Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Against Empathy

I think I tweeted this, but it is worth its own post. Paul Bloom explains in this video for the Atlantic how empathy is a bad thing:



I didn't tweet this link to the "Notes" section of the Atlantic related to this, featuring a commenter's assertion re sociopaths:

Empathy is what allows us to navigate day by day. A human without empathy is a sociopath or a robot. The way empathy is discussed in the video is so flawed by mixing it with altruism, which is very different than empathy but is more closely aligned to the charity model discussed. And do not kid yourself: Altruism is a “what’s in it for me,” while empathy drives connections towards others.

The comments are also predictably outraged

Monday, May 9, 2016

Power for the sake of power?

From a sociopathic identifying reader on what's the point of it all:

I have been a frequent reader of the sociopath world blog and for a long time it has helped me to organize my own thoughts but... I feel that there is a problem that I simply cannot tackle. For years I've had a bloated sense of ego, I suppose. I mean, my successes, however insignificant they may appear to others, are very important to me to a point that I am constantly boastful of them. It's not just minor things like winning a game or getting that oh so important promotion at work. Those things are minuscule at best to me. I'm talking about a span of a few years where I went head to head with, who I now believe, to be a fellow sociopath.

At the time I was not aware of my mental state. Sure, I did know I was different but to what extent I neither understood why or cared to find out. It was during this time that I met him. We started off as good friends and with time that friendship devolved as I watched him take advantage of his friends. He eventually hurt someone I considered to be a sibling to me. Really... I looking back I don't think I confronted him because I cared about her. I think I was just looking for a fight. I confronted him despite his friends chiming in, trying to ridicule me. I remember vividly being unconcerned about them... They didn't matter to me. I came for a reason and it certainly didn't involve any of them. That's when I picked up on his constant lying.

I recall going out of my way to be everything he wasn't. I wanted to prove that he was evil and that by some arbitrary reasoning I instead was good. If he was going to lie to his friends, I would focus on blunt honesty. If he was going to throw his friends away, I was going to be loyal. The one thing I couldn't simply throw away was manipulation. He and I both did that... and though I showed these traits of honesty and loyalty, they were driven by an honor code that I would simply cast aside if it failed to benefit me.

I can already tell that at this point I'm rambling like a mad man but my history with him brings that out in me. Which leads to the problem... After about a year into our rivalry I was diagnosed with ASPD. At the time it was something I resented... "There was noting wrong with me." I thought. To be labeled by such an ugly term such as sociopath didn't, at the time, benefit me at any capacity. I went on acting as I had before without dwelling on it much. After all, I was already occupied with trying to be two steps ahead of the guy plotting two steps ahead of me at all times. I knew this... I knew I had to be able to adapt. To take whatever he threw at me and toss it back. Something that he never quite managed to do himself. There was a sort of mutual respect that he and I shared despite displaying ourselves as hating one another. I remember having an intense reaction to him at even his mention but it was fleeting and could not be maintained no matter how hard I tried. I wanted to cling to this feeling. I'm not sure if it was hate or adrenaline... but I was addicted. It just couldn't last, I'm afraid. I remember purposefully coming up with bandaid solutions for the stuff he would stir up. Prolonging our fighting just so that I could plan the next of our battles. Unfortunately, I had to put an end to it for good so I planted seeds all around me. Suggested that he was evil and that those who would side with me would be "safe". Needless to say, the ones he had wronged easily turned. Before long I had amassed a powerful enough army to take him down. Disgraced, he fled... but after that I've lost all of my motivation.

I've ignited smaller wars over the years but not one person has ever been the challenge that he was. Then there was no one left to fight at all... I feel like I've been wasting my potential but when I chase those feelings of fulfillment and power I promptly lose interest. I've tried looking for enemies but it turns out when you're actively searching for a fight you only find losers. I've tried making friends thinking that I'd find acceptance or something of substance to distract me but I find myself incapable of maintaining them. I lose interest in people just so easily now that I don't know if I have any worthwhile friendships to hold onto. I even once tried to start a cult but my lack of motivation struck and it fell apart within a couple of days.

I'm afraid that I'm losing my touch and I don't know where to turn to gain the motivation I need to do anything. I thought it was depression but don't you have to feel sad when you're depressed? If that's the case I really don't think I could manage being that for as long as I have. If I have to sum up the way I feel in tangible words for me, it would be boredom. I'm bored. I put so much focus on what I was doing back then that I cannot take my mind off of it. I am stuck on what was rather than what is and instead of chasing something of substance I gain momentary ego trips when I reminisce on something that's long gone. I honestly don't know what to do and that bothers me.

