Sunday, September 21, 2014

No hierarchy of humanity

This was an interesting excerpt from Charles Blow's memoir featured in the NY Times about coming to terms with his identity, specifically his bisexuality. It also has an interesting story about how to deal with victimhood (he was sexually abused by a cousin, upon which he wisely remarked, "I had to stop hating Chester to start loving myself. Forgiveness was freedom. I simply had to let go of my past so that I could step into my future." He also makes an interesting argument:

Yes, the mark that Chester’s betrayal had left on my life was likely to be permanent, but blaming him for the whole of the difference in my emerging sense of sexual identity, while convenient, was most likely not completely accurate. Abusers don’t necessarily make children different, but rather, they are diabolically gifted at detecting difference, often before the child can see it in him or herself. It is possible that Chester glimpsed a light in me, and that moved the darkness in him.

The explanation for the strong correlation between childhood abuse and non-heterosexual orientations is that child abuses go after kids who they sense are sexually open? I would like to see some stats on that, because that's the first I have heard of this specific argument. But I feel like this general type of argument is common for victims of child abuse to make. It seems almost too depressing to admit that your sense of "difference" from others all stems from you being a child victim. We would like the world to make a little more sense and be a little less haphazard than that. I certainly have made similar arguments about my own childhood -- that I wasn't made to be this way by what I happened to have experienced in formative years, or at least that I already was predisposed this way. But of course I freely admit that if I hadn't had those formative experiences, I wouldn't be who I am today (whatever else I might look like).

But I also thought his discussion of self-discovery and trying to find an identity in a world that wants to shoehorn and pidgeonhole us into their expectations of what we are or who we should be was interesting.

My world had told me that there was nothing worse than not being all of one way, that any other way was the same as being dead, but my world had lied. I was very much alive. There was no hierarchy of humanity. There was no one way to be, or even two, but many. 
***
I had done what the world had signaled I must: hidden the thorn in my flesh, held “the demon” at bay, kept the covenant, borne the weight of my crooked cross. But concealment makes the soul a swamp. Confession is how you drain it.

DARING to step into oneself is the bravest, strangest, most natural, most terrifying thing a person can do, because when you cease to wrap yourself in artifice you are naked, and when you are naked you are vulnerable.

But vulnerability is the leading edge of truth. Being willing to sacrifice a false life is the only way to live a true one.

I love that first part "There was no hierarchy of humanity." Except as true as it is, almost no one actually believes that, unfortunately.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Why good people do bad things

From Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us, by researchers David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo, via BrainPickings:

The derivation of the word ‘character’ comes from an ancient Greek term referring to the indelible marks stamped on coins. Once character was pressed into your mind or soul, people assumed it was fixed. But what modern science repeatedly shows is that this just isn’t the case. As we discuss in our book, everyone’s moral behavior is much more variable than any of us would have initially predicted.”
***
The analogy of color is an interesting way to think about [character]. Most of us think that colors are very discrete things — something’s red, it’s got redness; something’s blue, it’s got blueness. But we are creating these categories. They’re not natural kinds, they’re not given in ways that represent fundamentally distinct things. Ultimately, what determines what colors we see are the frequencies of light waves entering our eyes, so it’s along a continuum. It’s kind of the same with character. Things blend. We assume that if someone is good, that we’ve characterized them as good, that’s a discrete category, they can’t be bad. And when they are, our categories shatter. That’s because we have this illusory, arbitrary idea of what vice and virtue mean”


Friday, September 12, 2014

God is good?

I always like the speculations about what sort of personality God is, or for the non-believers, what do all of these God of Abraham worshippers believe to be the personality of the God they profess to love and follow. I was reading Isaiah 48 recently and liked how snarky God came off:

I foretold the former things long ago,
    my mouth announced them and I made them known;
    then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.
4 For I knew how stubborn you were;
    your neck muscles were iron,
    your forehead was bronze.
5 Therefore I told you these things long ago;
    before they happened I announced them to you
so that you could not say,
    ‘My images brought them about;
    my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’
6 You have heard these things; look at them all.
    Will you not admit them?
“From now on I will tell you of new things,
    of hidden things unknown to you.
7 They are created now, and not long ago;
    you have not heard of them before today.
So you cannot say,
    ‘Yes, I knew of them.’
8 You have neither heard nor understood;
    from of old your ears have not been open.
Well do I know how treacherous you are;
    you were called a rebel from birth.
9 For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath;
    for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,
    so as not to destroy you completely.
10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
    I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
    How can I let myself be defamed?
    I will not yield my glory to another.

