We’ve all seen articles promising to tell us how to “spot a psychopath.” Psychopaths are the ones wearing masks, just waiting for “us” to let down “our” guard so they can harm “us.” What if everyone is wearing a mask? Why?
There was a great TV series in 1994 called My So-Called Life. It was about teenagers but, unlike Beverly Hills 90210, it only had 19 episodes. That’s one more episode than Freaks and Geeks. Why did these great series get cancelled? Because they were so good? Sure. But why? The sixth episode of My So-Called Life, called The Substitute, gives us a clue. A substitute teacher offers his students a different perspective to learning or, really, to living. The kids had written nice, conventional poems for a publication that was supposed to show who they were and what they were capable of. The first day the substitute came to class, he threw all these offerings out the window. He told them to see what they 
could produce NOW. With his encouragement, the kids wrote new more honest statements. When the principle of the school found out what some of these statements were, he banned the publication. That’s probably what happened to both of the series. As the principle put it, this new, honest Liberty Lit (note the irony of the name) didn’t meet the standards of the school. Maybe these two series about teenagers didn’t meet the standards of what we can admit about our own lives in America. People get judged just as TV series do.
Mayo Clinic Staff defines Anti-Social Personality Disorder, “Antisocial personality disorder is defined by a pervasive and persistent disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others.” Psychopaths don’t meet the standards of society. That’s why psychopathy or ASPD (as the American Psychiatric Association would have it) is called a disorder.
If society doesn’t approve of one’s personality, it calls one “disordered.” If it doesn’t approve of a television series, it cancels the series. Both My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks were superior quality television dramas about the lives of teens. When I say they were superior, I mean they were more honest. Beverly Hills 90210 crawled up it’s own asshole long before it was mercifully ended. Not that it had never been any good. It just 
wasn’t as good as the other two. It continued way beyond it’s artistic integrity should have allowed. It jumped the shark which means it got totally absurd. I would advise anyone diagnosed with a personality disorder not to fret about it. If the “disorder” makes your life unpleasant or difficult, by all means, go to therapy and try to get “cured.” If you are OK, just enjoy your uniqueness.
It was once considered good enough to call someone a psychopath or a narcissist if you wanted to say he was bad or wicked enough to condemn him or her. But human nature, being what it is, nothing is so simple that it can’t be made more complicated. Psychopathy (or Anti-Social Personality Disorder) and Narcissism were part of Cluster B but that wasn’t good enough. Something called The Dark Triad needed to be invoked. Psychopathy and Narcissism were joined by Machiavellianism to make the triad. But someone has now set out to simplify things again and reduce the Dark Triad to one trait. Katie Heany has said, 
The study’s authors argue this overlap is because all nine dark personality traits share the same dark “core,” which — I’m not kidding — they call “the D-factor.” The, uh, D-factor 
belief in happy outcomes. Kevin Dutton mentioned our optimism in Psychopath Night, the TV show on the UK’s channel 4. Ayn Rand believed in the universe being fundamentally benevolent and life being about happiness rather than suffering. I think this kind of “up” view of life can go together with number 8 of the PCL-R, Callousness and Lack of Empathy. We can identify with joy or sorrow. There are powerful arguments toward either. Catholicism is very much identified with suffering. The crucifix with the crucified Christ on it is very much favored with that church. Some evangelical churches identify with optimism. Their symbol is a stylized cross, sometimes with the Holy Spirit bird over it. Some of these churches are identified with prosperity. While both kinds of churches worship Christ, they each focus on a very different side of the story, which is, come to think of it, the different sides of life itself.
People who are happy and selfish (maybe vulgar and superficial) are often more fun to be around. People who are full of empathy are the sort one wants to find when one is in need of this trait. I’m thinking of Anne Rice’s novel, Tale of the Body Thief. The hero, Lestat, is conned by a mortal with whom he exchanges bodies. As a mortal once more, Lestat finds himself penniless and ill. A woman nurses him back to health. Later, once he is again a vampire, Lestat runs into her. From his new perspective, this almost saintly woman seems narrow and boring. Just saying.
to virtual paper and sounding off. The article was called 
What exactly is love? Poets, playwrights and songwriters over the ages have struggled to describe the sensation of falling in love, and the pain of losing love. No matter how beautiful the language, words are often inadequate. We just know love when we feel it.
The “component” of love we are deficient in, it turns out, is the third: caregiving. Our overtures of love are fraudulent because “sociopaths are not capable of true caregiving.” She explains why she didn’t bother to show the simple courtesy of replying to the sociopath‘s (please note, she is never even identified with a name) email. “I never replied to author of the above email there is no point in engaging a sociopath.” Is this an example of how loving, how caring, the empathic folks are compared to us nasty ‘paths? Not that it is they who are deficient. It’s because we are such terrible people, we don’t deserve acknowledgement. 