M.E.:

Yeah, I think you might be bored because there's no real meaning in cultivating power. It's engaging while it lasts, but ultimately it is no longer compelling to us. Perhaps we mature or perhaps we grow in wisdom, but we can suddenly see more clearly that there's not really any point to it. But what else will occupy our mile a minute thoughts? What other projects can engage us with such captivation? This, I believe, is the almost universal problem of the maturing sociopath.

Also, I should say, as a descriptive matter it is absolutely true that sociopaths behave in a way that indicates that there is pleasure in cultivating power for its own sake (i.e. the pleasure of ruining someone is not about the ruining but about an expression of power). It's only as a prescriptive matter that I suggest to sociopaths that the pleasure from cultivating power may not continue to be enough to get you out of bed in the morning, the older you get.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Quote: Reputation

“With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.”

Rhett Butler to Scarlet O'Hara

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Integrity

Along the same lines as the last post, from Eleanor Roosevelt, via Brain Pickings:

We need imagination and integrity, courage and a high heart. We need to fan the spark of conviction, which may again inspire the world as we did with our new idea of the dignity and the worth of free men. But first we must learn to cast out fear. People who “view with alarm” never build anything
***
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the individual to remember that he is himself a unique human being, and that unless he keeps the sharp edges of his personality and the hard core of his integrity intact he will have lost not only all that makes him valuable to himself but all that makes him of value to anyone or anything else.
***
Look around you at the major improvements in your life, in your world. Each of them grew out of an individual conviction and an individual ability to act upon that conviction.

Christianity has a concept of the body of Christ, and each member with its own distinct and essential function:

12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

 13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

 14 For the body is not one member, but many.

 15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

 16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

 17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

 18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

 19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?

 20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.

 21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

 22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:

 23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.

 24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:

 25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

 26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

Some people are obviously the liver and the anus of the body of Christ, but the suggestion is that they are no less worthy or honorable than any other part. Do Christians really believe this about their fellow men?

Monday, May 2, 2016

Fulfilling the measure of your creation?

I was recently at this pep talk directed partly at teenagers. The motivational speaker was talking about how everyone should always be theirselves, show up as themselves, make sure that no matter what else they do in life they be true to themselves and don't allow anything to come in the way of that. There was a noticeable discomfort from their teachers at this point. The teachers apparently didn't want the students to be themselves. In reaction, the speaker added a little caveat, "within the appropriate boundaries of the situation". And that makes sense, I guess, if you think about it. Being yourself at someone else's wedding might be a little bit more subdued than being yourself at your own, for instance.

But I do think it's safe to say that there is a lot of pressure on people to be something other than what they are. If society hasn't figured out a way yet to benefit pretty directly from what you have to offer, they're not so interested in you being yourself. Of course, we have scores of examples of geniuses, artistic and otherwise, whose true selves and true thoughts were rejected, whose social sphere pressured them to mightily conform, but they were such forces of nature that they never did. And we get to reap the benefit of that failure.

But we still love to preach the doctrine of conformity. When teenagers saying that they are going to be an artist and don't need college, or an entrepreneur and don't need college, etc., many will still attempt to interfere in that person's life in an attempt to dissuade them from pursuing their dreams/passion/drive.

Similarly, even from many people who seem a little more open-minded about sociopathic identifying individuals still an inherent, there is often a trailing "but" or "as long as they behave". Like the mixed messages given to children and young adults, the true message being preached is that society has no real desire to accommodate or adapt to you, you must accommodate or adapt to the majority or suffer consequences.

But I want you to think, you normal people, how toxic it is to your soul when someone, some situation, or some institution has denied you authentic self expression. How terrible is it to you to not be able to be yourself? Also, think about how pressure to conform unnaturally is likely what leads child sociopaths to develop in such grotesque ways.

Famous runner Eric Liddell (of Chariots of Fire fame) famously said "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel his pleasure." Mormons have a similar concept, that every living thing is to fulfill the measure of its creation -- the lions are meant to predate as much as the lambs are to graze. How can it be that some people get to live an authentic and purposeful life filled with meaningful self expression, except sociopaths? Maybe for those proposing solutions to the so-called "sociopath problem," ask yourselves what you're really demanding of sociopaths and ask yourselves whether you would be fine with those terms if the roles were reversed.
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.