Basically, the only reason God told you all of these things were going to happen is so he could get the glory -- so you wouldn't say, that wasn't you God, that was my graven image that did those things. And the only reason that God is not destroying us completely is for his own sake, not for ours. 

I also like people to acknowledge my power, will set up elaborate schemes to demonstrate my power, and then will sometimes show mercy to people, for no other reason than because it gives me glory to still have them under my power than to be completely destroyed

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Indelible

One of my sociopathic friends sent this to me, written to her by one of her intimates:

You're arrogant, thinking way too highly of yourself. You're selfish. You're stubborn. You're an outright cum sucking cunt. You believe yourself to be untouchable. You bore easily. You're controlling and calculating. You're cold and distant. You are a serpent. You know how to dance and sing in just the right way in just the right key to make others memorized by you. It's effortless. So much so it's appalling You love feeling empowered and important. You need it more then you care to admit. You are a queen in your own world and you need no one - that alone making you all the more powerful. You'll find yourself a new batch of toys even though knowing, full well you can return to your old play things. Because we are all intoxicated by your poison. It's an addiction, I suppose, on my end. Every time I find myself a bit more immune. But I still get the kick - the hit - every now and then from the sting of your bite. I burn where you strike and ache when you don't. 

Guess I'm ok with that for now.

I still see a lot of confusion as to why a sociopath would want to "seduce" or "ruin someone". The answer is basically what was written above -- that is what we're looking for, however misguided. We would like to leave an indelible mark on someone, either positively or negatively. It's like someone carving their initials into new concrete at some posh resort. Or the early British explorers of the Pyramids and other Egyptian ruins carving their name next to already etched ankhs petroglyphs. In fact, why were the Egyptians spending so much time and energy building and engraving those monuments in the first place? Maybe for the sociopath to behave this way is juvenile. Maybe it is destructive. It is clearly self-interested and not very considerate. But it's also not so different from the desire to be loved -- the desire to feel like you matter a lot to at least one other person in this world. 

Friday, September 5, 2014

Narcissists in the news

Have no clue whether he actually is a narcissist or not, but from Jezebel, one man's response to being rejected on Tinder:


It reminded me of this recent comment regarding narcissism:

A malignant Narc believes their own lies. They don't have a compartmentalized brain like a sociopath. They also have a single personality unlike a sociopath's mirror constructs. Narcs NEED the ego feeding. Sociopaths don't really. Narcs attach to their sources of feeding they will not leave a source before finding another one. A sociopath can walk away at any time. 

A sociopath understands that they are other. That there is a degree of separation between themselves and the reset of humanity. A narc is enmeshed. Nothing is separate from them. A sociopath becomes a mirror, we recognize that to fit in we must become a mirror of those around us.. The Narc thinks that they ARE the mirror. That everyone and everything is a reflection of their godlike self. They can't even understand why someone else would like a different food than they would. If they hate peas all people should hate peas. They will then try and make you eat peas and enjoy them because obviously you are defective if you do not.

Example: Sociopath meets a person who thinks the sky is green who has something they desire. They agree the sky is green.
Narc decides the sky is green. No one on the planet and no amount of scientific proof will get them to admit they are wrong. Ever. They will keep telling people the sky is green and try to make everyone else think the sky is green too. They can NEVER be wrong. 

Just a few differences. There are many similarities but these are some of the most basic differences.

I think this is right but there is something more to it, I think. The narcissist believes his own lies yes, but the sociopath sort of does as well. I think maybe the more telling distinction is between a sociopath's cavalier/casual/convenience-based attachment to believing or acting upon his personal reality versus a narcissist's insistent/aggressive/self-righteous/prescriptive/judgmental attachment to his personal reality. In other words, a sociopath may, in some finite period of time (a day, a week, a decade), believe his own lies. But he has no real need or desire to defend that reality to the death against conscientious objectors, because it ultimately doesn't mean much to him (no real sense of identity, and thus ego is a moving target). In contrast, the narcissist is very firmly attached to concepts like being "right" or "wrong" or "better" or "superior" to others. He is not only strongly invested in believing that those terms can not only be validly applied to sort everyone out on a spectrum of human worth, he also believes that his yardstick is the only criterion worth measuring with. Sociopath not so much. Sociopath understands that so much of rating anything is a matter of personal preference. Something might be true in this moment and not true in the next. Consequently, the sociopath may ultimately seem more reasonable, whereas the narcissist is more a bully because not only will he force you to acknowledge your place on this fixed relative hierarchy of value, he will make you acknowledge his infinite wisdom and judgment in making the assessment. If that makes any sense?
Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.