Presidential psychopathy

From a reader:

Interesting video of James Fallon speaking about how most beloved American Presidents score highest on the psychopathy checklist. 

Other interesting points he makes it that Hitler's not a sociopath, neither are any of the other Nazi leaders. Neither are mafiosos typically sociopathic. That's why Hannah Arend calls it the banality of evil, not the evil of psychopaths. 

Not caring to act like caring (part 2)

Reader (cont.):

About that psuedo-authorities, like Morpheus said: "I know exactly what you mean."

I remember my feelings when I wrote this letter. I don't know where to start or how to explain myself, but I'll give it a try.

Before answering your question about Dostoyevsky I feel like I need to describe my way of thinking and my perspective to the other's feelings. I see myself as a computer thinking logically all the time. My main purpose is protecting myself and second one is protecting my stuff(money, family etc.). I can understand a human whose thought is pure logical. But usually, some parts of their thoughts are corrupted by the feelings. I consider these feelings as hypocrisy because nearly always these feelings blind them from seeing the truth, they know the truth but somehow they don't want to see it. But to be honest, I also see my flaw, that is lack of understanding of human feelings. I mean, I can understand if someone is sad or feeling something else but with no emotional response. Well, I sometimes giving a response to that but not the right one. Once, I hurt some girl emotionally because he was playing with my friend. But, I do it because I want my friend to be like he was before that girl (OK, I also enjoyed it but that was not the main reason.). But that didn't help and he was frustrated for a long time. So, I got bored, even angry and moved away from him.
And there is that example that I love to use; when I think someone being executed and try to understand the feelings of him/her, I always find myself thinking about the physiology of that death, I can only consider the feelings as some impulses in brain, I am somehow materializing all the feelings. 

Sometimes I have some of my friends watch an execution and ask them how they feel, what they think about convict's feelings and they usually say they feel sorry but can't explain that feeling with words and objectively.

So, what is my point. Dostoyevsky is sentenced to death once, after forgiven. In his book Idiot he can describe a convict's feelings objectively and purely with words and I can absorb that feelings thanks to him. Here is that part of the book if you want to read it: http://www.godandculture.com/blog/dostoevsky-on-capital-punishment

Long before, I remember I constructed some emotional fake responses to some particular emotional reactions like anger, sadness.. of other peoples via processing these with environmental factors. Well, my father (he is an indulgent man) help me construct that basic stuff. (You should do that, shouldn't do that..) But with his guidance I didn't reach a point that I can say sufficient but my expectations from life was low (just going home after very boring school and just playing some computer games, masturbating..) and it was enough for the moment.

But after I went to college my expectations get more complex and that emotional responses wasn't enough for my desires. With some other things happened, this is where I noticed something is different with me. I started to do everything to get what I want with intense impatience mostly caused by inadequate mask of mine. I was like "I just want what I want, I don't want to act a role to get it." Soon, the mask fell. After that, my relationships with friends started to collapse and they didn't leave with no harm. They were hostile. They left me with too many questions and anger. In a short time, I found out that I am a sociopath. After that, my questions were answered and I relieved hugely. But I didn't know what to do, I was lost. This is when I sent you the first mail. But after that, I found my way out and I need to thank you for that and your followers that comment to the posts. It was enough to know that some other people been through what I experiencing and survived. I know what to do now.

I need to construct a brand new emotional response system that can meet my needs. I need some insignificant guys to test that responses and improve myself. But first I need to stay low with lesser effort. This is where Dostoyevsky help me mostly. He can somehow describe daily human behaviors and their emotional responses so good and he is doing it often in books (And I need to admit, I admire him for that). I need to feel secure before I can pass a new tact for fulfilling my desires (not harmful desires btw. just sex and money and a controllable environment...). I am trying to find a way to seem normal while I respond my desires with the least effort. I need to avoid emotional nonsense unless there is no other way.

About one thing you said, that people think that we wear masks just to manipulate and get what we want, it happens sometimes to me. Also physical fights happens sometimes. But it is impulsively happens. I mean, I just do it suddenly and I realize what I did after the act. I don't feel sorry about them. Actually, I enjoy it but I try to stop myself from doing these unless I have to. I don't need to create enemies. I try to find the adrenaline rush from some crazy but not harmful things like sky-diving, hunting etc. but still sometimes it happens.

