My High Maintenance Ego

In the movie, The Believers, members of an evil cult try to persuade someone to join them. “Of course I was unsure. Until I met him. Imagine, if you can, a life without uncertainty, freedom from doubt, the ability to chose; single mindedness.” They also get the ability to make the world over as they please. Unfortunately, magick in real life isn’t nearly as powerful as it is in the movies. But, in the allurement of the cult member, one sentence stands out. Imagine, if you can, a life without uncertainty, freedom from doubt, the ability to chose; single mindedness.

It sounds wonderful and it is. The moments when you know everything you do will be perfect. You are not just your self but you are your super self, your together self. Since there are no evil cults that I know of that can deliver such a reward (and would we be willing to pay their price if there were), no Felix Felicis potion, outside of Harry Potter, can we ever achieve our optimal selves completely and reliably?

The Narcissist gets it by means of the “false self” and “narcissistic supply,” according to Sam Vaknin. Is this the answer for everyone? How good a complement feels to me depends on what I think of the source. Achievement feeds my ego whether others recognize or not.

When I did speed, the drug gave me that feeling with no further effort on my part. When the drug wore off, all the other feelings, need for sleep and food and nurturing from others came back. I enjoyed crashing and giving in to my “weaker” self. Which one was I? A difficult question. They both seemed so real. If I had the chance to eliminate the needy, the “human” part of my nature and dwell with the gods on Mt. Olympus full time, would I accept the opportunity? In other words, would I sacrifice my full self, weak and strong, for my grandiose Self? I would certainly be tempted.

The Believers made a terrible demand on their new members. “One life from each of us. That’s all he demands and he rewards our loyalty.” But the life demanded is the recruit’s own son, still a child. Interesting that the child could represent one’s own “inner child” or dependent and helpless nature. The protagonist wants no part of it but he keeps being warned that his son is in danger. They want that sacrifice no matter what his father wishes.

The cult is obviously a form of Voodoo. They even worship the Seven Powers of Africa. But the remedy is another form of Voodoo, Santeria. It’s as if the disease and the cure are the same. That is driven in more forcefully at the end when the hero’s wife has set up an alter fully of dead animals and says, “Now we’ll be safe.” But are we really ever safe? And safe from what? The mass media is forever cranking out threats to our safety, what Charlie Manson calls, “Selling fear to the American public.” The mightier the American armed forces become, the more fearful, the average American. We are supposed to fear “terrorists.” But so much else, closer to home, poses a much more realistic threat. Crime? Your boss? Your wife? The Sociopath Next Door? Death? The absurdity of life?

It takes a lot to sustain my grandiose ego. I feed it on success. It can be a small thing, like a blog. But, if I’m happy with it, I call it success. I can’t avoid a challenge. That would tarnish my ego. I meet life head-on. Acting “as if” can sometimes get me through difficult moments. As can believing in my own magick.

Addendum
I was just reminded by the Lucky Otter of the time I was hell bent on getting rid of my ego. I took LSD trips which I won’t bore you by describing. But I had a complete ego death and it was a beautiful experience. Of course, the ego comes back after the trip. Maybe that’s why spiritual types are so against it. But I never forgot my experience. I guess it’s dialectical, you know, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. This blog was very difficult to write as I had a hard time articulating what I wanted to say. Well, some famous person once said, “I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.”

How Brave Should Our Brave New World Be?

I always thought lobotomies were the most evil and fiendish crimes against humanity, against “god,” against nature and the universe and puppies. You get the idea. Lobotomies were bad. The most notorious or infamous name associated with lobotomies is Walter Freeman. Those of you who have seen the movie, Frances, saw an actor playing Freeman as he lobotomized an actress (Jessica Lange) playing Frances Farmer. The story of Frances Farmer is one of betrayal. A proud rebel and brilliant actress, herself, Frances Farmer was railroaded into the mental “hygiene” industry by a venomous mother and some right-wing politicians who found her progressive views offensive. Since we know all along that she is not “mentally ill,” we are outraged when we she this permanent solution perpetrated on this heroic woman.

But this blog isn’t about Frances. It’s about the brain. To most people today, Walter Freeman was an arch villain. But in his time, Freeman was lionized. Even the New York Times, which only features “all the news that’s fit to print,” wrote valentines to the brave new cure for “mental illness.” In the fullness of time, we found out that the “lucky” recipients of this “cure” were victims of brain mutilation. Some people were clear-sighted enough in those times to speak out  against it. But the current was definitely in Walter Freeman’s favor. The enormity of Freeman’s crimes makes us reflexively label him a monster. That had been my response before I began studying the subject after coming across a fascinating book by an actual victim of Freeman, Howard Dully, whose book, My Lobotomy, gives us insight into exactly what it was like to get a lobotomy. To add outrage to infamy, Dully was lobotomized at the tender age of 12. The only reason this happened to him was the fact that his stepmother hated him. She made him the family scapegoat from the time she took up the role of mother to Howard and his brother and her own sons. Her viciousness was only directed at Howard. Like Joan Crawford, Lou was fanatically clean. She showed traits of an anal retentive. Or “tightass” would do just as nicely. Her treatment or, one could say, persecution of Howard, qualify her as a malicious narcissist.

