I have finally started watching Homeland, am in the second season so no spoilers in the comments. It's obviously an engaging show but I also find myself wondering not just whether it is an accurate depiction of bipolar disorder but what elements of the character are bipolar and what elements of the character are just who that person is. Like if the person gets sad over something that happened I wonder, is that how bipolar people act? Am I meant to think that this character is being histrionic? Or over emotional? Or is this supposed to be "normal" behavior?
Similarly, I think the sort of wholesale ignorance that people have about sociopaths leads them to believe all sorts of things about how the disorder must play out in the every day lives of sociopaths. Some think that we're supermen, some absolute villains, some think we're absolutely two faced and nothing truthful ever comes out of our mouths. I just don't believe that such caricatures of humanity exist. I was watching clips of Frozen this weekend with my little relatives. I don't believe the villain prince in that movie exists -- someone who is just nice and unassuming and then turns out to be absolutely two-faced and everything he did (even the nice stuff like handing out blankets to townspeople) was all for some nefarious purpose. I just don't believe that particular type of person exists.
I thought about that when I read via Brain Pickings "Dostoyevsky on Why There Are No Bad People":
We are all good fellows — except the bad ones, of course. Yet, I shall observe in passing that among us, perhaps, there are no bad people at all — maybe, only wretched ones. But we have not grown up to be bad. Don’t scoff at me, but consider: we have reached the point in the past where, because of the absence of bad people of our own (I repeat: despite the abundance of all sorts of wretches), we used to be ready, for instance, to value very highly various bad little fellows appearing among our literary characters, mostly borrowed from foreign sources. Not only did we value them, but we slavishly sought to imitate them in real life; we used to copy them, and in this respect we were ready to jump out of our skins.
***
We used to value and respect these evil people … solely due to the fact that they appeared as men of solid hate in contradiction to us Russians, who, as is well known, are people of very fragile hate, and this trait of ours we have always particularly despised. Russians are unable to hate long and seriously, and not only men but even vices — the darkness of ignorance, despotism, obscurantism and all the rest of these retrograde things. At the very first opportunity we are quick and eager to make peace… Please consider: why should we be hating each other? For evil deeds? — But this is a very slippery, most ticklish and most unjust theme — in a word, a double-edged one… Fighting is fighting, but love is love… We are fighting primarily and solely because now it is no longer a time for theories, for journalistic skirmishes, but the time for work and practical decisions.
***
A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.
***
Judge [the people] not by those villainies which they frequently perpetrate, but by those great and holy things for which they long amidst the very villainy. Besides, the people are not composed of scoundrels only; there are also genuine saints — and what saints! They themselves are radiant and they illuminate the path for all of us!
***
Somehow, I am blindly convinced that there is no such villain or scoundrel among the Russian people who wouldn’t admit that he is villainous and abominable, whereas, among others, it does happen sometimes that a person commits a villainy and praises himself for it, elevating his villainy to the level of a principle, and claiming that l’ordre and the light of civilization are precisely expressed in that abomination; the unfortunate one ends by believing this sincerely, blindly and honestly.
***
Judge [people] not by what they are, but by what they strive to become.
No wonder Dostoyevsky is so popular amongst the sociopathic crowd.
Similarly, I think the sort of wholesale ignorance that people have about sociopaths leads them to believe all sorts of things about how the disorder must play out in the every day lives of sociopaths. Some think that we're supermen, some absolute villains, some think we're absolutely two faced and nothing truthful ever comes out of our mouths. I just don't believe that such caricatures of humanity exist. I was watching clips of Frozen this weekend with my little relatives. I don't believe the villain prince in that movie exists -- someone who is just nice and unassuming and then turns out to be absolutely two-faced and everything he did (even the nice stuff like handing out blankets to townspeople) was all for some nefarious purpose. I just don't believe that particular type of person exists.
I thought about that when I read via Brain Pickings "Dostoyevsky on Why There Are No Bad People":
We are all good fellows — except the bad ones, of course. Yet, I shall observe in passing that among us, perhaps, there are no bad people at all — maybe, only wretched ones. But we have not grown up to be bad. Don’t scoff at me, but consider: we have reached the point in the past where, because of the absence of bad people of our own (I repeat: despite the abundance of all sorts of wretches), we used to be ready, for instance, to value very highly various bad little fellows appearing among our literary characters, mostly borrowed from foreign sources. Not only did we value them, but we slavishly sought to imitate them in real life; we used to copy them, and in this respect we were ready to jump out of our skins.
***
We used to value and respect these evil people … solely due to the fact that they appeared as men of solid hate in contradiction to us Russians, who, as is well known, are people of very fragile hate, and this trait of ours we have always particularly despised. Russians are unable to hate long and seriously, and not only men but even vices — the darkness of ignorance, despotism, obscurantism and all the rest of these retrograde things. At the very first opportunity we are quick and eager to make peace… Please consider: why should we be hating each other? For evil deeds? — But this is a very slippery, most ticklish and most unjust theme — in a word, a double-edged one… Fighting is fighting, but love is love… We are fighting primarily and solely because now it is no longer a time for theories, for journalistic skirmishes, but the time for work and practical decisions.
***
A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.
***
Judge [the people] not by those villainies which they frequently perpetrate, but by those great and holy things for which they long amidst the very villainy. Besides, the people are not composed of scoundrels only; there are also genuine saints — and what saints! They themselves are radiant and they illuminate the path for all of us!
***
Somehow, I am blindly convinced that there is no such villain or scoundrel among the Russian people who wouldn’t admit that he is villainous and abominable, whereas, among others, it does happen sometimes that a person commits a villainy and praises himself for it, elevating his villainy to the level of a principle, and claiming that l’ordre and the light of civilization are precisely expressed in that abomination; the unfortunate one ends by believing this sincerely, blindly and honestly.
***
Judge [people] not by what they are, but by what they strive to become.
No wonder Dostoyevsky is so popular amongst the sociopathic crowd.

