Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Quote: Victims

“once I gave up the hunt for villains, I had little recourse but to take responsibility for my choices ...Needless to say, this is far less satisfying that nailing villains. It also turned out to be more healing in the end.”

― Barbara Brown Taylor

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Saint sociopath?

So suggests a recent comment:

It is a very natural thing for a sociopath to become a saint. 

Take an irresponsible, impulsive person who accepts that we all die and can't accumulate anything (wealth, fame, pussy good looks, etc) and that everything is relative (e.g. the car you find so ugly would have been considered great 50 years ago, and simply miraculous 300 years ago).

If such a person can find a way to control his antisocial impulses (that includes saying the truth), and do things for the betterment of others, other people will think he's divine. Because he won't be controlled by the typical things (family, country, wealth, fame) that stop one from being creative, altruistic, joyous, loving, tolerant and compassionate.

I'm not completely sold on the conclusion, but the premises actually fit, at least personally. I feel so fine about the idea of death that I have no strong attachment to anything about life -- or at least an understanding that everything is transient, including my own sense of self as I morph from one thing to the next. Will my preferences now still be my preferences tomorrow? Not likely, which is why it's hard to get really worked up about acquiring things. I can't really be bought, which has often made me a terrible employee. While my colleagues were bound by golden handcuffs in the form of family or expensive habits they had to support, I continued living a life of minimalism and doing my own thing. I've often dreamed of living in a shipping container and eating legumes for every meal. Maybe other sociopaths are the same? Is that why it's so easy for us to see things self-destruct, because we never cared much about them in the first place?

Did anyone else relate to this like I did? I know there are plenty of examples of (most?) sociopaths not acting like saints. But it didn't seem that outlandish either, when you consider that sociopaths have a naturally sort of Buddhistic outlook on life. Or does this general disinterest not include all sociopaths? For instance, I hear that there are "covetous sociopaths". I actually have never encountered one. Are they not just especially aggressive narcissists?

Monday, May 12, 2014

Disgust (part 2)

Morality has always been a bit of a puzzle to me -- puzzling to figure out how I feel about it and puzzling to figure out how other people feel about it and why it has the power to get them to act the way that they do. One thing that I find so fascinating about empaths is how they will often justify what would otherwise be abhorrent behavior because they feel a particular way about something. Like this recent comment:

I believe that most people are good, but at the same time I am deeply and profoundly sickened by the fact that any cruelty that a normal person can justify to their conscience is acceptable to themselves and society. If you feel disgust towards something, you are justified in speaking against it and calling for its destruction, whether it be a person, animal, or object.

To illustrate how strongly disgust might motivate people to act out against the object of disgust, the other main story the This American Life episode from last post tells the story of a man called Gene who lived in a small town. After his fiancĂ©e was brutally murdered by her ex-husband, he seeks solace from her family, only to have them turn against him. Turns out they Googled him and discovered all sorts of disturbing things:

Someone with the user name Calvin asked, does anyone know the last name of Gene, the boyfriend hairstylist? I'm worried, because Gene is making his way down to Florida to meet with Paulette's side of the family. I'm truly fearful that this is not the end of this tragedy.

Someone named Mouth then said, keep that creep away from the children. He is trouble. What would you do if the perv was chasing your grandchildren? Calvin thanked Mouth for the warning.

And then someone who called himself Bugs added, Gene is not a nice guy. He cheated on his first wife. I know Paulette and Gene well, and they were both sickening out in public, kissing all over one another.

It continued on like this. People accused him of every kind of character flaw you could imagine, of getting fired from every job he had, of being a liar, a drunk.

