Friday, January 24, 2014

Twitter mobs

Fredrik deBoer writes about the dangers of so-called "twitter storms" in his blog post "smarm and the mob". First he rehashes the story of Essay Anne Vanderbilt, and the subsequent moral judgments that various people made on that scandal. More important to him than the merits of people's suppositions about who-killed-who was the moral certainty to which they clung to their own beliefs, as if there was no possibility of being incorrect:

But I think the simplicity and force of that causal argument, whether explicit or assumed, is precisely why I’m still reading about it now. Because I think that’s what the Twitter storm needs; it needs to assert, in every situation, the absolute simplicity of right and wrong. To publicly state online that you are conflicted about any story that has provoked the mob into action is to risk the immediate wrath of the storm. It happened that, on the day the Jameis Winston case was blowing up, I watched the Ken Burns documentary about the Central Park Five. I thought about making the point that, perhaps, we shouldn’t rush to judgment when a young black man is accused of rape, given our country’s history on that front, but I didn’t dare. I knew the risks.

What people have built, on Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook, is a kind of boutique moral ideology that has one precept that precedes all others: the sheer obviousness of right and wrong. The very words “grey area,” in any context, have become anathema. The ideology of the Twitter storm is a kind of simple, Manichean morality that would make George Bush blush. They used to make fun of him, for that, the liberals and the leftists; his “you’re either with us or you’re against us” worldview was seen as not just illiberal but childish, a kind of moral immaturity that resulted from evangelical Christianity and neoconservatism and dim wits. Now, the shoe is so firmly on the other foot that the default idiom of the lecturing Twittersphere is a kind of aggressive condescension, one which assumes into its expression the notion that all right-thinking people already believe what the mob believes. It is on a foundation of this kind of moral certitude that all of history’s greatest crimes have been built.

That, to me, is the self-deception, a confidence game in the same way Scocca means above: a willful belief, among members of a social and cultural strata, in a kind of frictionless universe where putters can be made out of Stealth Bomber materials, or where all moral questions have long since been settled. It would be nice to live in a universe where there is straightforward relationship between good and evil and where all tragedies have accessible villains. But you don’t live there, and the notion that you do makes actual moral progress harder for us all. I would call that attitude smarm, myself. The problem is that the self-same people who were enamored of Scocca’s smarm essay– the ones who made its popularity possible– are the ones who make up the Twitter storms. And this has been my greater point about smarm: I find it a useful notion in a vacuum, but the mechanisms of internet culture makes me pessimistic about its actual use. As I said at the time: tons of the people who lauded that essay had, days earlier, gone gaga for BatKid. But BatKid was textbook smarm. It turns out that smarm, like so many other human faults, is easier identified in others than in ourselves, even when we are the ones who need to be indicted most of all.

And this is the problem for Scocca, and for us all: he’s a writer of great integrity whose ideas can only be spread with the will of a mob. I don’t blame him for not pointing out that the most influential purveyors of smarm are in fact the very people whose approval his essay required. I have many convenient blindspots to the comprehensive corruption of my present life. I just think that the altitude of his rhetorical station might need a little adjusting. Same message for him as for the Twitter mob: you can position yourself however you’d like. But we’re all down here in the grime.

For more on different moral universes, here

Thursday, January 23, 2014

The worth of souls

I've been thinking recently about the different ways that people value human life. From LDS President Dieter Uchtdorf on how God values human life:

Think of the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount—that is the measure of God’s love for you.

God does not look on the outward appearance. I believe that He doesn’t care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely.

He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.

What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us.



Apart from being a reminder of the impossibly high standard that many religious people are meant to hold themselves to when tasked with loving their fellow man as God loves them (and the great chasm from that expectation to their actual performance), I think this represents an interesting alternative to valuing human life than what has become the fad of late: prestigious job, fancy house, and attractive significant other being the baseline indicators for success, with additional money, celebrity, talent, or power being the true distinguishing characteristics to lift one above the masses of mediocrity. I have been in all sorts of cultures, from where Porsches are considered wannabe striver cars to where owning a bike is the envy of the village, but no matter where you are or what criteria you are using people always manage to find some way to think that they're better than other people.

I'm not suggesting that people stop judging others -- that's for them to reconcile with their own personal beliefs. I just think it's telling to see the different standards the people use to judge themselves and others. I thought the video below was an interesting perspective that happens to be very counter the majoritarian view -- so much so that I imagine many people assume she feels this way just because she does not rate high on attractiveness herself (sour games?). Her view: "I never want to get into this place where I feel like what I look like is more important than what I do . . . . Being beautiful is not an accomplishment." I especially liked the part where she compared humans to how other animals look: "It's absurd when you waste too much time on it, when you look at the perspective of being part of this kind of silly looking species on this planet in this solar system in this universe that is huge and contains life forms we haven't even encountered yet and that are completely foreign to us."