Seriously, what is up with Dostoevsky appealing to sociopathically minded folks? Are there any exceptions out there? But I do think it's true, he walks you through the mental and emotional processes of people so well that you feel like you're actually in there head. This, by the way, is what I think sociopathically minded folks mean when they say that they can imagine and understand the emotions that others feel, they just don't feel them themselves. But I also think there is something to the vantage point that Dostoevsky takes with his characters. I want to say that it is a little amoral, because there is none of the conventional morality seeping through as judgment of anything the characters do. But Dostoevsky is not amoral. It's more like the perspective of humanity transcends the particular moral era he was socialized in. And although his writing still reflects a deep sense of morality, it has more the feel of a timeless, almost platonic form of morality. If there is a God, you would expect that sort of transcendent morality to be more in line with God's macro morality as well. I think? So I like that aspect as well. Dostoevsky is not heavy handed with right and wrong, although he is quietly insistent about it. But he explains it so well and the stances he takes on it seem to have the ring of Truth (capital T) to them, so I find myself actually buying into a lot of it.  

Not caring to act like caring (part 1)

From a non-English speaking reader:

For a long time I haven't known about I am different from others. For example, if a friend's close relative dies, I always try to act like feel sorry for him/her. But, I thought it was normal and what everybody doing. Well, honestly I never thought about what everybody doing. I didn't care about them. That was all normal to me at least. Because I born this way.

Last year summer I was in some city, visiting my friend. His father is a coroner (I am in med school btw). So, his father asked if I wanna attend one of the autopsies. I said yes. 

Long story short, the guy was shot to dead. Young guy. His sister came in before the autopsy. She was saying something like "Get up my little brother, let's go home." and she was crying. But you know I find it kinda funny because I thought that "He is dead you idiot, How do you expect him to get up?". Well, I know actually it is not funny but it was to me. I've almost laughed at it. I slightly smiled at it so, I turned around and closed my mouth with my hand like feeling sorry. After that I realized something wrong with me. Not wrong actually but different.

So I started thinking about it a lot. I remembered some memories while I was thinking. I looked at internet about it. I read a lot about antisocial personality disorder. Remorse, irresponsibility, impulsivity, lack of empathy, conduct disorder bla bla... It fits perfect. So, I found that I am a sociopath. I like being it but the thing is I cannot stand pretending like I care. My tactic was just being sympathetic but I am right opposite inside. It is too hard to pretend for real. After I noticed it was not what everybody doing, it get harder and harder, day by day. People started to noticed something wrong with me (you are selfish, you are bastard cause you only care yourself, stuffs like that), one by one because I started doing it sloppy. 

The thing is, I don't want to have problems with people. It is just unnecessary but I can't do it anymore. I just try to do not interact with people but I am being the weird boy then, so I get spotted. You know people feel afraid from unknown. Then, that cause anger to unknown. If you don't talk to them you are an unknown. So, they are being hostile to me. 

I read a lot about sociology, psycology, some Dostoyevski books just to find how not to be spotted by them with the least touch. Still didn't find any solution. For now, I have to act if I wanna get some comfort. But I don't wanna fucking act a role anymore. When I communicate I see stupid things about them and it is fucking hard to be kind and act like they're cool, good friends or something. Or listen to them while they talk about their girlfriends/boyfriends, they are being strong because they handle so many difficulties bla bla bla... 

How you people endure this? I really need advice.

M.E.:

Your predicament is the predicament of all sociopaths and is probably the worst thing about being a sociopath. Can I publish what you wrote? People think that we wear masks just to manipulate and get what we want, but a lot of the time (most of the time?) it's because we have to, otherwise people will persecute us.

Just recently I was flying somewhere foreign. The flight attendants handed out the customs, etc. forms for our destination. I was familiar with this country, and knew that I would have time in line to fill out this form, so I planned to fill them out then. About halfway through the flight a flight attendant saw the forms on the seat next to me and asked me (only me) if I had filled them out. Why does she care? I said no and smiled what I thought was a friendly smile. She got irritated with me and demanded that I fill them out. Again, why does she care? But I know there's something about me that rubs people the wrong way, particularly psuedo-authority figures. The week before I got stopped and detained by a private security guard for nothing. A couple weeks before that, I got stopped and detained by the manager of an apartment complex of an acquaintance of mine. This has happened to me my whole life and as overt as this persecution is, there are dozens of little, less noticeable incidents that happen to me weekly.

But I'm so curious, why do you read Dostoevsky to figure out how not to be spotted?

(cont.)

