Thursday, February 10, 2011

The sociopathic art of persuasion

The subject has just recently been covered in "Split-Second Persuasion The Ancient Art and New Science of Changing Minds," by Kevin Dutton, part explanatory, part how-to. This review compares the book to other self-help books, such as Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People":
The worldviews of Carnegie and Dutton overlap at times. Both proffer self-confidence as a means of getting your way. But while Carnegie was a classic partisan of brownnosing (smile, never argue or find fault), Dutton sees things through a darker lens. The book builds slowly toward a simple climax: Nobody does it better than the psychopath.

The term psychopath gets defined here quite liberally. Jim Jones makes an appearance. But not all psychopaths inhabit jail cells. Some serve as platoon sergeants. Others prowl corporate suites. Some pretenders may even sleep in cribs. Yes, babies, no surprise to many of us, "lack empathy, are superficially charming, possess not the slightest sense of the consequences of their actions and are out purely for themselves" - all qualities reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter or Gordon Gekko.

So ultimately the book is more Con-Artistry for Eggheads (certainly not Dummies) than How to Win Friends and Influence People, all of which makes it a lot more fun to read than the hackneyed prescriptions of run-of-the-mill self-help gurus and Oprah guests.

Persuasion keeps us alive, Dutton proclaims in the first few pages. Any society worthy of our esteem relies on conviction, not coercion. The author's interest lies not in the mundane garden-variety skill - "let me have the extra pillow, dear, I need to wake up early" - but in milling through the mental circuitry of a select cadre of those who seem to be able to get whatever they want: "reservations, contracts, bargains, babies. Anything." Yes, fame and infamy grace this club. Winston Churchill and Ted Bundy, but also elite salesmen, lawyers, a type of fungus that tricks both plants and bees into doing its bidding.

***

There is a lot to like. You'll learn how other species as well as our own take advantage of key stimuli for their persuading. A key stimulus triggers a fixed response from its recipient, "neat 200 proof mind control - undiluted by language and the thought fields of consciousness," as Dutton observes.

Lesser species do this much better than we do. Bell frogs have their "quonkquack" love calls. Honeybees dance to convey to their brethren the whereabouts of food. Humans can achieve similar responses, but language, our main persuasion tool, must first penetrate an "ozone layer" of conscious thought. "Only the really special make it through," Dutton asserts.


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Coddle

I was sifting through my emails and found this from a seduction target who turned into a friend, and then a seduction target, and then a friend again, and then (in a late night impulse) a confidante. It's a reply from an email I sent while traveling, waiting for my shoes to be repaired in time to catch a flight -- an email in which I questioned whether I had the requisite skills to "coddle" this person upon arriving home, and what does does coddle even mean? From my friend:
coddle: to treat with extreme care or kindness

Couldn't even the superficial charm, manipulation and self serving behaviors of a self diagnosed sociopath permissibly appear to be coddling even if it is covertly hostile and dominating? More likely, what is interpeted by your victim as joy, love and compassion - even if feigned, feels close enough to the real deal to be worth it. Or at least, as one of your named victims, I don't care and would prefer the shallow coddling to no coddling at all.

This is not to say that I see you so without capacity for empathy or love; but that seems to be the theme of the DSM IV's diagnosis of the sociopath. So I'm running with it. I must enjoy being the abused.

90% chance you made the flight. 98% percent chance you were still sending an email or texting when flight attendant had to tell you to stop.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Sex drive

A friend asked me:
I've been watching a little dexter, the first 3 episodes so far. I want to know how you explain his aversion to sex because arent most sociopaths super promiscuous? They dont understand the morality of sex but it still feels good so whats dexter's deal. I can understand him not getting the emotional side of it but theres more to it than that. Do you have any insights?

I'm super interested in this kind of stuff, probably because you are too and i found it a little weird how they portray him. He does a lot of stereotypical socio things like killing animals but they decided not to have him be promiscuous which prolly could have generated more buzz. Yeah i do like the inner monologues haha. You're probably right about there being a socio writer cause a lot of the things he says sound just like you. :)
I said: Well, the new version of Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be a sociopath and also asexual. From what I know of sociopaths, there sometimes seems to be more of an interest in the power and seduction aspects of sex, and less the actual act itself, perhaps because basically all it is to them is physical gratification, no soul melds or expressions of anything but dominance, power, and vulnerability. But I also think that sociopaths have physical needs just as much as anyone, and their lack of ability to conform to social norms may make their sexual activities seem comparatively more prominent and important in the sociopath's life, just because they're attitude about sex is more direct and less apologetic or euphemistic. Despite appearances, though, I don't think that there is necessarily anything unique about the sociopath's approach to sex vis a vis other drives, but rather that the nature of the sociopath's impulsiveness as it relates to sexual urges is the same as the sociopath's impulsiveness as it relates to everything else. In other words, to the extent that third parties perceive sex to stand out in a sociopath's personality, it may just be due to the squeamishness and buzz that most people associate with sex and sexuality, rather than there being a categorical difference between the sociopath's approach to sex and any other of his bodily needs.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sociopaths in literature: "The Trojan Prince"

"He wants to tell her all about himself, his future. He feels how fascinating he is to her -- it's as if she were attached to him by some glistening thread, which he can tug this way and that, and she'll turn her head, with its coil of heavy hair, to attend to whatever he shows her. He's aware of his own body, slim and hard beneath the dense cloth of his dark suit. It begins to fascinate him, too, this power that belongs to his looks, to his nature."

--Tessa Hadley
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