Monday, October 26, 2009

Sociopaths want to eat you or cheat you

A reader wrote (edited for length):
I noticed your interest in the origins of sociopathy. One sadly deceased researcher published a long paper called "Sociobiology of sociopathy" that was an attempt(probably one of the earliest) to put it in an evolutionary perspective. I'm not an expert in that sort of thing, but the case looked tight enough to me. To her, it looked like sociopathy is a biological adaptation to a cheating strategy at life. True sociopaths have a certain set of genes, and are from problem families. People of low intelligence with same backgrounds may appear to have some of these traits, but in them it's just the environment and so on.

http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.mealey.html

Another thing you may not have come across is Blindsight(novel, not syndrome). I don't know whether you like speculative fiction, but this one is very dark, very bleak, and very anti-neurotypical (compares ordinary humans to the equivalent of Oz marsupials..). It's mostly about mind, consciousness, utility of consciousness and how at some point in the future, homo sapiens will become somewhat obsolescent.

It was written by Peter Watts. One of the chief characters of Blindsight is a vampire (not the fantasy variety, sort of believable - an extinct sub-species of exclusively man-eating completely sociopathic* humans, brought to life again through modern science). The others are less weird, though. In other books, he loves having various non-standard characters, from serial killers, sexual sadists, wife-abusers, pedophiles.. ptsd sufferers, etc.. )


*obviously, if wolves empathized with sheep.. they'd go hungry.
I started reading the article. It's very good but long. I'm not surprised that vampires have once again been connected to sociopaths. I myself am hoping that this blog will ride the new vampire popularity and get picked up for a miniseries. Not true.

Sharks = psycho killers

According to this article sent in by a reader, scientists are using the known patterns of serial killers to explain the hunting patterns of sharks:
What do great white sharks have in common with serial killers? Refined hunting skills, according to a paper recently published in the Zoological Society of London’s Journal of Zoology. Researchers have found that sharks hunt in a highly focused fashion, just like serial criminals.

Predation is one of the most fundamental and fascinating interactions in nature, and sharks are some of the fiercest predators on Earth. However, their hunting pattern is difficult to study because it is rarely observed in the wild. As a result, shark predatory behavior has remained much of a mystery. Now, researchers from the United States and Canada are using geographic profiling -- a criminal investigation tool used to track a connected series of crimes and locate where serial criminals live -- to examine the hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa.
I wonder if they can go they other way: use known behaviors of animal predators to explain the behavior of serial killers. But it brings up a good point: how many of the arguments for eradicating sociopaths could equally be applicable to sharks, tigers, lions, killer whales, and other man/animal predators? Maybe people are just scared because man has gotten used to thinking that he is at the top of the food chain. But most species have natural predators -- it's nature's way of keeping things in check. Is man an exception?

Friday, October 23, 2009

Glenn Close: Sociopaths must be stopped

This is paraphrased and taken out of context, but yes, Glenn Close pretty much says that in her blog about mental illness in the Huffington Post:
There are some notable exceptions, of course -- Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, or Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. But more often than not, the movie or TV version of someone suffering from a mental disorder is a sociopath who must be stopped.
I get it Glenn. If they are bipolar or schizoaffective or have whatever other disorder that someone in your family has, they are fine. If the disorder was portrayed by a lovable Hollywood favorite or the portrayal ends up winning an Oscar, it is fine. But sociopaths must be stopped.

On a positive note, sociopaths seem to be getting more press than usual recently (excluding news about the Bush administration, of course).

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Mr. Birdick responds

Mr. Birdick gets analyzed by "Dr. Robert" and responds:
Number one, I’ve never actually copped to being a "psychopath". I might score high on the PCL-R, but not high enough to warrant that particular “diagnosis”. I believe that there is a meaningful difference between psychopaths and sociopaths.

Second, whether I can "fathom" other people’s suffering is an irrelevant red herring. My feeling sorrowful or righteously angry when I hear about someone else’s pain does not change things for that person -- it would not change the reality of the man in the picture or make the Iraq war and all of its associated consequences disappear. Dr. Robert’s regret, his remorse, his compassion may mean the world to him but it means nothing at all to the man in the picture.

Third, I still believe that Dr. Robert’s photo placement was manipulative to the degree that it was deliberately designed, by his own admission, to induce emotions in other people in order to prove a point. He was trying to prove himself and to his faithful readers that he was right and the father wrong. Dr. Robert was acting in a self-serving, manipulative fashion. His expression of moral horror served only one purpose -- his.

Fourth, for someone as eager to paint me as arrogantly certain of my superiority, Dr. Robert comes off as awfully... superior, to the point of being downright condescending. Doesn’t the deliberate use of terms like “limitation” and later “deficiency” imply that? Dr. Robert likes to think of himself as a compassionate, liberal and open minded soul, but who is also in fact more judgmental and moralistic than he cares to let on, even to himself. And I caught the misspelling of my name. Quite a class act our Dr. Robert, isn’t he?

Finally, I love it when so called empathic people tell me what I do and do not believe without bothering to ask me. He completely misrepresents my thoughts on those who practice the healing arts. The people that I believe are “foolish, sentimental, and weak” are those that allow others to run roughshod over them; to destroy what they’ve spent a lifetime building; or to allow any system of ethics to dictate, a priori, the decisions that must be made in real time because of their adherence to morality or principles.

It’s too bad Dr. Robert decided that he needed to prove his mettle as a compassionate, liberal healer (how much better he is than the poor, deluded ‘psychopath’), by writing in such an obvious and overtly manipulative fashion. I’d say he was far more concerned with demonstrating his so called great compassion than he was in answering Brian Lippman’s question. Then again, moral hypocrisy, especially the unconscious kind, is so typical for the conscience bound.
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