After years of mistreating the boy, Lou decided to find a psychiatric solution. She went from doctor to doctor, describing his terribleness and her own sainthood. But, to her disappointment, none of them agreed with her. They all said Howard was a normal boy. That is, until she consulted with Walter Freeman. To his credit, Freeman didn’t decide all at once that Howard was a candidate for lobotomy. He interviewed various people who knew Howard. Howard’s brother tearfully told Freeman that Howard was fine. Howard had other people speak well of him. Finally, Freeman interviewed the boy, himself. Howard liked Dr. Freeman very much. He opened up to him, feeling safe with him. Nevertheless, Freeman decided Howard needed a lobotomy. A date was set for the operation. It was performed in a hospital, unlike many of Freeman’s lobotomies. Under Freeman’s direction, nobody told Howard what was going to happen to him. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic. The lobotomy was performed. Howard woke up very ill with vomiting, headache, stiff neck. Freeman administered penicillin through an injection into Howard’s spine, a procedure pronounced dangerous by other doctors but which Freeman was fond of. He stuck a modified ice pick under the eyelids and broke through the bone to the brain and moved it around. The fact that I have just had cataract surgery and had someone operating on my eyes makes this closer than otherwise.

Another victim of Freeman’s lobotomy was Rosemary Kennedy. Already disabled by malpractice by a nurse at her birth, the lobotomy left her unable to walk or talk.

The blog is also not a review of this fascinating book which I have not even finished reading. The first question I wish to raise is was Walter Freeman a psychopath? He certainly had charm and charisma. He was incredibly glib. While his private practice as a psychiatrist never really took off, Freeman was a popular lecturer. That’s because he was not only a teacher, he was a showman. He made his lectures entertaining. He could have done well in a circus. But he was dealing with brain surgery, not just marks. But is there really so much difference between carnival marks and regular people who are taken in by flashy and talented showmen?

Surgeon is one of the fields in which many psychopaths make their living. Freeman wasn’t really a licensed surgeon but he performed a procedure which most people would consider surgery. As a surgeon, Freeman had little patience with safety. This is one of the reasons he liked to be able to practice without a bona fide surgeon in the room. He took chances, showed the psychopath’s impulsiveness. He probably thought he could avoid mishaps, had the heart of a gambler. This last quality is grandiosity. He was magic. Other doctors needed precautions. He was above all that. Another quality of psychopaths, a willingness to lie to achieve his ends was also at Freeman’s disposal. The results of his surgery were mixed. There were fatalities. There were also people who became unable to function in the real world after the operation. Freeman suppressed this information. He gave the public a glowing account of how people’s lives were saved by his intervention into their brain.

His lack of guilt or remorse would complete the picture. One objection is the fact that Freeman really seemed to believe he was doing good. You don’t have to be a psychopath to feel no guilt for acts of virtue (or even acts one believes are virtuous). But, if he really believed lobotomy was so wonderful, why did he conceal results that didn’t support the glowing report he gave the press (which loved him).

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Another question raised by the phenomenon of lobotomy is what is the change in personality invoked by “successful” lobotomy compared to psychopathy. The brain of a psychopath has less connection between emotional situations and the pre-frontal lobes. Psychopaths are less emotional than the NT (neuro-typical) brain. James Fallon, a neurologist who discovered by looking at his own brain scan, that he was a psychopath, explains, “in psychoanalytical language, …the ego (dorsal prefrontal cortex) adjudicates the conflict between id drives (amygdala) and the moral context of the superego (orbital/ventromedial cortex).” In lobotomy, “doctors believed that by severing the connections that the frontal lobes, or prefrontal cortex, had to the rest of the brain, they could calm patients’ emotions and stabilize their personalities without doing away with their intelligence and motor functions.” At first glance, it seem like lobotomy promises the same kind of detachment from the activities of the orbital cortex. People do become less inhibited after having a lobotomy. But they certainly lack many of the other skills of a psychopath. Though I am a lay(wo)man and can’t explain all the complexities of the difference, I can show the brain scans of each and they are clearly different. First, we can see the difference of a psychopath’s brain from that of an NT. Next, let’s see what a lobotomized brain looks like. The sever-age in the latter is different from the difference in function seen in the brain of a psychopath.

