From a reader:
I'm an academic with a background in pharmacology/neuroscience, and somewhat unsurprisingly as one of your readers, a sociopath. After becoming self aware, I became increasingly fixated on understanding the concept and any sort of serious academic investigation makes it very obvious that the current understanding of the 'disorder' is completely substandard and relies both on reams of terrible a priori reasoning and ridiculous qualitative moral judgements. After spending a while reading (thanks for writing your blog, it was a huge help) and thinking about things, I began to seriously question the prevailing academic ideas around the disorder - I also began to identify some of my peers as possibly sociopathic, and after carefully approaching the topic confirmed that all of the people I had suspected were, in fact, either sociopaths, BPD sufferers, or narcissists. After interacting with various individuals and quizzing person after person (in appropriately controlled ways and avoiding identifying any sociopathic traits myself) I've begun to steadily build my own picture of things. In the long run, I'd like to seriously research into this area and try to break down the ridiculous modern consensus, but at the moment I'm far too junior to publish ideas that controversial. As a result, I've started writing my own blog in an attempt to communicate my ideas and also just to get my thoughts on paper - which is at questioningsociopathy.com. I'm sending you this email because I am rather curious as to what your opinion of my site will be, and also as something of a thank you for providing the idea to start a blog as a way to communicate my ideas.
Thanks for your time!
I'm an academic with a background in pharmacology/neuroscience, and somewhat unsurprisingly as one of your readers, a sociopath. After becoming self aware, I became increasingly fixated on understanding the concept and any sort of serious academic investigation makes it very obvious that the current understanding of the 'disorder' is completely substandard and relies both on reams of terrible a priori reasoning and ridiculous qualitative moral judgements. After spending a while reading (thanks for writing your blog, it was a huge help) and thinking about things, I began to seriously question the prevailing academic ideas around the disorder - I also began to identify some of my peers as possibly sociopathic, and after carefully approaching the topic confirmed that all of the people I had suspected were, in fact, either sociopaths, BPD sufferers, or narcissists. After interacting with various individuals and quizzing person after person (in appropriately controlled ways and avoiding identifying any sociopathic traits myself) I've begun to steadily build my own picture of things. In the long run, I'd like to seriously research into this area and try to break down the ridiculous modern consensus, but at the moment I'm far too junior to publish ideas that controversial. As a result, I've started writing my own blog in an attempt to communicate my ideas and also just to get my thoughts on paper - which is at questioningsociopathy.com. I'm sending you this email because I am rather curious as to what your opinion of my site will be, and also as something of a thank you for providing the idea to start a blog as a way to communicate my ideas.
Thanks for your time!