Sociopathic children

I always want to ask concerned parents -- would it really be so bad if your son or daughter was a sociopath? Sure, they might not be able to ever love you the way a meek little thing would, but the kid will take care of himself, even do very well for himself. As one blogger puts it:

Given that lack of conscience is a great benefit in getting on in the worlds of business, politics and everyday life, won't many neuro typicals actually *want* a sociopathic child as charm and social status are so highly valued by them?

Assuming you do have a sociopathic child and would rather not, what would you be willing to try to get your child to act normal? Would you be willing to do as this author suggests and encourage fear within your child?

Do not work too hard to discourage him from being fearful. Especially avoid placing him in situations where he has to face and conquer his fears on his own. For example, some people like to teach kids to swim by throwing them in deep water where they will either "sink or swim." A bold, athletic child would likely learn to conquer is fear of deep water and swim if placed in this situation. He would also receive training in being tough and ignoring his fears. This is not a good lesson for the at-risk child.

The author goes on to describe how her sociopathic child developed a fear of the dark and how that was used to curb his behavior:

One evening, when my son was 31 months old, he played with a motorized toy he really liked. It was time for dinner, and I told him he had to put the toy down and sit to eat. I gave him a chance to put the toy down on his own and go to the table. When he refused, I took the toy, picked him up and put him in his high chair for dinner. He threw an enormous tantrum and could not be consoled, even though I told him he could have the toy back after dinner. My usual strategy is to ignore these tantrums and allow them to burn themselves out. This time though, the crying and screaming was very loud and showed no signs of abating. His sisters complained that they could not enjoy the meal because of his behavior. I got up and moved the high chair, with the thought of just moving it far enough away to allow us to eat in some peace. Well, my son thought I was going to move him in the DREADED DARK PLACE! He said, "No mommy, no, I scared dark!" I said, " If you don't want me to move you away form the table, you will have to quiet, and eat your dinner." Miraculously, the tantrum stopped. Not only did the tantrum stop, but also he was so happy at not being banished to the dark place that he started to play and laugh with his sisters. He ate very well at dinner that night. He also completely forgot about the beloved motorized toy.

Parents of sociopath children, is this something that you would do with your child?

Caught red handed

A reader wrote:

I was reading the comments of this post and I found this comment: "Q) Can a sociopath genuinely cry?" That was interesting to read, because one of the reasons why I sometimes feel like I am not a sociopath is because I do cry, I do feel lonely, I do feel pain and sorrow, and sometimes I feel guilt as well. It is strange, because I know that I can feel other people's pain, for example if someone has been rejected I can remember what that feels like and feel sorry for them, or imagine pain and feel sorry for someone. I can also turn this off, and just pretend to feel for them, console them externally and on the inside I will be working out some problem, or observing the interaction. I question whether my guilt is sincere as well, because often I will only feel guilty if I am caught for something, and if I am not caught or the action is not traced back to me, I walk free.

I thought, this must be common among all sociopaths, but how often do normal people feel this as well? Would empaths feel bad about something even if there was no chance that they could be caught? Do they keep experiencing only this sort of shame until they're socialized into a conscience? I really am curious.

Mass manipulation (part 4)

I am manipulative and intentional about the way I write the blog. I never respond to comments or questions in the comments. Part of it is the Taylor Swift tactic of not trying to defend yourself but rather allowing others to make your arguments for you. Taylor Swift didn't have to confront Kanye West--people rushed to her defense to do it for her and it was infinitely more effective that way. Similarly, I never feel like I have to defend or justify myself or anything I say. People frequently defend my positions, or if they don't it doesn't matter. It costs too much to try to defend yourself (or even clarify something you've said), and there is no point I would want to make or image of myself that I would want to project that would be worth the potential fallout.

Another part of not replying in the comments (or anywhere publicly) is that I want to be able to speak to individuals how they want to be spoken to, without fear of alienating others in the process. I can be very friendly or very mean in email exchanges with people--from sycophantic to menacing. I don't want side effects of those conversations spilling over into other interactions because it will limit my future ability to convincingly be whatever I want in any particular situation.

Finally, I don't reply in the comments because I feel like it chills discussion. If I was active in my own comments section, fewer people would comment. They would be waiting for someone else (me) to say their thoughts for them. Some might be afraid to say something and have me contradict them or disagree. If I have something to say, I say it in a post. Otherwise I don't want anybody waiting around to hear my opinion on something. As it is, other sociopaths are ruthless with the people who (they think) put too much stock in things I say. It would be much worse if I interfered with the comments section as well. I don't want issues I discuss on the blog to always degrade into a war of personalities. Plus, I have found that silence is one of the best ways to elicit information. And I think part of the reason the blog is appealing is the diversity of very freely expressed opinion.

I selectively disclose information about myself for strategic reasons. For instance, I never talk about my gender or even strictly about my ethnicity or other demarcating personal characteristics. I hope by doing so that I will be a blank slate and people will be able to project their own ideas onto me. I want to be like Kim Jong-Il or Obama, a figurehead, a receptacle for people's hopes, dreams, fears. I want people to directly relate to the blog--to think of the sociopaths they love in their lives or the sociopaths they hate. If I got too specific about anything, the illusion would be broken. Instead I stick to generalities (like Kim Jong-Il and Obama) and let people fill in the blanks in whatever manner they feel inclined. When people write to me and say that I seem to describe perfectly their own experiences, either as a sociopath or as someone who has known a sociopath, I know I have been successful.

I am pretty good at choosing a particular featured photo for each post to set the mood. Sometimes they have an underlying meaning or reference to the blog post, sometimes they're random but I use them anyway to give the illusion of something deep but unstated.