Kevin Dutton wondered what it felt like to be a psychopath. He had some friends who were neurologists. They were able through a connection in his teeth (I’m not making this up) to tweak his amygdala so that he experienced the consciousness of a psychopath for half an hour. In his own words:

It isn’t long before I start to notice a fuzzier, more pervasive, more existential difference. Prior to the experiment, I’d been curious about the timescale, how long it would take me to begin to feel the rush. Now I had the answer: about ten to fifteen minutes. The same amount of time, I guess, that it would take most people to get a buzz out of a beer or a glass of wine.

The effects aren’t entirely dissimilar. An easy, airy confidence. A transcendental loosening of inhibition. The inchoate stirrings of a subjective moral swagger: the encroaching, and somehow strangely spiritual, realization that hell, who gives a shit, anyway?

There is, however, one notable exception. One glaring unmistakable difference between this and the effects of alcohol. The lack of attendant sluggishness. The preservation—in fact, I’d even say enhancement—of attentional acuity and sharpness. An insuperable feeling of heightened, polished awareness. Sure, my conscience certainly feels like it’s been spiked with moral Rohypnol, my anxieties drowned with a half dozen shots of transcranial magnetic Jack Daniel’s. But, at the same time, my whole way of being feels like it’s been sumptuously spring-cleaned with light. My soul, or whatever you want to call it, immersed in a spiritual dishwasher.

So this, I think to myself, is how it feels to be a psychopath. To see through Gary Gilmore’s eyes, To cruise through life knowing that no matter what you say or do, guilt, remorse, shame, pity, fear—all those familiar, everyday warning signals that might normally light up on your psychological dashboard—no longer trouble you.

My mad scientist within can’t help wondering about changing the personality surgically, as an option, not a monstrosity. Of course, the greatest danger, and it is something we must take seriously, is the question of who gets to choose? There are, even as I speak, Frankensteinian fascists who want to “cure” psychopathy by fiddling with our brains. If we could (somehow) guarantee that only the individual whose brain is in question decides what changes, if any, be performed on their brain. People wracked by conscience could become psychopaths. Or psychopaths could choose to get a conscience. Yeah, right. There’s no end to the fantasy possibilities that would unfold if we had the technology in our hands. First, we would have to find a way to cure mankind of the penchant to control others. Which will probably never happen. But we already experiment in changing ourselves. What else do drugs do but that? And some of the best drugs were developed by the army. Talk about turning weapons into plowshares.  I have just heard about a “new” drug called DMT. New to us, perhaps, but not to shamans. It is supposed to be the most powerful psychedelic in the world. I’ve done my psychedelics and now I feel as if I’m missing something. See the Luck Otter Haven blog.

Kristin Hovet, writing in The Establishment, discussed Ethical Dilemmas in Putting An End to Psychopathy. My mind jumped immediately to the nightmare of brain surgery to implant chips or otherwise for people to change radically. These ideas have actually been discussed. Kristin Hovet linked to Biologizing Psychopathy: Ethical, Legal, and Research Implications at the Interface of Epigenetics and Chronic Antisocial Conduct. Unfortunately, the title of this article is almost longer than the article itself. I want to know exactly what might be unethical. How far would they go? But Ms. Hovet’s article is mostly focused on prevention by intervening in the lives of children with “callous unemotional” traits. She sees psychopathy as the product of epigenetics, heredity plus environment working interactively. The article is vague about what these interventions would entail. “It’s easy to imagine a situation where both testing and treatments become forced on lower-class citizens, due to widespread misconceptions about psychopathy, criminality, and the impoverished.”

Another drug worth notice is Provigil, aka Modafinil. It promotes focus and alertness but isn’t a stimulant. It has been liked to the (fictitious) drug in Limitless.

The bottom line is in whose hands should the ability to change the brain reside. In the hands of the scientists who make it possible? Of course. They should have the negative power to refuse to use their skills if they wish. But only the person whose brain is to be changed should have the positive power of choice. We should be able to chose what is done to our brains (providing the creator of the technology agrees). Nobody should ever force this change on anyone else.

Pro-Social Psychopaths

This is re-blogged from https://nopsychos.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/spot-a-pro-social-psychopath-the-psychopaths-response/

No Psychos, No Druggies, No Stooges
Let’s get disordered people out of government by shining a light on the consequences of power in the wrong hands.

James 06:01 on June 28, 2015
‘How to Spot a Pro-Social Psychopath’ – the psychopath’s response
If you know Tina Taylor’s work, you’re probably familiar with this image:

 

50% of each gender are psychopaths. Imagine!

