Sunday, October 16, 2011

Sociopaths in the news

A seven-year-old boy broke into the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia by jumping the fence, and then proceeded to feed both live and dead animals to a crocodile:
The footage shows the barefoot boy, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, climbing over the zoo's fence on Wednesday morning, evading sensor alarms possibly because of his size. He is seen throwing live lizards into the crocodile's enclosure, bashing others to death with a rock, and smashing a turtle the size of a dinner plate on a concrete pathway.

According to Mr Neindorf, the boy is mainly "blank-faced." He added: "We're horrified that anyone can do this, and saddened by the age of the child."

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Edward Cullen = sociopath?

Apparently, Debra Merskin, associate professor for the school of journalism and communication at the University of Oregon, as claimed that the vampire protagonist from the teenage vampire series Twilight, is a sociopath. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Merskin argues that Edward has all the hallmarks of a "compensated psychopath".

Unlike full-blown psychopaths, compensated psychopaths have learnt to conceal their limited emotional repertoire and "pass" as normal. "While he is incapable of feeling compassion, or remorse, there is an awareness that the full-blown psychopath doesn't have - that these feelings do exist in the world but he is somehow lacking," Merskin explains via email.
Edward, she says, ticks all the boxes.He's psychologically immature; although born in 1901, Edward is fated never to develop beyond the age of 17.

He's socially withdrawn, living far out of town, and he's controlling. He frequently belittles Bella, saying she's emotionally unobservant, she's absurd and, most patronisingly, "You've got a bit of a temper, don't you?"

Edward's inability to love is the crucible for the romantic tension throughout Twilight. "I don't know how to be close to you. I don't know if I can," he says to Bella. And, perhaps most tellingly, Edward admits: "I'm not used to feeling so human. Is it always like this?"

Merskin says these types aren't new in literature and cinema. Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and Wall Street's Gordon Gekko are all examples of compensated psychopaths.

But unlike Edward, none of these fictional characters was presented as boyfriend material. This, Merskin says, makes Edward novel. It also makes him concerning- especially given that its target audience is young women and adolescent girls.
I don't know. I'm not convinced. I like vampire stories typically because they echo some themes from my own life, not surprising if you believe (as I do) that the vampire myth originates from sociopaths. I'm no expert on the Twilight series, but to the extent that Edward acts like a vampire I'm not surprised people would think he is sociopathic. However, I thought the whole point of the series was that Edward does not act like a vampire? A chaste defanged vampire?

Friday, October 14, 2011

S + BPD: Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb

People often remark in the comments sections that sociopaths and borderlines seem made for each other. This is what I was thinking as I read the Wikipedia account of Lady Caroline Lamb, spurned-lover come stalker of Lord Byron:



She had spurned the attention of the poet on their first meeting, subsequently giving Byron what became his lasting epitaph when she described him as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." His response was to pursue her passionately.

Lady Caroline and Lord Byron publicly decried each other as they privately pledged their love over the following months. Byron referred to Lamb by the hypocorism "Caro", which she adopted as her public nickname.[10] After Byron broke things off, her husband took the disgraced and desolate Lady Caroline to Ireland. The distance did not cool Lady Caroline's interest in the poet; she and Byron corresponded constantly during her exile. When Lady Caroline returned to London in 1813; however, Byron made it clear he had no intention of re-starting their relationship. This spurred what could be characterized as the first recorded case of celebrity stalking as she made increasingly public attempts to reunite with her former lover.

Lady Caroline's obsession with Byron would define much of her later life and as well as influence both her and Byron's works. They would write poems in the style of each other, about each other, and even embed overt messages to one another in their verse. After a thwarted visit to Byron's home, Lady Caroline wrote "Remember Me!" into the flyleaf of one of Byron's books. He responded with the hate poem; "Remember thee! Remember thee!; Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream; Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not. Thy husband too shall think of thee! By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!"
***
In 1819, Lamb put her ability to mimic Byron to use in the narrative poem "A New Canto." Years before, Lamb had impersonated Byron in a letter to his publishers in order to have them send her a portrait of Byron. It worked; the tone and substance of her request fooled them into sending the painting.
***
Lamb's struggle with mental instability became more pronounced in her last years, complicated by her abuse of alcohol and laudanum. By 1827, she was under the care of a full-time physician as her body, which had always been frail, began to shut down.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Twitchy

I have what some people might think looks like a facial tick. Have you ever seen a musician playing a solo who is so into the music that his or her face expresses it acutely, in what could be described as twitching? The face is contorted in something that looks a little like pain, or perhaps pleasure, and there always seems to be something sexual about it. What is this phenomenon?

I know some people think a lot of these musicians' expressions are fake or at least exaggerated, but being a musician myself I have noticed myself making these faces while playing or even while listening to someone else play. There is something about that particular moment --an overwhelming sensory stimulation. It's not like I don't have control over it, because I could just tune out of the experience and put my straight face right back on. But if I allow myself to be caught up in the moment, the face is part of the experience.

I didn't always do this as a musician and I haven't always done this as a human. It took about 8 years to get to the level of musicianship where it started, and then maybe another 4-8 to reach its present level. Similarly, I didn't start doing the twitching thing until about 6-8 years after I became self-aware, and another few years after that to reach its present level. I'd like to think they're related. I'd like to think that just as I became a better, more nuanced, more appreciative musician with better taste and a deeper level of pleasure in certain musical choices, that I have similarly become a better human.

Have I acquired more of a taste for humanity? I think I have, at least for the human existence. The faces I make do draw odd looks from strangers, though.

Interestingly, I think the adjective versions of words like "choice" and "select" highlight what is best about that existence.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Dexter = whipped

This NY Magazine article discusses the transformation of the fictional character Dexter, from cold-blooded killer to soccer dad:

Dexter returns for its sixth season on Sunday, and with it comes the requisite gore deftly contrasted with the brutal sunshine of Miami. Some things never change! But some things really, really do. Like Dexter. Over the course of the series, he's gone from stone-cold sociopath to slightly-less-cold lovable vigilante. Whatever moral ambiguity the show used to embrace — is it okay to ... root for a murderer? — is gone, replaced with a strange certainty (definitely root for this murderer!) that takes a lot of the creepiness away from the show. How did Miami Metro's favorite blood-splatter analyst go from his pas de deux with the Ice Truck Killer in season one to trying to get his son into a prestigious nursery school in season six? By following this plan to go from scary serial killer to soft suburban dad in these seven easy steps!
People ask me whether I think Dexter is an accurate portrayal of a sociopath. I say that in the first season, maybe second, it was so eerily accurate on some of his internal dialogue that I thought there must be someone on the writing staff or a consultant who was a sociopath themselves. Now I still watch it and it is entertaining and makes me want to live in Miami, but not so much accurate.

By the way, how to achieve your own predatory stare? Practice a half smile in front of a mirror, then while maintaining the smile, add a sneer gradually until you get just the right mix of sinister masked by friendly.

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