Monday, August 8, 2011

Rupert Murdoch: Narcissist?

A reader sent this great profile on Rupert Murdoch from the Economist, detailing how he couldn't quite bring himself to remain penitent and remorseful amid jeers and other provocations directed at his ego:
"THIS is the most humble day of my life," Rupert Murdoch told members of the House of Commons, after the media, culture and sports select committee summoned the global media tycoon before them to explain the phone-hacking, police-bribing, politician-bullying ways of his British press titles. Having established his humility, Mr Murdoch then spent more than two hours telling the MPs that he was—in essence—much too important and busy to have known what his feckless underlings were up to.
***
Some have written that Rupert Murdoch came across as a frail, diminished figure, comparing his appearance to the final moments of the Wizard of Oz. I disagree. Thumping the table with the palm of his hand for emphasis (despite nervous signals from his wife to stop) Mr Murdoch showed flashes of something I can only describe as raw power, notably when any MP seemed about to patronise him.

Thus when an MP suggested employees had kept Mr Murdoch in the dark about the phone-hacking scandal, Mr Murdoch came to life, growling:

Nobody kept me in the dark, I may have been lax in not asking, but [the News of the World] was such a tiny part of our business.
And during questioning by MP Louise Mensch:
Mrs Mensch, looking and sounding like a clever young prosecution barrister, reminded Mr Murdoch that he had said Les Hinton, a former chief executive of News International (News Corp's British newspaper subsidiary), had resigned because he was the "captain of the ship" when wrongdoing took place. Is it not the case, sir, that you are the captain of the ship, she asked the elder Mr Murdoch? The magnate's pride seemed piqued, and he rose to the bait. "Of a much bigger ship," he rumbled.

Mrs Mensch did not blench. "It is a much bigger ship, but you are in charge of it. And as you said in earlier questions, you do not regard yourself as a hands-off chief executive, you work ten to 12 hours a day. This terrible thing happened on your watch. Mr Murdoch, have you considered resigning?"

"No," said Mr Murdoch.

"Why not?" said Mrs Mensch.

"Because," Mr Murdoch replied. "I feel that people I trusted, I'm not saying who, I don't know what level, have let me down. I think they behaved disgracefully and betrayed the company, and me. It's for them to pay. I think that, frankly, I'm the best person to clear this up."
To me, this is classic narcissist. He hates that anyone, even the highest levels of government or law enforcement, would dare impugn his moral character and his infinite wisdom about how the world should be run. If you're a narcissist, the saddest part about being surrounded by idiots is that they don't realize how much stupider they are than you. I can almost guarantee that he feels absolutely no remorse, not even that he was caught. Probably the only thing he regrets is that he lives in a world in which morons elect imbeciles, who then try to keep the real movers and shakers from getting on with important business.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

willPOWER

A reader asks:
I've been reading your blog with considerable interest for the past few months. I'm an empath, but I have a strong interest in understanding the sociopath purely because I find the idea of them interesting, so I've read most of the texts I could find. What I would be interested to grasp is the sociopaths response to discipline. Much of what I've read suggests sociopaths typically would avoid pursuits which require impulse control/dedication etc. such as a diet, goal setting, pursuing a degree or working hard generally. It would be great if you can provide some idea of how a sociopathic individual perceives discipline, and delayed gratification. I find it hard to reconcile the idea that sociopaths will do anything to get what they want, with the idea that they are very poor at controlling impulses and dealing with delaying gratification. I ask this question as I'm fairly sure I've encountered a few sociopathic individuals in work settings that have been extremely hard working, disciplined and dedicated to the task.
My response:

Good question. I think your intuition is right, that some sociopaths are clearly able to discipline themselves enough to accomplish longterm goals. I myself always brag about having fully funded my retirement by the time I was 30. I didn't do it as a feat of self control, though, I did it because I love making money and my employment and community has various benefits to incentivize retirement savings that would be silly to not take advantage. The pleasure in retirement savings for me then is to play the game so much better than everyone else is -- and so seemingly effortlessly! In fact that's my main interest/love about money: that so many people want it but can't figure out how to get/keep more of it. It makes any wealth making you do look almost like magic -- very powerful image to project!

So maybe then the real distinction is not that sociopaths are more weak-willed than empaths or vice versa, but that they're both weak-willed in their own unique and predictable ways. Empath weaknesses appear egregious to sociopaths because they seem so obvious and easy to avoid, whereas sociopath weaknesses seem abhorrent to empaths because they find it so shocking that anyone would even consider behaving in that way. It makes perfect sense then that empaths would look weak to sociopaths and sociopaths look like monsters to empaths.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Gender and sociopaths

A socio leaning reader writes a little more on being trans and gender identity:
Hello,

I've been browsing your blog for awhile now, and just yesterday stumbled upon an entry about a transwoman and her experiences as a sociopath, and how the two were related.