But the nameless sociopath didn’t give up so easily. Since she never received the courtesy of a response from Donna, she emailed her again. She wrote…
environments. But when someone says she’s a sociopath, and sounds like a sociopath, I have a choice on how to respond. I’ll play it safe and stay away.” She is “playing it safe.” One can almost feel sorry for such a fainthearted soul. I understand the concept and reasoning of going “no contact.” When a relationship has become unproductive; when there is more pain than joy to be had, I see the point of no contact. But going no contact with someone just because s/he is a sociopath strikes me as mean-spirited, not to mention narcissistic. 
Nobody is as impervious to other people’s opinions than a psychopath. Good for us since we have one of the worst reputations in the world. When someone wants to disparage somebody else, s/he often calls that person a “psychopath” as if that’s the worst thing s/he can call hir. “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never harm me,” the saying goes. But sometimes names can harm us. Being labeled a psychopath in the criminal “justice” system can lead to longer prison time independently of how a convict has actually behaved while serving a sentence.
Let’s face it. People spend enormous stretches of time discussing each other. Then, there is the special kind of person called a 
need to set up this pseudo royalty in its place. Bruce Jenner was some sort of athlete until s/he decided to transition to a woman and had hir image splashed over the media. Because s/he is related to the Kardashians, this event seems to have somehow made transgenderism more acceptable to the American public. But some achieved fame all on their own. Jazz Jennings (similar last name a coincidence) was a boy who identified as a girl since the age of three, had understanding parents to enabled the whole transformation, hormones, surgery and all. S/he has hir own reality show on TLC where hir life has been documented for years.
We live in a mass culture where we are very accessible to each other through the mass media. Perhaps this is the reason why public opinion and treatment of others is subject to so much scrutiny. People have their prejudices. But idealists believe it is important to remake society by erasing stigma wherever it exists. I just came across a quest to de-stigmatize ostomy bags. For those who don’t know, these are bags that are surgically attached to people who are unable to poop or pee normally. An article 
Don’t hold anything back, Hon. She continues, “The idea that you could show anything but revulsion for a psychopath may seem impossible even to entertain.” She goes on to say, “There’s an assumption in the public mind that these individuals have chosen their personalities, and for this reason, they should be treated with ostracism and contempt.” I never did understand why the question of choice is so important. The gay liberation movement has insisted that gays don’t choose to be gay. They are born that way. Transsexuals (the “T” added to “LBG”) are also supposedly born in the wrong body. Psychopaths are now said to have been “born that way” but it doesn’t seem to matter much. I don’t see why it should, frankly. However we “got that way,” are are that way, take it or leave it. Everyone still has the choice to act on proclivities or not. I am not one of those people who think psychopaths should get away with crimes because of “mental illness.” If we can’t help ourselves, we are not responsible. We also don’t have the civil rights of adults. Not having a conscience makes me free. Freedom is responsibility.
I consider myself many things. I am an American, a woman, a human, a baby boomer, a sexual masochist and a psychopath. But, more than anything else, I consider myself a philosopher. Psychopaths are considered, more than most anything else, “pathological liars.” That is the characteristic I have the most trouble identifying with. Sure, I can lie when it is necessary (meaning to my advantage). But I also deeply love the Truth. As a philosopher, I have sought Truth all my life. I remember pondering philosophical questions literally in the crib. The philosophical field I find most compelling is Epistemology: the study of, not what is Truth, but how we know Truth. That is my life’s work.
articles that make me think. They have been the inspiration for many of my blog posts. The article I am discussing today, 
Hitler could have said this. Jews in Germany were a minority (now an even tinier minority). But what is pomerology? Merriam Webster says, “Ponerology definition is – a branch of theology dealing with the doctrine of evil. a branch of theology dealing with the doctrine of evil…” Wikipedia says, “In theology, ponerology (from Greek poneros, “evil”) is a study of evil. Major subdivisions of the study are the nature of evil, the origin of evil, and evil in relation to the Divine 
Government.” Although ponerology is claimed to be scientific, we see from these definitions that it is theological. Science is supposed to be universal. But theology can only apply to the beliefs of a particular religion. And yet, this article claims to be stating a universal truth. Mankind has fought many a bloody war over theological differences between different countries. The more enlightened ones have accepted the wisdom of letting theology be a private belief system that is only binding on the believers.
want to be scientific. Science tells us what is, not what should be. Morality is about what should be. It is derived from the field of philosophy called Ethics and/or from theology. Some, George Simon, for example, have even fallen into the temptation to call psychopathy a character disorder rather than a personality disorder. Of course, the very word, disorder, is judgemental. Since psychology deals with human behavior and thought patterns, it is, perhaps, impossible to develop a “science” of psychology that is morally neutral.
acceptance. Writers like Styllinski, Peck, Simon are steering the “science” back to moral judgement. I thought my essay comparing psychopaths with Jews in Nazi Germany was somewhat overwrought. But blaming a minority for everything that goes wrong is just what this article and others like it does just that, doesn’t it? These writers use all the technical language of psychology, the science, to justify these judgements. Styllinski explains that the small minority of actual psychopaths has gotten control of a larger group of mostly weak-minded folk who are doing our bidding. (Gosh, I could use a group of willing slaves. Where are mine?) The result is something Styllinski fancifully calls 
What happens to a dream deferred?
“The leech’s kiss, the squid’s embrace,
CLUSTER B 