The full text that goes along with this flashy wolf-man poster can be viewed here https://m.facebook.com/notes/781795738538803/

In an entirely predictable and possibly excruciating way, I would like to go over each point of the full list, one by one, to give my reaction (“hell yeah, that’s a thing”), explanation (“we do this because of these three brilliant excuses that are totally not made up”) or criticism (“this list is utter shite and it should be burned on a pyre”). So, without further ado, let the reactioning commence! Be sensitive to contradictions.Yeah, she started with a strong point did our Tina. Not only is it something every psychopath does, it’s something most people don’t notice. Seriously! Without pausing for breath or changing the tone of my voice, I can hop from saying one thing to just the opposite and I’ve only been called out on it a handful of times. It sounds ridiculous, because it makes people who fall for it seem idiotic, but I guarantee it’s been done to you numerous times and you never realised.

2. Double-check their (tsunami of) stories. This one’s a zinger too. Many people are very chatty. Some people are so chatty that they’re always talking the most in any given conversation. And if you listen, just a bit, you realise most of what they’re saying is bullshit. Many of these people are psychopaths. But you can be a motormouth and a bullshitter without being a psychopath (someone in school fit this mould exactly, spouting on about how he’d been born on an aeroplane and how he was the heir to the throne of Scotland, to cover up the fact he was a pathetic little slug whom nobody liked). And you can also be a psychopath without being God’s gift to hogging all the oxygen. Me, for example. In social situations, I’m usually quiet. I observe, take stock. Then in one-to-one or small group situation I use what I learned to my advantage. I don’t create a load of histrionic hot air and I don’t like people who do. Pay attention to the quick lane changes in conversation. Hooey, I can’t keep up with all these metaphors. When you want to control somebody, or impress them, conversation is all about shock-and-awe, razzle-dazzle, sparkle-glarkle (I might have made that one up) and that can involve rapidly changing the subject. Again, this isn’t necessarily indication of a psychopath but could easily be somebody with ADHD or any manner of personality disorder. funny-robot-series-TV-recognition

Only two of these metal things are proper robots, but at least two of them are psychopaths. Fun fact.

At this point, you may have noticed the numbering’s all over the shop. It looks absolutely fine in my special edit-only version, counting from 1 to 3 in a linear fashion, but for whatever reason in the finished article it’s all screwed up. I haven’t tried too hard to fix it, as I think it goes nicely with the general blogging incompetence I have exhibited thus far.

4. Look for cold, “robotic” reactions to what should be emotionally troublesome events. Tidal waves, lack of lane discipline, now robots. What will it take for the metaphors to cease? Anyway, these so-called ‘robotic’ reactions arise from confusion. We don’t worry / care about the same things as you guys and it’s sometimes hard enough to understand why you behave the way you do, let alone work out what we’re supposed to be doing. Any expression of e.g. empathy comes not from within, but from what I’ve seen others do, from television and from literature. Even if the performance is a bit off, instead of focusing the negative, why not think positively? “Well they may be a crummy actor but at least they like me enough to pretend to care.” Think about it; when stricken with grief over the death of your mother or houseplant, wouldn’t you rather be faced with a clumsy attempt at empathy than a wall of ice?

5. Track each time they bug you with questions about how you would act in certain (off the wall) situations: “What would you do if I…fill in the blank”. Alright, this is odd. I don’t recall ever having asked such a question, at least not with the obsessive regularity implied here. But if we accept that some psychopaths are like this, I can tell you why. You see, you and your inner worlds of emotion and insecurity are a fascinating mystery to us, to be admired just as often as scorned. When psychopaths ask these sorts of questions, or when you feel like their eyes are shooting lasers into your skull, it’s because they’re trying to get to know you. Not just superficially, but really understand you on a psychological level Anyway, why ask, when you can just take action and see what happens?

6. Take note of their scapegoating; usually associated with assigning blame, psychopaths also expertly assign credit where little or none is due. Agreed. I take exception to one of the supplementary claims though, “It’s all lies regardless”. No, psychopaths often call it exactly as they see it. The challenge for you is to discern the lies from the truth. That is admittedly difficult and easily explains why so many don’t bother and just go with the “it’s all lies” option. But those who persevere can find that home truths from a psychopaths are usually very perceptive indeed and will help you to see yourself more clearly.

7. Analyze their desire to move quickly into a close relationship; calling you endearing terms right away, insisting that you should freely bring them into your circle of trust, wanting you to share living quarters or share a business venture very soon after meeting. This. One thousand times this. So much this that I already posted about this the other week. I mean, I can’t blame you, we talk a good talk, and I like to say I have one of those faces to which people want to blurt out all their secrets, but still YOU’RE AN ADULT HUMAN WITH A BIG BRAIN AND FREE WILL! If you ignore everything you were told when you were 4 and trust a complete stranger with your money, your belongings or your life just because they have a nice smile and lots of candy in their van, you’re a sucker and you deserve everything that’s coming to you.