But what is the sociopathic angle to all of this? Maybe that sociopaths also sometimes get judged according to standards that they feel are arbitrary or silly? And if you can see some absurdity to the way that many people value human life, maybe you can better understand how sociopaths feel about adhering to seemingly silly and arbitrary things like social norms? Maybe to let the people know who write to me to tell me, "get your life together and establish a legitimate career" or opining that what I have done with my life is "wholly insignificant" that my value system for the worth of a life is probably a little different from there's? And that's ok. I'm glad some people love their middle class lifestyles because they stabilize society and pay into the welfare coffers for the rest of us bottom feeders. Or maybe I am setting up a pity play -- trying to trigger an emotional response in people who read this in order to promote more tolerance as part of a desperate ploy to prevent further legally sanctioned prejudicial treatment of sociopaths?

Or maybe I've just been thinking about this because it seems like our transition from consumer culture to information culture has made us all connoisseurs and critics of "content," including the people that populate our lives. But I'm not sure that most people enjoy being the subject of other people's scrutiny. Nor could you really say that everybody is fair game, if fair is something you believe in. Because I don't remember asking to be born, much less born the way I am and I can't imagine that most people do/did either. And yet there is such a temptation to become an amateur critic of the humans we encounter. But what a dim view of humanity to believe that there is any morally sound and unbiased basis for sorting people out according to value, ranking something so unknowable as the human soul according to such superficial criteria as "our 'riches' and our 'chances for learning.'" Because out of all of the wonders of this world, humans are the most amazing to me. I guess that's why I like the Mormon doctrine on this point: "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God".

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Famous sociopaths: Benjamin Franklin?

So suggests a reader:

Of course, I read the book, and though I was, myself, a mental health professional, learned a great deal about sociopathy. In my day, before the functional MRI, there was no certainty that it was the functional structure of the brain that determined the behavior. Nor, that despite the 3-4% incidence in the general population, that many, if not most, are socialized, like "M. E." or Jimmy Fallon, and very likely, Benjamin Franklin, for that matter.

Not all sociopaths do evil things. I stated that Franklin might well be one, based on his risk-taking behavior, his disrupted familial relationships, his legendary charm, his promiscuity, and his need to go from one activity to another.

The risky behavior: the man signed the Declaration of Independence, an invitation to hanging. Also, he nearly electrocuted himself during the kite experiment. I'm sure that there were others examples that escape me for the moment.

  • Disrupted family: Franklin had a hostile relationship with his son throughout their lives. He was also a very poor husband, and for all practical purposes, he acted as if he were a single man.
  • The charm: Thank the lord for this and his genius. He got Louis XV to bankrupt France to support us against Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown, after all. AND: that bankruptsy was a proximal cause of the French Revolution that transpired just a few short years later.
  • The hyperactivity: Again, thank the lord, and his genius, for his myriad inventions. Off the top of my head: a musical instrument that he called the Harmonium, the Franklin stove, bifocal lenses, the harnessing of electricity, etc.
  • The promiscuity: His love life is one of legend, continuing well into his old age!

The error is to think that all sociopaths are alike. Sociopaths differ from one another based on the presence or absence of other pathologies such as paranoia (Stalin) or Schizophrenia (Hitler) or combinations thereof. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are certainly sociopaths, yet their risky behavior was channeled into developments that have revolutionized our lives! Perhaps, we have advanced to where we are today because of  constructive sociopaths like these! Not every sociopath is a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Pol Pot!

I'm not entirely surprised at the suggestion that Benjamin Franklin could have been a sociopath, especially since studies have shown that entrepreneurs have several sociopathic traits ("The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship").

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Soft sociopathic traits

A lot emails that I receive from people describing their sociopathic traits strike me as being not quite placeable (nothing inconsistent with the diagnosis, but nothing really suggesting it either). This one seems to share a remarkable number of the "soft" sociopathic traits -- not quite in any textbook or diagnostic criterion, they are still traits that show up remarkably frequently in the sociopaths I have come to know. These soft traits include things like sexual fluidity, the particular instrumental way that charm is used, the obliviousness to certain things and hyper awareness at others.  From a reader:

As I’m sure since the subsequent publication of your book you receive these types of emails and attempts at correspondence daily, I will attempt to make this little stab at conversation short and sweet. Just a footnote here, I have no desire to exploit you and this is not an attempt to parallel our experiences. I suppose I am contacting you to relay some experiences of mine and perhaps receive some feedback.