Once the gossip ball started rolling, it didn't stop. People stopped talking to him in his town. He got fired from his job because no one wanted him to serve them. His life in the town was over, so he picked up and moved, but not before he contacted an enterprising lawyer. After over a year of legal battles, the source of the gossip was finally revealed: "they were all the same woman, a woman who had gone to the trouble of making multiple accounts and then having fake conversations between those accounts." Why would she go to all of this trouble? (This is where it becomes really crucial to listen to the show if you get a chance, they have a recording of this woman saying these things):

I don't like the way he looked at the younger girls in staff where we worked together [for three months]. Looking them up and down, lusty look. You know what I'm saying? There's a difference in looking, and there is a difference in (ELONGATING) "looooking."

He's the reason the woman's dead. He is the very reason that woman is dead. He knew how her (EMPHASIS) "husband" was. But yet, he kept doing what he was doing. He'd come in there with her on numerous times. Sit in the corner, and that woman couldn't even eat for him pawing at her, being gross. You know what I'm saying? You don't do stuff like that out in public, for God's sake. People went back and told the ex-husband to get the ex-husband riled up and disturbed enough about it to kill the woman.

And this exchange:

Interviewer: What business is it of yours, though? I mean, it seems like you're making a lot of assumptions.

Woman: Did you not understand or listen to what I said? He brought it upon himself in my opinion.

Interviewer: Are you proud of what you did?

Woman: [SCOFFS] Am I proud of what I did? I'm proud of standing up for what I believe in, for what I know. I'm proud of telling the truth.

Gene ended up getting a legal judgment against for for over $400,000, but he still hasn't seen a penny of it. The good news is that he was able to move back to his hometown -- people had heard about the trial and decided to stop treating him like human trash.

When the book first came out, I was a little surprised at the level of disgust that some people feel towards sociopaths. It wasn't anything as crazy as what people feel for pedophiles, maybe more like what people currently feel towards gay people -- the majority does not, but the ones that do feel pretty strongly about it. I understand why. It seems like an evolutionary advantage to a point, to have extreme group cohesion and oust anybody who doesn't play by the rules. But it has always been a blunt instrument. And the internet plays a funny role in the way people make these sorts of moral judgments:

You could tell somebody something and they'll kind of believe you. But if they see it in writing, they're going to believe it. Once you write it down, it's not gossip anymore. You know, that becomes truth for what people are concerned with.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Disgust (part 1)

In celebration of American mother's day, This American Life episode, called Tarred and Feathered (well worth a listen in its entirety), features a very inspiring mother/son relationship. The show discusses a young boy (they call him Adam, currently 18 years old), who realizes around the time of puberty that he was attracted to small children -- a pedophile. He starts watching child on child pornography, which didn't seem too unusual to him because he was close to their ages. As he grew older, however, he realized that he was still attracted to that younger age range. He eventually becomes totally turned off of child pornography when he sees a clip involving an 18 month old baby. From the narrator:

He began reading up on child abuse and was upset at what he learned. He decided he wanted to stop watching child porn, and he needed help if he was going to do that. For that help, Adam turned back to the internet. He posted on a mental health forum, explaining his situation and asking for advice. Two women who were child abuse survivors befriended him. With their help, Adam says he stopped watching porn. But in its place grew a deep depression.

It wasn't like he'd stopped having sexual thoughts about kids. He says he felt like a monster for having viewed the videos, but also just for having the attractions. Some days, he thought about killing himself. He didn't know what else to do. He was 16. He wanted to talk to someone. So he started with a cautious letter to his mum.

Dear Mummy, it begins, I'm writing this letter to you, as I cannot bring myself to say what I need to say to you to your face. It would simply be too painful for me. I am always overshadowed with feelings of depression, guilt, and shame. I'm really sick and tired of covering these feelings up. I want you to let me see a psychologist. I understand you probably have a lot to ask me. But I need some time to get my head wrapped around things. Love, Adam.

He didn't explain the source of the problem, and his mother never asked. Instead, she made him an appointment at a local therapist for a week or so later.