8. Observe the “Poor Me, I’m the Victim” tone and words that they use to get your sympathy, which can fool you into being controlled/manipulated by them and giving them stuff (time, special favors, gifts…) Yeah. Let me ask you to put yourself in the shoes of another for a minute. If you had this amazing power to cry on cue, turn on the puppy dog eyes at a stroke, come up with any lie on the spot and mimic any emotion of your choosing, can you honestly say you wouldn’t use it to get free stuff?

9. Notice a pattern of hot-cold-hot-cold-hot attraction and attention to you. This is all well and good, but if it’s got to this stage already, you’re probably too far gone. You are the puppet (and the muppet) so you might as well allow your strings to be pulled until you’re cut loose. God, now I’m doing metaphors. Clichéd ones too. Anyway it’s more of a “hot-cold-hot-warm-hot-cold-hot-hot-hot-icy-hot-cold-chill-hot-tepid-cold-cold-hot-cold-scalding” pattern.

10. Be wary of their number of claims that “There was a misunderstanding”, because they know that phrase restores your trust, and eases their way past you catching them in a lie.

Running out of things to say and my interest in the article is ebbing away, so this meme sums it all up. Basically, the old “just a misunderstanding” schtick is just another bit of nonsense that you should be more than capable of seeing through by yourself.

Phew, that’s over.

Oh no, wait, it isn’t. There are some extra warnings for your apparent safety.
Never give your trust freely. Beware anyone who asks you to do so. Trust must be earned. Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The most overlooked sign of psychopathy is “Eerily calm demeanor”. Is it indeed? How does this gel with the overexcited storyteller painted a few lines up?
Do not confront a psychopath about your discovery of their psychopathy. That would be like backing a wild animal into a corner. That’s right. Know your place, empath fool; we’re super scary, and shit. Rawr. Be careful of confiding in their “nice” family members, since psychopathy is genetic. In other words, we’re everywhere! Bwahahahaha!

If you kept with me ’til the end, thanks for reading. You deserve a nice pat on the back. Unfortunately, you’re thousands of miles away, so the best I can offer is this picture of one dog patting another dog. Heartwarming, eh? Well Done, Boy !! – beautiful, lovely, snow, white, paw on head, well done, photo, dog

Notice the backdrop, which must be pleasantly seasonal if you live in the arse end of the southern hemisphere, as I imagine you do. Want to take this relationship to the next level? Leave a comment below, and see where it gets us 🙂

Psychopaths: The Jews of Today?

Psychopath Night (UK channel 4): “Psychopaths: A ruthless breed who can lie, manipulate and even murder with no hint of conscience or remorse…. But the truth is there may be one in your office. There’s probably one on your street. They’re all around us, often in positions of power.” As a Jew, I grew up sensitive to covert antisemitism. Jews were also feared as being the power behind all the other power elites. Who hasn’t heard of the Rothchilds, this insidious Jewish family who moved everyone around the world like chessmen on a board.

During the actual Holocaust, some Jews tried to avoid the fate of their countrymen by passing or trying to pass as Christians. The Germans were right on it. They had elaborate lists of Jewish genealogy. To help them in that was IBM. A book, IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black documents the story.

Netanyahu, like other leaders of Zionist Israel have gotten a lot of mileage from the world’s horror of the holocaust against those who have legitimate complaints of Israel’s imperialist behavior, especially the genocide against the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, I have actually come across antisemitism in the movement. A lot of it is the result of simple ignorance. But I have heard about both the Rothchilds’ power over everyone and holocaust denial. Be that as it may, most people protesting Israel’s atrocities are innocent of that taint. They know, for example, that the Palestinians are as Semitic as Jews in Israel, more in fact, if truth be known, Israeli Jews come predominantly from Western Europe and are much more Nordic in appearance and heredity than the more purely Semitic Palestinians. But I digress.

The history of the Jews is only touched on here to compare to what is happening to another minority, psychopaths. While the public is fascinated by psychopaths and often glorifies us, they just as often demonize us. So many documentaries and discussions about psychopaths seems to focus obsessively on how to spot one. Most psychopaths fly under the radar, a wise expedient for people whose very existence pushes so many buttons for the NT (Neurotypical). Psychopath Night promises, “We’ll teach you how to spot a psychopath the same way the FBI teaches it’s agents, by using the movies.” It’s probably good for those of us who are “passing” that the FBI and Psychopath Night uses the movies which only focus on the glitter and not the substance. M.E. Thomas, author of Confessions of a Sociopath, is introduced rather rudely as “our second specimen of the evening.” She says, “Sometimes it feels like I’m in the movie Bladerunner and any slip up or indication that I am different will draw suspicion. I do feel a little bit like a misunderstood minority. The only thing that you can sort of hope if you are a sociopath is that you are going to lie well enough and wear the mask well enough and hide in plain sight such that nobody will ever find out that you are a sociopath…. Will I end up being shipped off to a sociopaths-only gulag. Perhaps if I’m lucky. Many visitors to my blog have called for much worse including our total extermination.”