I know people like to criticize or rally so sometimes I publish something for the sole purpose of galvanizing readers or provoking discussion/fights/ridicule. It keeps people blood thirsty and/or engaged.

As anyone noticed anything else?

Mass manipulation (part 3)

From Vice Magazine, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu about the trade off between having power and giving up power to a "trusted" entity, and how many (most?) would rather give up power than have the responsibility that comes with that power.

It would be foolish to assume that anything is unbiased, that anyone can operate without some conflict of interest. The problem now, as our tools become ever more essential to everyday life, ever more pervasive, and ever more complex, is being able to even detect those biases.

But here’s another conundrum to punch into your question-answering sites: do we even care about this? As long as we’re able to make our cheap phone calls, send our free emails, watch our free videos, and get our free content, why should we bother? Why regulate for “network neutrality” if the system works fine the way it is?

The question is hard to answer because we don’t have a way of calculating how much “free” really costs. And, as Wu argues, as much as we like to talk about freedom, we also really like other things like convenience, speed, and comfort. Our technologies and the companies that make them are really good at providing the latter. It’s not so clear, he says, where the former fits in.

Mass manipulation (part 2)

I was reading a New Yorker article about Taylor Swift's masterfully orchestrated rise to fame (again, apologies that it is not publicly available). The key seems to be authenticity.

Swift is sometimes called a twenty-one-year-old 2.0--the girl next door, but with a superior talent set. She has an Oprah-like gift for emotional expressiveness. While many young stars have a programmed, slightly robotic affect, she radiates unjaded sincerity no matter how contrived the situation--press junkets, awards shows, meet and greets.

***

The car door opened, and Swift got out to chants of "Tay-lor! Tay-lor! " Easing herself onto the sidewalk, she proceeded to the base of the stairs, and struck a pose before a phalanx of cameras: a sultry, fierce expression, one hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed, her head cocked back. She seemed to age ten years.

***

She is in the midst of her second world tour, and every show begins with a moment in which she stands silently at the lip of the stage and listens to her fans scream. She tilts her head from side to side and appears to blink back tears--the expression, which is projected onto a pair of Jumbotron screens, is part Bambi, part Baby June.

***

"Swift is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture that . . . calls to mind Swedish pop gods Dr. Luke and Max Martin," Jody Rosen wrote in Rolling Stone. "If she ever tires of stardom, she could retire to Sweden and make a fine living churning out hits for Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry."

Like Parton, Swift writes autobiographical songs, a technique that, in the Internet era, is a clever marketing device.

***

Swift is tolerant of her fans' interest in her love life, as she is of gawkers who approach her on the street. "It's human nature!" she told me. While she doesn't talk about dating in interviews, she helps amateur sleuths along, using capital letters to spell out coded messages throughout the lyrics in her liner notes that indicate which boyfriend the song is about. Swift has an affinity for codes and symbols. Onstage, she shapes her fingers into a heart--"I did it at a concert one time, and people screamed, so I just kept doing it," she said--and appears with her lucky number, 13, written on her right hand in Sharpie. More recently, she has been scrawling lyrics, such as U2's "One life, you got to do what you should," on her left arm; deciphering the references has become another fan activity. Swift's ability to hold her audience's interest reflects, in part, a keen understanding of what fuels fan obsession in the first place: a desire for intimacy between singer and listener. She told me that the best musical experience is "hearing a song by somebody singing about their life, and it resembles yours so much that it makes you feel comforted." Her Web site includes video journals and diary-like posts to her online message board, which Swift does not outsource. Her fans, who call themselves Swifties, respond with passionate testimonials--"i would drink her bathwater"--and confessions about their own crushes: "Jake. Jake.Jake. Jake. I can't say it enough. I just love the sound of his name."

Laughing all the way to the bank

Swift's aura of innocence is not an act, exactly, but it can occasionally belie the scale of her success. She is often described using royal terminology--as a pop princess or, as the Washington Post put it recently, the "poet laureate of puberty." In the past five years, she has sold more than twenty million albums--more than any other musician. And, in an era of illegal downloading, fans buy her music online, too. Swift has sold more than twenty-five million digital tracks, surpassing any other country singer, and she holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling digital album, for "Speak Now." Forbes ranked her as last year's seventh-biggest-earning celebrity, with an annual income of forty-five million dollars--a figure that encompasses endorsements, products (this month, she releases a perfume with Elizabeth Arden, which is estimated to generate fifty million dollars during its first year of sales), and tickets. Her concerts, which pack both stadiums and arenas, regularly bring in some seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a night.

I do a lot of consulting. Each time I show up at a new place, everyone is suspicious of me, looking for reasons not to like me or see me as a threat. It takes a while to build up a rapport with them. At first I am very straightforward, efficient, and professional. I don't want to seem presumptuous, but nor do I want to seem overly available, as if they are on my same level. Because I am talented at what I do, they quickly start respecting me. People become interested in me as a person--what makes me so good at what I do. They develop little crushes on me, which I feed with the selective disclosure of more and more personal information--that I am a musician, that I have a unique background, little stories in which my modesty prevents me from name dropping, but from which it is apparent that I have unexpected credentials/experience/connections. I am never explicit about anything, I make people work for it--draw their own (unavoidable) conclusions, which makes the information seem all the more authentic and valuable to them. Less is more, but I also don't want to seem standoffish. As long as they ask, I will disclose some interesting tidbit to continue to whet their appetite for M.E.

Now if I had shown up on the first day of my consultancy touting my credentials, talking about my personal life, nurturing people's crushes, it would be disastrous. Every once in a while I forget and make a joke too early, show familiarity too soon, and have to immediately back off again with a renewed period of neutrality, but I've gotten better. Now it's like cooking an old familiar recipe.