The therapist at first didn't believe him, then made excuses, then she showed disgust. She told him that she couldn't treat him. She told him that she had no one to refer him to. She told his mother against his wishes. He tells how his mother took it:

You know, my mother, I'm sure, reacted the best I really could have hoped for. She kind of put her arm on my shoulder and squeezed a little bit. She seemed to be supportive. I'm sure she was in shock, probably kind of horrified, but at least she was able to hide that. And the fact that she was able to do that, it meant so much to me.

The mother continued to be supportive, and apart from the few subsequent therapists that have seen Adam. She hasn't even told her husband.

The parallels to sociopathy are fascinating. There is basically no scientific understanding of what to do with a pedophile ("It is a gigantic black hole in science."). There is no treatment for a pedophile that has not offended. Because therapists don't know how to handle them, they often get caught up in mandatory reporting laws, which caused the number of self-referrals to drop precipitously "because folks are too afraid to reach out for help. The consequences are too high." And none of the panic/paranoia related to pedophiles is actually scientifically supported:

"Another thing that has not been researched in-depth is if having an attraction to kids makes it more dangerous to be around them. On its face, it seems obvious. But there is no evidence to support it."

About the lack of research:

For years, Letourneau has been trying to change all this, to get money for research, and for prevention programs. But there's not much money for that. Funders don't want to be associated with pedophilia research. The stigma is too great. Even someone like Letourneau, who wants to do this research in order to prevent children from being abused, has been called a pedophile sympathizer, simply for advocating these programs.

Elizabeth Letourneau
If we can prevent this, we can prevent a lot of harm and a lot of cost. And we just don't. It's nuanced. It's difficult to wrap your head around. It's a lot easier to say these guys are monsters. Let's put them in prison. Let's put them on a registry. Let's put them in civil commitment facilities. And forget about them.

Even the numbers are similar to sociopathy: "1% to 3% of men would meet the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia".

After searching online for any help with his condition and finding nothing, Adam started his own support group:

Everyone I've spoken to has a story about how the group saved them. A 22-year-old college student told me this one.

Anonymous College Student
There was a time when I was really running out of hope for the future. I was unemployed, and I felt like no one was going to give me a shot. And I felt like I had literally no shot in life. And I kind of wanted to kill myself. I didn't do it. The first thing I thought of was especially Adam, in specific, but the rest of them as well, that I couldn't let them down like that.

From the narrator: "In a different world, this person would be talking to a professional, not a 19-year-old with no training at all. Or maybe this person would just be in prison" beca
use there are no current ways of dealing with people in this situation. But the very fact that they exist suggests that pedophilia isn't necessarily un-manageable. It has prompted at least one researcher to talk to the members of the support group in order to devise possible early prevention and other treatment programs.

Can you imagine finding out at some point in your life that you are different, and for the type of different you are there is no help or sympathy but only disgust?

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Who is better?

Although I've never had any opinions on who is better as a whole, empath or sociopath, I found this to be an interesting argument for the former, from a recent comment:
I disagree, i think we are worse. Logical? yes. Intelligent? generally. Efficient? absolutely. But when i see regular people forego logic and efficiency for love, it impresses me. Logic has led me to believe we are lesser beings. They see something we don't, and it is more important to them than efficiency, sometimes more important than their lives. We are the superior tacticians, and can easily exploit these weaknesses. Many are aware this advantage though, and still choose to follow their emotions. Logic would dictate these people have superior judgement to us on the matter of what is important in life, they are aware of a side of the human experience we cannot be. They know they are vulnerable, not all of them, but many, this has led me to believe what they see is more important than us. They, as servants of this great sight unseen, are more important than us. I have come to believe our rightful place is not their rulers, but their servants, their guardians from the dangers they leave themselves so undefended from. They found something greater than we can ever know. So i serve them, i give them my honest and non emotionally driven guidance. I use my propensity for, and lack of aversion to, violence to protect them. We are more efficient, but in the grand scheme of things, were useless. We cant make the world better, because we cant care in that special way, but we can serve those would. I guess that is how one could be a "good" sociopath. 


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