SOCIOPATHS

Bruecke Note: The following came from chasing a rabbit into a hole whose entrance was in the discussion to "Weeding out corporate psychopaths".


http://learnerpeaceworld.info/003SOCIOPATHS.htm
See also: http://learnerpeaceworld.info/020TABLEOFCONTENTS.htm

Out of all humanity, approximately three percent of men and one percent of women are sociopaths. One percent of humanity consists of psychopaths. Depending the therapists’ preference, those suffering from psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and malignant narcissism are interchangeable: the psychopaths tend to be anarchistic lone wolves, whereas the sociopaths tend to belong to subcultures that promote their vicious selfishness (like organized crime, prisons, politics and the military). Four or more percent of corporate chiefs are psychopaths and who knows what percentage of politicians and the military?

What would be the proportion of preachers more intent on their meticulous textual fundamentalism than the more natural – and from their point of view, satanic – dictates of moral conscience?

Is there a parallel between the fact that 96% of the universe is made up of “dark matter and energy” whereas only four percent is visible matter; and 96% of mankind is conscience-driven whereas four percent is not?


The same fractions reside in and out of prison, even though psycho/sociopathic convicts are guilty of almost all the violent crimes being punished. The other convicts are mostly confined for victimless or one-time crimes by a psycho/sociopathic combination of cops, court officials, legislators and their associates.

Such people can tell right from wrong in their behavior but derive no unpleasant feelings when they commit the latter. They have no conscience, no shame and no love for anyone. They do not know what those feelings are and look down on those bound by conscience. The truth is a matter of convenience for them, to be biased to their advantage. Especially the truth about themselves.

Many of them are charming and debonair when so inclined, manipulative and vicious when they can get away with it. They can “read” like a book the body language and facial expressions of the conscience-driven. They can fake emotions, seek pity and affection they never feel for others, and seduce their victims before they exploit or injure them on purpose. They use people and discard them the way you would use a Kleenex and throw it away.

They can commit sins and feel no guilt, that we would find inconceivable to commit and very painful to live with. They get away with many evils because those around them cannot imagine such complex, offensive and risky undertakings for such trivial reasons (like boredom, idle greed, one-upmanship or jealousy of those with superior gifts).

Since their brains are not preoccupied by the infinite subconscious calculations of moral conscience and love, they are burdened with a semi-permanent drudgery of boredom they can only relieve by serial risky behaviors and elaborate manipulations (torture, humiliation and betrayal) of their conscientious inferiors.
They usually wind up in old age alone, broke and shunned by everyone, their family included. Many are killed or socially crushed by a powerful protector of one of their victims or by numerous avengers. Very few die in their bed surrounded by people who love them. They are pitiable, if very dangerous, moral amputees.
The craft of government consists in keeping psycho/sociopaths in check (that is, moderately well rewarded for doing as little damage as possible) for as long as possible.  The tragedy of government is that they will eventually take over the highest levels of government as well as several ranks beneath, and ruin everything, more or less for no good reason.  Then, the mass resentment of the vast majority of the conscience-driven will provoke bloody revolution, which, after a series of psycho/sociopath-moderated oscillations of revolution and counter-revolution (this chaos their idea of paradise, allowing their evil the greatest scope), will wipe the slate clean, inducing so many casualties that the exhausted and disgusted population of the conscience-driven will take up once again the temporary craft of government – and so on.
Given this sociopathocracy noted in Learners, if you are motivated by your conscience to seek good and reduce evil; no matter what race, ethnicity, country, religion, ideology or organization you belong to or claim is evil: half your worst enemies will belong to your side and the greater half of your friends will belong to the other side. The only valid political segregation is between those who are driven by their conscience and those without conscience. Be warned and pick you side carefully.

There are dependable psychological tests to identify them. Mostly, their brains react to problems involving emotions, the way most people’s (who have no problem with emotional situations) react to an algebra problem. The same brain volumes light up. The easiest way to identify them is as schoolyard bullies and animal torturers during their naïf youth and as perfect innocents and shameless seekers of pity when they are caught for multiple adult misdeeds. They are never wrong. It is always someone else’s fault, including their victims’ who deserve their abuse.

There is no cure to their disease, chemical or psychoanalytical. They do not want to be cured.

Hunt them down, identify them and exclude them from positions of authority, high and low. There should be a 1-800 telephone number dedicated specifically to their victims. They should be able to call up and turn in the sociopath who torments them. Investigators would then bring the suspected sociopath in for testing, the results of which would confirm or deny the need for this person to be restricted from positions of responsibility and authority. Above all, do not allow them to assume control of the hunt for sociopaths. If given the slightest chance, they will exceed all the evils of the Inquisition, hunting down the innocent and laughing about it.