My friend recently proposed the term, “sociopath” to me in passing conversation. I laughed off his name calling because I reasoned with myself: I grew up in a loving, stable environment, I have always had friends and significant others and I’ve always been keenly aware of my significance to them. I am not some brooding psychopath. I will admit here that I was unaware of the difference between “psycho” and “socio” and incorrectly found them mutually exclusive. However, the term “sociopath” sizzled in my brain for quite some time and I decided to delve into studying this alleged “disorder” and try to either self-diagnose or abandon the subject completely if it wasn't applicable to me. I reevaluated nearly every memory I can tap into and here’s just a sample of the conclusions I've come to:

By the age of 18, I had been arrested for assault, theft, and possession of criminal tools, vandalism, and a negligible complicity charge. At the various times of these altercations, I always was able to weasel my way out of the worst possible consequences. In my family’s eyes, I was a merely a victim of circumstance of hanging around the “wrong crowd” or being “scared, anxious” to be going away to college. At the time I think I believed those explanations myself. I have been in several altercations and what I refer to as “battles” with my family members often resulting in periods of estrangement with them.

Each one of my relationships throughout high school and my young adult life ended with a bang. The first ended in me cheating and spreading a rumor that my boyfriend had essentially taken advantage of me sexually. The second ended in cheating on my part as well and in a fiery battle with her parents that ended in a restraining order against me. The third was almost identical to the second. During these relationships, I would always befriend my significant other’s circle of friends and more often than not they all ended up liking me more than my girlfriend/boyfriend. I never felt particularly attached to my boyfriends or girlfriends, I always felt like, “well, I’m young, I don’t have to care about them or take these relationships seriously.” I have always identified as a bisexual. I like the differences between sexes and have never been able to adequately identify with one or the other. I am sexually fluid. This has always stirred confusion with those who have been in relationships with me and I've often heard they feel threatened by everyone around me, male or female.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was considered above average. I was and still am an avid reader and consider myself to be fluent in many musical instruments. I excelled in every activity I tried, guitar, drums, English, horseback riding, swimming, and softball. Music became somewhat of an obsession for me and I have become integrated in an underground community of musicians. I won several awards in academics and was able to attain a generous scholarship to a school I couldn’t otherwise afford. My family is exceedingly proud of me and I have always known I was the “favorite” to my various grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

I began waitressing at a small diner at the age of 16. I charmed my way into the hearts of many customers who still contact me after transferring to a different store several hours away. I consider myself to be the ideal employee, by befriending upper management and kissing a little ass I am mostly free to do as I please without consequence. However, I have managed to get approximately 5 people fired and dozens written up.  

You’re probably wondering why I failed to pick up on these things earlier or even realize how “abnormal” I am. The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe that’s just how the emotional and physical world naturally occurs in my mind. My “normal” is just maybe a variance on the society’s perceived notion of normalcy. I could go on forever but again, I am lazy. I realized rather quickly how much I assume the role of “sociopath” by textbook definition and although I have statistically come into contact with many sociopaths, you are the only one I have found to be formally diagnosed and have a way to contact.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Sociopaths on television: Fringe

From Fringe (spoiler alert, the observer characters are an advanced future race of humans that have evolved in such a way to replace emotions with rational thought):

Observer: But you ascribed meaning to something that was not there. You saw what you wanted to see. You believed what you wanted to believe, because that's what your emotions do. They ascribe meaning to something that is not there. They fool your perception as to what is real. A dog does not smile, no matter how many times your kind might think it does. . . You blame us for her death, but it is irrelevant. She was here, now she is simply not here.

Human: You're wrong about emotions not being real. My feelings for her are very, very real.

But that's not quite the point that the sociopathic observer is making, is it? He never said that emotions don't exist (i.e. are not real). He just said that they obscure one's perception of reality, which I think most people would agree with? I have seen people make similar statements as the human before and I always wonder what point they're trying to make. What does it mean to them for feelings to be real? For instance, if you were having a hallucination of a dragon and I told you that there is no dragon, you might tell me that the dragon is real. And I guess in a way you would be right be the dragon exists in your hallucination, and what does it mean for something to be real? But from my perspective and from the reality that most people share, there is no dragon. And if you persist in obligating me to acknowledge your hallucinated dragon as being "real" because it is real from your perspective, then you must equally acknowledge that the dragon is not real because from my perspective it is not.

It reminds me of this tweet:
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