Friday, November 14, 2014

Nightcrawler

I've been getting quite a few inquiries about what sort of mental health diagnosis I think that Lou Bloom, the protagonist in the film Nightcrawler, might have. I'll try to stay general about personality characteristics and not specific about plot so as to avoid spoilers, but also apologize that consequently this won't make sense unless/until you see the show. The good news is that the show is worth seeing.

So, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts because mine is just a guess, and not a very educated one, but I thought autism spectrum with antisocial traits? There's actually a strong hint of narcissistic personality disorder as well, but mostly in his seemingly selective obliviousness to the needs and feelings of others and the way he prioritizes his own needs above all else. But my (albeit limited) experience with people with ASD suggests that they too come off as selectively oblivious.

Bloom clearly has difficulties empathizing, both cognitively and emotionally. It's not clear whether he can't tell when he creeps people out, or he can but chooses to ignore it. On the one hand, it appears to be the former because if he could help it, why wouldn't he be less creepy? Especially if it would make his life easier for him. On the other hand, he says things, especially later in the movie, that suggest that he just doesn't care to wear a mask for the sake of others. Also, there are plenty of times when he is very smooth, especially when he is committed to playing a particular role rather than trying to be a more sincere version of himself. This is especially true when he has just seen the "right" behavior modeled to him, e.g. the job interview situations with him on both sides of the table, also when he first begins his "career".

I think the thing that shocks the average view the most about him at first is his instrumentalism. He does not have ethics or even really pretend to have them (at least not until ethics both become necessary for his survival and are properly modeled for him to imitate). He is a clever tactician, but part of it seems to be based on luck or mimicry rather than planning things out several steps ahead. Some viewers may notice that his most elaborate set-up had several ways that could have left him unacceptably vulnerable, if things had not gone just so. Perhaps he would have relied on his ability to improvise solutions and have dealt with those issues if/when they came, but it gives him the overall impression of him just being a huge risk taker rather than a mastermind. He is super cool under pressure. He doesn't seem to express much emotion, except the negative, anger based ones. He does not seem to have a moral compass at all. He behaves in antisocial ways that would have him likely scoring as ASPD or high on the PCL-R.

Some of the most entertaining and thought provoking parts of the movie are when he has taken a concept that has been very intentionally soft-pedaled to him (e.g. if it bleeds it leads) and acted very literally and unapologetically on it. For instance, people may be aware of (and passively supporting) the mass euthanizing of animals at animal shelters, but people get quite upset still when they actually witness an animal being harmed (see also, eating meat). Bloom does not understand or at least acknowledge in his actions these very fine distinctions that are frequently drawn. But it's not that Bloom seems to misunderstands the concept or the nuance, he just feels no need to sugarcoat what is, not justify his actions to himself or others, nor otherwise try to whitewash exactly what he does and why he does it -- what prurient interests he is trying to supply.

The thing is, every character in a Hollywood film is going to be a caricature of whatever they're attempting to portray. So it's not too useful to analyze this character in any serious way in terms of an actual mental health diagnosis. Still, I thought it was an interesting portrayal of what might be thought of as a psychopath who perhaps was not socialized early enough to have been fluently normal seeming (home schooled psychopath or psychopath raised by aspies?), or someone on the autism spectrum who is particularly obsessed with self promotion (not like selfie generation promotion, but in the driven, career centric way) and power. 

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Serge King on Power

A reader sent me this, which I thought was interesting especially because it discusses the different flavors and nuances of power. When I say that sociopaths enjoy power, a lot of people think of one or two, or even just a few different types of power (usually the kinds that they themselves covet or have experienced). I didn't realize this was such a popular misconception before. For instance, in the book I talk about ruining people. A lot of people thought this was destructive or sadistic. To me it was just a particular flavor of influence:

Power and Purpose by Serge Kahili King

The essence of power is influence. It is that which enables you to be effective at doing what you want to do, to get the results intended, to move others to help you, and it is that which affects the power of others even when it is unintentional. Everything has both active and passive aspects of power. A flower has the active power to grow, blossom and reproduce. It may also have the passive power to give food to a bee or pleasure to a human, both of which enhance its active power to grow and reproduce. A human may have the active power to perform a certain task. He or she may also have the passive power to inspire other humans by that performance.

There are several kinds of power: 
1. The power of energy (as of the elements, strength, emotions, vibrations). 
2. The power of favor [ability to give or withold] (as of money, position, prestige, affection, punishment, protection, pleasure, etc.). 
3. The power of intimidation (threat or act of violence or loss, emotional manipulation, etc.) 
3. The power of knowledge (as of skill, information, wisdom). 
4. The power of authority (as of self-confidence, or confidence in one's access to another power). 
5. The power of focus (as with decision, determination, motivation, desire). 
6. The power of belief (as with assumptions, attitudes and expectations).
***
Power, however, is meaningless without a purpose, and no purpose can be achieved without power. The larger the purpose, the greater the power, but it doesn't work the other way. You can't accumulate tremendous power first and then set about applying it to a great purpose. It is the purpose that expands the power.

. . . . Most have also encountered two major problems based on a misunderstanding of power.

