Hare, recognized expert on psychopaths and psychopathy: Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Even though I doubt Dr. Hare added the subtitle, I thought it was an interesting visual image. What if there really was a world of the sociopaths, like some sort of planet of the apes. Would it be at all like a Disney theme park?

The reason I doubt Dr. Hare chose that subtitle (or possibly even the main title) is that he doesn't seem to make any normative judgments regarding sociopaths in his book. If anything, as I mentioned in another post, he seems to be pro sociopath:
I don't feel comfortable calling it a disease. Much of their behaviour, even the neurobiological patterns we observe, could be because they're using different strategies to get around the world. These strategies don't have to involve faulty wiring, just different wiring.
What do you all think? Is it a disease? Is it disturbing? Now that you have accessed a window into the soul of a sociopath, is your heart troubled? If not, what do you think would be a better or more accurate subtitle for Dr. Hare's book about the world of the psychopath?
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