On the other hand, they should be stroked and cozened once they are identified during childhood, and generously subsidized throughout their lifetime (thus neutralizing the merely lazy ones), provided constructive risk-taking outlets for their overwhelming boredom (demining and outer space exploration, for example) and otherwise peacefully neutralized in every way possible. The last thing we would wish for: that they become antagonized or scared for their life or their liberty. No other army would be more lethal, no insurrection more destructive, no terrorist group more alarming than that of psycho/sociopaths united in purpose (often they are anarchistic individualists) because rejected by rest of us.

Their social utility emerges in war when they find the most frightful atrocity easy, then move on to the next one. Unimpeded by moral conscience, they are more technically competent at killing and more imaginative with it. Organized massacre is their county fair. Meanwhile, the remaining conscientious in uniform (or the peaceful villager left behind) will be punished in revenge. If these sociopaths are officious enough, normals will obey their insane orders and commit crimes unthinkable in other circumstances. This is how dirty war propagates on both sides.

Fear them like the devil. They and those under their control are directly responsible for most of the evil on Earth. In their absence, utopia would be within sight. Of course, they have made a special effort to bad-mouth utopia in every media they could get control of, and we have repeated their lies like idiots.

Beware!

More than half the ‘legitimate’ leadership of today’s world may consist of clever type 2 sociopaths. Neither type of sociopath has any sense of moral right and wrong. Unlike normal people, when they’re made to think about crimes and misdemeanors in a controlled laboratory setting, they register no additional activity in their brain centers that generate a sense of conscience.

From their point of view, they can never do wrong (sound familiar, President Bush?). Everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault (usually, the victim’s). The concept of personal guilt for harm done is beyond their comprehension. Any evil deed is comfortably permissible if it furthers their goals and ambition. In any case, type 2s develop special social feelers such that they only cross the line of unacceptable behavior once they know they can get away with it. They seek promotion and bonuses by torturing people, smoking the World Forest, sowing landmines, starving babies by the million and vetoing critical environmental, labor, human rights and peace conventions. On WeaponWorld, those promotions are guaranteed for this pseudo-human subspecies and no one other (sound familiar, Vice President Dick Cheney?).

Now, these “special antenna” are very interesting. They usually consist of subservient partners each Type 2 sociopath cultivates by sparing from his usual mistreatment. One way or another, these particular sociopaths are smart enough to realize that at least one person must accompany and counsel them, who can wave them off from their worst misdeeds. These subservient partners have their own co-dependency problems (since they are attracted to sociopaths and feel empowered by proxy by their idol’s misbehavior). However, they remain equipped with a working sense of right and wrong, and serve the sociopaths by restraining their otherwise uncontrollable urge to hurt everyone they meet (they do not “meet” anyone; they confront everyone for dominance, the way lizards would).

These beta personalities may be partners, subordinates or sexual mates, so long as they display adequate reverence and loyalty to the alpha sociopath who must remain dominant at all times. Sooner or later, the sociopath will betray his subordinate and/or abuse him beyond repair – after all, that is his nature. At that point, a crafty sociopath will go looking for another slave to fill this role, and his slave will go find another sociopath to serve. This happens subconsciously and appears to be standard behavior for these types of people. Don’t ask me why or what for. The study of their particulars is like visiting a snake pit. Type 2s are no doubt equipped with other psychological talents and resources beyond my training to notice or particular interest. By and large, they sicken me; my version of “obscene.”

Anyone not a sociopath born but surrounded and supervised by them, soon falls into their vicious trap—or gets fired and replaced by someone more compliant. Our info elites are filled with them. Compared to this sovereign International of sociopaths, the most monstrous serial killer is just a spoiled child. I believe there is a cure and permanent relief for these unspeakable sociopaths. It’s up to them to take this cure. No one can force them to take it, only they can. It is hard, but would relieve them beyond belief. And that is all they really seek: deliverance from their moral vacuum more excruciating and long lasting than the phantom pain of a traumatic amputation. It is that pain which induces them to commit their crimes, and that pain we must address in order to reduce their criminality. Punishing these people for their crime is like spraying gasoline on a fire.

Type 1 sociopaths never develop these special feelers. Their brutal temper tantrums give them away almost immediately. In peacetime, their serial violence usually lands them in jail or in the shadier parts of the criminal enforcement system (prison guards, small town sheriffs, military police and such). Rarely promoted into the information elite, they belong with the Dirty Dozen. They are on standby for combat, where some of them make the best soldiers, and the rest, the worst. In either case, they are as a group more resistant to combat fatigue.

Since we uphold a vast majority of sociopath leaders and their insane decisions with our apathy, we should consider ourselves weapon fellow travelers: honorary members of the Himmler subgroup and loyal fans of WeaponWorld. Join the club—it is enormous and unbelievably inclusive. But don’t you dare call yourself civilized until you’ve turned into a Learner worthy of that name.

Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door: the Ruthless versus the Rest of Us, Broadway Books, USA, 2005.

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, The Guildford Press, New York, 1999.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm
http://www.alienview.net/conspire.html

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