The first problem is the false association of power with control. This error is very common, and is the main reason so many people are afraid of the whole concept of power. Actually, control is just a technique, and not a very good one, for exerting influence. Control requires the threat or the fact of punishment to be effective, and the response to that is always fear and anger. Therefore, the use of the control technique sets up a natural resistance to its use. If you look at the surface of a situation the control technique may appear to be effective, either in a family or a police state, but the underlying resistance is constantly working to undo it. Even if the situation lasts for many years, the control technique will produce a very poor record of achieving the desired results.

The second problem is the use of power against something. Now, exerting influence induces change, and the universe has a built-in resistance to change that helps to keep it from falling into chaos. In all of existence we can see a constant interplay between the forces of change and resistance to those forces. We also see constant attempts to reduce resistance in order to make change easier, such as the path taken by molten lava, the shape of a raindrop, the structure of a palm frond, the strength of an elephant, the streamlining of an airplane, and the altering of a lifestyle. Very rarely do we see power used consistently and purposefully to get rid of something, except among humans. Some people are not satisfied with developing their own religious or political system; they have to make theirs the only one by destroying the others. Some people do not want to compete; they want to eliminate the competition. Some people do not want to cure cancer or heal the drug problem; they want to make war on them. The use of power to willfully oppose, subdue or destroy another power generates tremendous stresses which reduce the effectiveness of both.

"Power over" and "power against" are very inefficient uses of power. A far more efficient use is "power to." The former are inherently destructive, while the latter is inherently creative. Sometimes the difference is as subtle as an attitude, but the effects can differ vastly.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Seducer's Diary

The Wikipedia synopsis (spoiler alert):

Written by 'Johannes the Seducer', this volume illustrates how the aesthete holds the "interesting" as his highest value and how, to satisfy his voyeuristic reflections, he manipulates his situation from the boring to the interesting. He will use irony, artifice, caprice, imagination and arbitrariness to engineer poetically satisfying possibilities; he is not so much interested in the act of seduction as in willfully creating its interesting possibility.

Søren Kierkegaard from the Diary of a Seducer:

I once knew of a girl whose story forms the substance of the diary. Whether he has seduced others I do not know... we learn of his desire for something altogether arbitrary. With the help of his mental gifts he knew how to tempt a girl to draw her to him without caring to possess her in any stricter sense.

I can imagine him able to bring a girl to the point where he was sure she would sacrifice all then he would leave without a word let a lone a declaration a promise. 


The unhappy girl would retain the consciousness of it with double bitterness because there was not the slightest thing she could appeal to. She could only be constantly tossed about in a terrible witches' dance at one moment reproaching herself forgiving him at another reproaching him and then since the relationship would only have been actual in a figurative sense she would constantly have to contend with the doubt that the whole thing might only have been an imagination.

I also like this idea of people loving, but loving in two entirely different ways. Consequently, although neither is lying or otherwise misrepresenting themselves, there is still a gross misunderstanding:

The tragic is that the two lovers don't understand each other; the comic is that two who do not understand each other love each other. That such a thing can happen is not inconceivable, for erotic love itself has its dialectic, and even if it were unprecedented, the construction, of course, has the absolute power to construct imaginatively. When the heterogeneous is sustained the way I have sustained it, then both parties are right in saying that they love. Love itself has an ethical and an esthetic element. She declares that she loves and has the esthetic element and understands it esthetically; he says that he loves and understands it ethically. Hence they both love and love each other, but nevertheless it is a misunderstanding.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Quote: Brutality

"In my opinion, it is you considerate, humane men, that are responsible for all the brutality and outrage wrought by these wretches; because, if it were not for your sanction and influence, the whole system could not keep foothold for an hour. If there were no planters except such as that one," said he, pointing with his finger to Legree, who stood with his back to them, "the whole thing would go down like a millstone. It is your respectability and humanity that licenses and protects his brutality."

― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Monday, November 10, 2014

Song: If loving you is wrong




Two sides to extramarital affairs? From her monologue:

But I ain't worried about it, 'cause I found out that when a man starts tipping away from home, somebody at home has fallen down on the homefront.
That's because when those women marry these men, they have a tendency to take advantage of them.
They forget about all the sweet things they say to get them, that they have to keep on saying them to keep them. 'Cause you got a whole lot of women out there these days just like me who will tell a man anything in the world he feel like he might want to hear. 
I know, 'cause I've gone with a married man and last New Year's Eve, I was lonesome as a naked figure.
But, J1, the man came on in like he was supposed to.
And I don't mind waiting that one day, 'cause anything worth having is worth waiting on.
So when the man came in, J1, I was right there waiting on him to tell him all them sweet things I know his wife hadn't told him over the holidays.
And you can think of a whole lot of good stuff to tell a nigger when you're by yourself.
So the minute my man came in the door, J1, I start laying it on him.
I said oooh, baby. Oooh, baby. Oooh, baby. My baby.
You're the sweetest thing I know. Yes you are.
You dim the rainbow's glow. Yes you do, baby.
There ain't no power, no power, no power on this earth
To ever, oh, oh Lord, separate us, baby,
'Cause you are my sunshine, 
My only little sunshine.
You are my sunshine, my sunshine,
And I love you, baby.
I can't help but love you, baby.
I love you, baby.
I couldn't give up if I wanted to.
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