They're at an advantage because they will be the most ruthless. Again I'll give you an example from Mao. In China, relations between China and Japan at the moment, the tensions over the atrocities in the Second World War, and a lot of, one of the things we often hear about is the Rape of Nanjing and the number of people that the Japanese murdered in Nanjing.
During the Civil War between Mao and the Nationalists, Mao laid siege to a city in Northeast China and more people died in that siege in Northeast China than the Japanese killed in Nanjing. Mao's tactic during that siege, he knew he was going to win. He said, "I'm absolutely going to win here because the general on the other side is too nice a guy. He won't let everyone starve to death, I will."
R.K.: Wow. And you know, you have a line where you say it is not only the behavior pf psychopaths that is beyond the comprehension of psychologically normal people, it is their thinking too. Now, you've just given an incredible example. Could you talk a little bit more about how incomprehensible the behavior and thinking of psychopaths is?
I.H.: There's an example I'd like to give you. There's a documentary film out at the moment from Josh Oppenheimer and it's called "The Act of Killing" and your listeners may have come across it. If not, it's worth Googling and if it's in a theater nearby it's worth going to. Joshua Oppenheimer, the film is set in Indonesia and it's set during the communist purge in Indonesia when Suharto took power and he's, Oppenheimer is interviewing some of the people who took part of the mass killings at that time, this was in the mid 1960's, and he, Oppenheimer himself says that when he came up with the idea for how he would go about the documentary, when he was talking to some of these killers, and they were boasting about what they were doing.
They were taking him to see, to some of the places they committed the murders and they were saying, "oh I wish I had brought a machete with me because I could have shown you exactly how I did it." And Oppenheimer from those conversations got the idea, well in this documentary, I'm going to let them pretend they're making a film about how they went about killing these people.
And that's what "The Act of Killing" is about. It's Oppenheimer interviewing these killers and allowing them to reenact the mass murders that they committed.
R.K.: Wow.
I.H.: There is a a scene at the end of that film, and I'll use this as an example that psychopath isn't just a lack of conscience, it's also a disorder of thinking, and I'll give you this example; the closing scene at the end of "The Act of Killing" is one of the mass murderers, it's a scene by a waterfall and he's surrounded by lots of beautiful women who are dancing and he is almost like a god, so there is the narcissism in there, he is this god who is being surrounded by all these beautiful ladies and he has two people reenacting two of the people that he murdered and they have chicken wire around their throats because that's how he killed them, but the final scene is them taking the chicken wire up from around their necks and coming over with a gold medal and putting it round the murderer's neck and saying Thank You for setting us free.
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