This made me think. I am a transman (20 years old and one year into my transition), and have identifyed as a sociopath for years. As time goes by, I can't help but think that my so-called "gender dysphoria" is just something for me to play with for the time being.

I have never felt as if I were one gender or the other. I cannot remember having that painful, consuming feeling that people describe as gender dysphoria. In the frankest possible terms, my transition began the day that I deciced it would be interesting--fun, even--to be a male.

I took to the role quickly and flawlessly, and despite having been an extremely feminine girl (and, for what its worth, a now feminine man) I was able to convince everyone around me that I was always meant to be a male. My parents have even come to recall instances in my childhood to justify this behavior.

Gender transition is a long, tedious process. It takes years. While it does not demand my full attention, it is always convinient for days when I find the boredom unbearable.

Despite never feeling like I had a need to transition, like many of the transgender people I've come into contact with, I have never regretted what I've done. I've sunk about a thousand dollars into this, watched as my face slowly became more masculine, and watched my friends and family struggle to accept this drastic change. And I love it.

I feel like I've created my most flawless persona yet. It's an accomplishment, in my eyes. And why wouldn't it be? I've had to convince dozens of people--even a trained gender-therapist--into believing that I experience a rather intense aversion to my assigned gender.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Companionship

A reader asked me how I feel about companionship and how far I would go to maintain someone's companionship. I responded:

I have a hard time answering hypotheticals, but companionship for me is probably like vitamin c. It's necessary and if I don't have enough I can start showing the signs of mental and emotional scurvy. Once I get it back, I show no lasting damage from the deprivation. I get most of what I need during my daily interactions. Finally, in high doses it is toxic. If I find a good steady source, particularly if it gives me a large dose of my other essential nutrients, I'll work pretty hard to keep it. Like a farmer!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Research help

I was recently contacted by Willem H.J. Martens, a psychiatric researcher known to many of you as being the source of some of the most insightfully sympathetic and understanding portrayals of psychopaths in the academic literature. He is author of, among others, "The Hidden Suffering of Psychopaths" and "Emotional Capacities and Sensitivity in Psychopaths." He is writing a book on psychopathy and is soliciting more examples, histories, and illustrative stories ("self-reports") from psychopaths (either diagnosed or self-diagnosed), particularly regarding certain diagnostic criteria. From Dr. Martens:
I am Willem Martens, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and chair of the "W. Kahn Institute of Theoretial Psychiatry and Neuroscience." I have published on psychopathy in many international journals. I am a psychopath myself, which became obvious during my study and work. My PhD trajectory was a horrible road with numerous conflicts. I spoiled three teams of promotors in three universities. But, I graduated on a controversial study on the correlation between remission and maturation in psychopaths (only 14 of 667 cases). This idea was inspired by the life of my brother, a very gifted and charismatic person who did all the things which were forbidden. Suddenly he changed after a series of impressive incidents. My psychopathy and my childhood experiences gave me an advantage during my work for decades with psychopaths in forensic settings, I understood them and they understood me.

I'am writing a book on psychopaths's reflections on their personality features, condition and characteristics. The intention of this book is to form a counterbalance against the existing superficial, incorrect and incomplete theories of and viewpoints on psychopathy and sociopathy. This internet forum provides a huge amount of valuable and revealing information. However, with regard to some topics (diagnostic features of the PCL-R; psychopathy checklist of Hare) I need responses in order to make my book complete and convincing because it must cover all the topics of the PCL-R and related references.

I need more self reports for the following traits. If you are a sociopath and manifest one or more of these traits, please contact me at martens_92 at hotmail dot com.

1. Glibness/Superficial Charm
2. Grandiose Sense of Self worth
3. Need for Stimulation/Proneness to Bored
8. Callous/Lack of Empathy
9. Parasitic Lifestyle
10. Poor Behavioral Controls
12. Early Behavioral Problems
14. Impulsivity
16. Failure to Accept Responsibility for Own Actions
17. Many Short-Term Marital Relationships
18. Juvenile Delinquent
19. Revocation of Conditional Release
20. Criminal Versatility.

Please provide self-reports rather that theoretical visions.
I believe that this is very important work, so I may be updating or reminding you periodically to contact Dr. Martens. I hope that through our extensive collective cooperation, the book will more accurately depict the realities and spectrum of the psychopathic experience.
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