Hating the idea of sociopaths

From psychologist Barry Schwartz, via Brain Pickings. First regarding the amorality of science:

When a scientist, or anyone else, discovers something, it doesn’t occur to us to ask whether that discovery should exist. In other words, though discoveries often have moral implications, they do not, by themselves, have moral dimensions. If someone were to suggest that the Higgs boson shouldn’t exist, we’d wonder what mind-altering substance he’d ingested. Inventions, in contrast, are a whole other story. Inventions characteristically have moral dimensions. We routinely ask whether they should exist. We wonder what’s good (life improving) about them, and what the drawbacks are. We debate whether their wide distribution should go forward, and if so, with what kind of regulation.
***
Social science has created a “technology” of ideas about human nature… In addition to creating things, science creates concepts, ways of understanding the world and our place in it, that have an enormous effect on how we think and act. If we understand birth defects as acts of God, we pray. If we understand them as acts of chance, we grit our teeth and roll the dice. If we understand them as the product of prenatal neglect, we take better care of pregnant women.

I like that. I feel like sometimes people think of the existence of sociopaths as some sort of moral issue that they can take a stance on -- anti-sociopath. But as one recent comment noted, that's a little like saying that you're anti-gravity (back to the future!) or anti-phytoplankton (whoa!). Things that exist primarily just exist. There may be a moral element in how they are created or, I don't know, maybe something else in there too. But too many people think that it's just enough to be anti-sociopaths, as if disliking them would eliminate them. But that's like disliking poverty. Or disliking drought or famine or disease. There are sociopaths in the world. Disliking them or wishing they were all locked up and killed won't prevent there from being more sociopaths. The more rational thought if you wanted to prevent mental disorders would not be to just hate on mental disorders, but to understand how and why they occur and try to figure out some way to prevent or treat them humanely. I don't think anyone (at least not here) is truly "pro-sociopath", as if that were the pinnacle of all humanity has to offer. You don't need to convince anyone that sociopaths sometimes cause problems for themselves and others, but given that's true (as it is true with almost everyone at sometime or another), the only truly helpful question is, what are we going to do about it?

Another interesting thought:

However, there are two things about idea technology that make it different from most “thing technology.” First, because ideas are not objects, to be seen, purchased, and touched, they can suffuse through the culture and have profound effects on people before they are even noticed. Second, ideas, unlike things, can have profound effects on people even if the ideas are false… False ideas can affect how people act, just as long as people believe them… Because idea technology often goes unnoticed, and because it can have profound effects even when it’s false — when it is ideology — it is in some respects more profound in its influence than the thing technology whose effects people are so accustomed to worrying about.

Writing fictional sociopaths

This was an interesting New Yorker article about the difficulty of writing fiction with elderly characters, and how infrequently authors get it right and why not. About the problem of old people being depicted incorrectly:

But when I asked her about the ethical responsibility younger authors have to depict old age realistically, she responded, “As a writer, you have to think—am I capable of this quantum leap of the imagination? If the answer is dubious—then don’t do it. Stereotyping is a kind of fictional abuse.”

As for what she thinks she got wrong when she was creating elderly characters as a younger writer, she says she wasn’t quite able, back then, to imagine the less dramatic physical aspects of being old: the constant pain from various forms of arthritis, the slow impairment of sight and hearing, and a “kind of instability,” a loss of balance “that would be unnerving if it came on suddenly, but, because it is gradual, you adapt.” With the elderly protagonist Claudia, in “Moon Tiger” (written when Lively was in her early fifties), she says, “I ducked the problem … by making her a mind rather than a body—she is dying in hospital, but not much is made of that, what you know of her are her thoughts and her memories.” What she believes she got right, however, is that Claudia’s mindset in old age is much the same as when she was young; this, she says, has been true to her own experience of getting older.

I thought of all the fictional depictions of sociopaths, and how surprising it is when they actually get certain aspects right, and how that rightness is so hard to maintain consistently throughout a story or several seasons of a show (I'm looking at you Dexter). It reminded me of the post on the Dr. Who character who gets redeemed in a way that basically seems to just make her an empath convert. But I have gotten better in the past couple years about things like not manipulating people or objectifying them all of the time or being more in touch with my emotions, but I'm not suddenly just like an empath. And for some reason I keep thinking that if there is such thing as enlightenment, a heightened plane of existence, it's going to be something much more like meeting in the middle between empath and sociopath than all sociopaths, autistics, personality disordered, bipolar, etc. etc. etc. just all suddenly become like your average empath. Does that hurt your feelings, empaths? That I don't feel compelled to convert to your cause, despite no longer being 100% sold on the sociopathic lifestyle?