Ironically, Ms. Thomas’ book has appeared at a time when more of us are coming out of the closet. There are forums and networks for us. We have blogs. Some of us hide our identities but identities tend to become known, especially when they are supposed to be secret.

The most sinister thing the media throws at psychopath is the corporate connection. Corporate behavior is something that realistically needs to be taken seriously. That this behavior can be blamed on psychopaths is not only problematic but parallels the sorts of things antisemites whisper about Jews. Both are considered sneaky, underhanded and destructive.

I recently discovered a group of leftists who were also holocaust deniers. I understand anger at Israel and zionism. But blaming all Jews for that is unreasonable. These people were really paranoid. One of them claimed that the Rothschilds owned the Bank of England. They also blamed the Jews for starting World War II. Quite an accomplishment for people who didn’t even have a state at the time. To show the parallel with psychopaths, I just read this quote in Love Fraud, one of the haters’ blogs. “One of the major problems with our general ignorance of psychopathy, (even though there are tens of thousands of research papers on the topic), is that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is controlled by psychopaths. Psychopaths in power are thus in control of the information dissemination.” Sure the Rothschilds own the Bank of England and Psychopaths own the American Psychiatric Association. Jews started World War II and psychopaths control information dissemination. As a member of both groups, I wonder why I have never been invited into their meetings.

Many books have been written about us. Some authors, like Robert Hare, for example, are fair minded even though they don’t think we’re “nice people.” Others, like Kevin Dutton and James Fallon, are actually sympathetic. Still others, have dipped their pens into poison and write anything from fanciful fantasies to calumny. The more reasonable of this group is represented by Martha Stout, Ph.d. Her The Sociopath Next Door has nothing kind to say about us but manages to remain factual. At the other end of the spectrum, Thomas Sheridan, a man with no profession credentials, seems to be using us to work out his own issues. According to him, we have a high level of testosterone, even the women. We don’t dream, but we make dreams up to seem normal. Our eyes are dark holes, we wake up (from our dreamless sleep) in a pool of sweat. And, oh, yes, we are not really human. Well, haters will be haters. and the age-old battle between bigotry and reason will rage on for the foreseeable future, perhaps claiming another scapegoat as she roars on bye.

Lydia Brown has written an interesting article about how psychopaths and people with autism are demonized by the term, psychopathy. Her article, Why the Term ‘Psychopath’ is Racist and Ableist, discusses how everything outside the “norm” is pathologized. “The language of pathology, mental illness, madness, disease, and disability, has long been used to reinforce other existing structural oppressions like racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, binarism, cissexism, and ableism.” I have, myself, noticed that “disorder” is pretty much a term for whatever society doesn’t like. Brown decries the fact that people stigmatized by a disability will still passionately deny being “crazy” or “psychopathic” or “retarded” or whatnot. One stigmatized group throws others under the bus. Psychopaths are one of the most demonized groups around. Even we point out the fact that we aren’t “crazy.” I do it myself.

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Word Salad of Thomas Sheridan

Our favorite internet hater-troll, Thomas Sheridan, has a lot to say about the Nazis in his Alternative View speech, The Shock Doctrine.

Thomas Sheridan entitled his little speech, “The Shock Doctrine,” because “I couldn’t think of another term,” he says. The truth is that The Shock Doctrine is already a term in use by Naomi Klein. But she meant what she calls “disaster capitalism.” Her admirable book documents in great detail case after case in which disasters were used to bring to power a system of cutthroat capitalist systems that enriched the few and plunged the many into grinding poverty. Thomas Sheridan say nothing about this. He is only ranting against psychopaths who, it seems, are responsible for all the ills of mankind. One percent of the population manage to control the entire world. They were the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. Chick Comics did the same thing only, in their version, it was the Jesuits who were responsible for the Nazis and Bolsheviks. For that matter, Hitler blamed the Jews for the evils of capitalism and Bolshevism. In the film, Cabaret, someone in pre-Nazi German wondered how Jews could be both. “That way, if they don’t get us one way, they get us the other way.”

He starts by defining psychopaths as people who “create an empire of bullshit.”  Funny, that is exactly what he is doing. The most frequently used word in his speech is “they.” “They” are doing this. “They” are encouraging that. His word salad includes some incredible errors in history. Hitler was born in Bavaria? Nope. It was Austria.

