Friday, July 27, 2012

Famous sociopaths: Ayn Rand?

A reader sent me this selection from Ayn Rand, which he thinks seems to indicate a lack of human emotion:


Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.

Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth,both are “tabula rasa.” It is man’s cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses.

But since the work of man’s mind is not automatic, his values, like all his premises, are the product either of his thinking or of his evasions: man chooses his values by a conscious process of thought—or accepts them by default, by subconscious associations, on faith, on someone’s authority, by some form of social osmosis or blind imitation. Emotions are produced by man’s premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Roadkill -- accident or murder?

This Gizmodo article describes a recent experiment in which test subjects drove automobiles.  The experimenter placed small rubber animals (turtle, snake, and spider) on the side of the road.  Six percent of drivers went out of their way to run over the animal.

To the experimenters, this seemed sadistically cruel -- particularly in the case of the turtle and the snake.  (Presumably it is understandable that some people would want to run over a tarantula, and when you factored out the people running over the tarantula, the numbers went down to 2.8%.)  From the article:


It is still quite a surprisingly high number. At least compared to a 2008 study using the Psychopathy Checklist, which discovered that 1.2 percent of the US population were potential psychopaths. 1.2 vs 2.8 is a huge difference.

Now, I'm not going to pull a PETA—I actually hate PETA—and say that the six (or 2.8) percent are all potential psychopaths, but clearly these people have some kind of mental problem. At the very least, their empathy circuits must be pretty broken. Personally, I wouldn't like to be friends with any of them.

And I really don't care which kind of animal they ran over because all of them were locatedoutside of the lane and posed absolutely no danger to the drivers. Needless to say, if a turtle or a snake is on the middle of your lane, never risk your life to save it. Your safety must come first, but this was not the case. This was all the contrary. And it's quite disgusting.

Is it really a surprising number?  And does it make any sense to suggest that all animal killers are sociopaths and all sociopaths are animal killers?  Maybe some of them are just really bad drivers.  I probably wouldn't go out of my way to kill the animal.  In fact most of the time I go out of my way to avoid the animal.  Why?  I don't know, getting blood and guts all over the automobile, the possibility of losing control by swerving to hit it, or any other reason.  I'm curious why they didn't do follow up interviews with the people asking them why they did or did not run them over.  Some of them might lie and said that they didn't realize they did, but I bet you would get honest answers from at least some of the people.


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Nothing more than feelings

I've been really busy recently and my jaw has started to ache. I grind my teeth. I have ever since I was young, but it got noticeably bad in a particularly stressful year of graduate school. The funny thing was, I didn't realize that I was particularly stressed until I felt my teeth ache. I am anal about my teeth, so of course I made an appointment with the dentist as soon as possible, who told me that it was my jaw hurting, not my teeth.  [Bruxism, of course is quite common. A dentist has suggested that 9/11 changed the face shape of the average New Yorker -- the increased grinding built up the masseter muscle, giving everyone a more square jaw appearance].  Ever since then I've used mouthguards, which shield my teeth but my muscles still get a work out when I'm stressed, like now.

Stress to me is only expressed in physical symptoms.  Without a sore jaw or finicky stomach, I wouldn't realize that I was actually experiencing stress.  Instead of thinking stressful thoughts first then having those thoughts cause the physical symptoms, I feel the physical symptoms which then indicate to me that I am stressed.  My theory is that although I am mentally fine with risky, high stakes situations, my lizard brain still responds with additional adrenaline and cortisol that takes its own toll on my body.

I was reading a Scientific American blog about anxiety and how it was not acknowledged by the Greeks as an actual disorder, then only became a purely physical illness starting with the Romans, then only recently has been seen as a primary mental affliction.  I understand that there are people who suffer from anxiety disorders, but for garden variety anxiety felt as a result of simple stress, is anxiety primarily a physical phenomenon?  A natural, but largely physical reaction, perhaps?  A poignant reminder from the part of our brain that is primarily (or only) concerned with our survival that we need to get out of harm's way sooner rather than later?

I'm interested in this topic because I have grown increasingly susceptible to the effects of anxiety over the years.  The shift is particularly dramatic given my previously almost non-existent levels of anxiety.  My friends wonder what happened to me.  And sociopaths are not supposed to be anxious.  But actually, sometimes they are.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Sociopath quote: different viewpoints


It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. "They all eat one another!" he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb, said, "They all feed one another," and called it good.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Monday, July 23, 2012

Travellers

Almost immediately upon arriving in a foreign place I try to imitate the natives as much as possible. Every day I pick up a new item of clothing, a new phrase, a new mannerism that will help me blend in. It must seem a little ridiculous or pointless now because I'm obviously not one of the natives, but I try anyway. I realize this doesn't make me a sociopath -- I could be a hippie backpacker, a travel writer, or a spy. But I think being a sociopath makes me this type of traveler.

Another thing I like about traveling is the chance to see how arbitrary your own culture's traditions are. Everyone makes a big deal about conforming to social norms and ostracizing those who don't quite fit, but that is just a tool of oppression. The social norm is not the important feature to society, the conforming is.

I don't think it's a coincidence that nonconformist Gypsies are sometimes called "travelers."
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