As he goes on and on, his grandiosity informs us that we are dealing with a narcissist. He said this or that before anyone else did. They stole the credit for his ideas. But he “knocked them off balance.” Does this man really have followers? Or do they listen for amusement, as I do?

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Links

• Is Psychopathy Genetic? Dr. George Simon. The discussion following this blog is extremely negative and serves as an example of how much we are hated. Someone even wrote, “Only treatment is a bullet in the head. That’s how the inuit used to deal with them. They are not human.” The write, who calls himself only “Al,” seems to think he is morally superior to us despite his justification of murder.
• Why Do We Like Psychopaths? Blame the Amygdala
• This is How Normal Life Feels as a Psychopath. Jessica Brown

Testing Politicians for Psychopathy: Common Sense or Witch Hunt?

One would expect a publication called The Psychopathic Times (Narcissistic Nation) Newsletter would be friendly to psychopaths and narcissists. But such expectation would be wrong. The newsletter is published by Tina Taylor who also calls herself “GeneticPsycho” which adds to the confusion. A genetic psycho who published The Psychopathic Times does not identify as a psychopath. In fact, she has a regular column in the newsletter called No Psychos, No Druggies, No Stooges. Furthermore, she wants to initiate a policy of compulsory brain scans for all politicians aspiring to a governmental position. She want it to be known that she is not against psychopaths. We just aren’t qualified to hold public office.

Tina calls herself a genetic psychopath because of the family she comes from, The Lawson Clan. She is one of the family members untouched by the taint of psychopathy. (Has she had an MRI brain scan? I just asked her and received this reply, “I would submit to an MRI scan, it’s no big deal, but — I don’t need a scan, I cry all the time from birth, unlike psychopaths. I feel other people’s feelings very strongly. My father is a psychopath, and he will tell you himself that I am one of the few in our family who is not. I would like to know why the gene runs so strongly in my family. Also, I am pushing for global psychopathy awareness — and that is the opposite of what psychopaths want. Don’t you want to keep hidden, in order to preserve your “advantages”? Well, actually, no. I am completely “out.” Of course, I am old enough for it not to matter. What concerns me is not keeping my “advantage” but avoiding a witch hunt. Psychopaths are already the subject of too many probing eyes trying to ferret us out wherever we may be. I would not be “out” if I still had a job and needed the good opinion of my boss.)

Her newsletter proclaims, “DEFINITION of psychopath: A person with a neurologically impaired (lack of) conscience. Designation of someone as a “psychopath” is not meant to be an insult. Psychopathy is a limitation that prevents a person from feeling empathy or having remorse.” Although she claims to not have any ill will towards psychopaths, she says some really shitty things about us. In a conversation she had with James Renard, she said, “Psychopaths are eternally 5 years old emotionally.” He accused her of name calling. No, she demurred, not a bit of it. “Statement of fact is not bullying.” So she actually believes that it is literally true that we are emotionally stuck at the age of five! When she claims mandatory outing psychopaths is benign, can we believe her when she expresses such extreme opinions? She has a petition to the effect that submitting to an MRI brain scan would be mandatory for all candidates “seeking a position of trust.”

What’s wrong with this plan? Most people realize there is something very wrong with their governments. But what? And how to fix it? I think a very simple and easy answer is the ignorance and small-mindedness of the voters. Sure, there is gerrymandering and laws making it difficult for the members of the underclass to vote. But that isn’t enough to explain it. How did the authorities who did the gerrymandering and passed the laws making it hard to vote get into office in the first place? Ignorant, short-sighted voters. But let us not stop here. No matter how bad a choice voters make, the elected official is still the one to enact good or bad governance. A good example is Obama. He seemed like an excellent choice based on his campaign. But a very different Obama stepped into office and did things that were, in many ways, opposite of what he promised. Is this because he is a “psychopath?” And, more importantly, does it even matter? Politicians often act corruptly. They don’t keep their campaign promises. I don’t really care if the man is a psychopath or an NT (neurologically typical). He betrayed his base. Why do politicians so often do this? I suggest that even if we brain scanned all candidates and only elected NTs to office, things would go on the same way they have all along.

There is a class of people the Occupy Movement nailed. The 1%. The richest one percent of our society has more wealth the the whole rest of us 99% put together. Money is power. The one percent will not tolerate a politician who is too intent on rocking the boat. They will either buy him or get rid of him. Getting rid of someone does not have to mean killing him. Just bestow enormous amounts of cash on the person’s opponent. Mischief managed. The American Supreme Court made a decision that many of us hold as infamous. It is called Citizens United. It gives the rich the power to use their money a great deal more effectively than they were every allowed to do in the past. What are we going to do about it? We have petitions circulated, effort is made to amend the Constitution to restore our government to the lessor level of corruption that it had. It looks like an uphill battle. We can’t even get people to stop electing the Republicans, a group of people who have made no bones of their reactionary intentions. Do their neurological circuits really matter? Will ridding government of psychopathic politicians cause better government?

But what if the one percent are all psychopaths? There are studies indicating that the richer people get, the less empathy they have. Maybe that’s true. How are we going to rid ourselves of a one percent class of psychopaths?

Many people have studied the problem. Marxists, for example, tell us that revolution is the only solution. The problem is capitalism. Sounds good. It doesn’t look like any of us will live to see a revolution. But who knows, surprise lurks around every corner. Hope is all we have after all.

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• The Case Against MRI Scans Excellent article by James Renard
• Tina Taylor’s case for the brain scans, No Psychos, No Druggies, No Stooges
• From Democracy to Pathocracy: The Rise of the Political Psychopath, by Tina Taylor

Bad, Mad or Rad

The ever evolving relationship between society and it’s outcasts.

When society engaged unabashedly in religion and morality, things were a lot simpler. Everyone knew what was acceptable and what was beyond the pale. Although the wealthy aristocrats had a reputation for living a looser existence than the rest of us, the growing middle class had it’s standards pretty firmly in place.

Not that these standards weren’t challenged. Homosexuality was once seen as a disgusting form of degeneracy, novels such as The Well of Loneliness showed the humanity of gays. Today, gays look upon that novel with disdain, much as blacks regard Uncle Tom’s Cabin. These novels were early challenges to the long-established biases.

The most devastating attack on traditional morality came from Sigmond Freud. The birth of psychology challenged the existence of good and evil. There was no “evil” anymore. Only “sickness.” Those who fell outside the circle of respectability had an illness. While retaining their outcast status the outsiders were not blamed. The standard-bearers still kept its deviants at arms-length. “Mental illness,” intended as a tool of acceptance, took on the same stigma that was originally attached to evil. As Hannibal Lecter said, morality was now in “dignity pants.”

As a result, what once was bad, was increasingly labeled “sad.” The growing field of psychiatry/psychology set to the task of codifying and classifying the illness it had diagnosed. The American Psychiatric Association published a slim document called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. This document has been republished. We are up to the fifth version. From a slender manual, it has grown to an enormous tomb.

While presenting this product as pure science, the ideas expressed therein were very vulnerable to political pressure. Gays had gone far beyond The Well of Loneliness. There were militant Gay Liberation marches. Morality was backed up by “God.” Psychology was a lot more vulnerable. The DSM removed homosexuality from it’s list of disorders. Soon, “perversions” such as sadism and masochism were called “paraphilias” and declared to be neutral as long as the paraphilia didn’t interfere with a person’s functionality in the larger society. So, from the beginning, psychology which replaced morality was far more flexible.

The DSM lists personality disorders which are grouped into three categories, Cluster A, Cluster B and Cluster C. Cluster B, which is what this Blog is all about, called the “dramatic” cluster, consisted of Histrionic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality and Psychopathy. This last was later removed from the DSM and replaced with Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

Psychopathy had achieved it’s form and definition from Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity and Robert Hare, Without Conscience. Dr. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, the PCL-R, is the gold standard for recognizing psychopaths. Since it has been removed from the DSM, Hare was quick to differentiate psychopathy from ASPD although he acknowledge significant overlap. A person who scored in the 20s on the checklist had an ASPD but wasn’t a psychopath, who had to score 30 or above to be so considered. At the same time, a psychopath could avoid the label of ASPD by not being a criminal or violating society’s norms in a big way. So Hare said, “Psychopaths are not disordered. They don’t suffer from a deficit, but they’re simply different”.

Meanwhile, neurologists have been studying the brains of people with these extreme personalities. They found significant variations in psychopaths and borderlines. So it seems that these personality “disorders” or anomalies have a physical basis. But what if someone who tested high on the PCL-R tests normal on the brain scan? Some people are finding it useful to call the people with “psychopathic” brains psychopaths and the others sociopaths. People would have to get brain scans to know which one s/he is.

Our knowledge of those who don’t quite fit the mold is changing so quickly, it is hard to keep up. I, personality, believe it was a quantum leap forward when we gave up the moral model deviation. Perhaps some day, the concept of disorder will vanish, leaving us with only an infinity of possibilities.

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Links

• The Pros to being a Psychopath. About Kevin Dutton’s The Wisdom of Psychopaths when it was newly published.
• Am I Evil? I am drearily used to being called the “E” word.
• Simon Sez. Personality disorder or character disorder. Maybe neither.
• I Am Not a Psychopath. Psychotics don’t want to be confused with psychopaths any more than we want to be confused with psychotics. Justin Alan