I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn't seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again.
The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization, "the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers," was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies -- especially military hierarchies.
Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as their power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld -- the overlapping criminal syndicates that lurk above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it.
During the past fifty years, psychopaths have gained almost absolute control of all the branches of government. You can notice this if you observe carefully that no matter what illegal thing a modern politician does, no one will really take him to task. All of the so called scandals that have come up, any one of which would have taken down an authentic administration, are just farces played out for the public, to distract them, to make them think that the democracy is still working.
One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths' only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath's control system.
The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.
So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.
When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.
In his book Political Oenology, Andrej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests), psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want.
In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths. Since psychopaths have no limitations on what they can or will do to get to the top, the ones in charge are generally pathological. It is not power that corrupts, it is that corrupt individuals seek power.
How can we distinguish between psychopaths and healthy people? What is the portrait of a true psychopath?
Such a dangerous question has almost never been successfully asked. The reason is because we mistakenly confuse healthy for normal. Human psychological diversity is the health of our race. There is no normal because healthy humans continuously evolve beyond all normalizing standards.
The terrorism of searching through hierarchies for anyone deviating from normal is no different from witch hunts or Inquisitions. You must remember that hierarchies thrive on such low dramas, torturing victims until they confess to evil beliefs. Not so long ago the church and state ongoingly acquired significant income and property through witch hunts and Inquisitions. This continued for over two hundred and fifty years. Ten generations of Europeans understood pogrom as normal life. Let us not return to that nightmare. Testing for normal is guaranteed to backfire in our face. There is no normal. But there is conscience.
We have very little empirical evidence to support the idea that true psychopathy is the result of an abused childhood, and much empirical evidence to support that it is genetic. The neurobiological model offers us the greatest hope of being able to identify even the most devious psychopath.
Other recent studies lead to similar results and conclusions: that psychopaths have great difficulty processing verbal and nonverbal affective (emotional) material, that they tend to confuse the emotional significance of events, and most importantly, that these deficits show up in brain scans! A missing internal connection between the feeling heart and the thinking brain is detectable.
Psychopaths are incapable of authentic deep emotions. In fact, when Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an emotional reaction until they intellectually concluded that it would be better if they had one, and then they whipped up an emotional response just for show.
You have nicely encapsulated a framework for looking at how political leadership functions in any society, in this comment:
The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization, "the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers," was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies -- especially military hierarchies.
However, your heavy reliance on Lobachevski, raises a couple of problems. For anyone wanting to become acquainted with the work that has been done in this area of disorders, he is the last one to provide an introduction. Along with some of the most turgid writing in the history of the printed word, his manuscript was completed almost thirty years ago – long before more recent understandings of brain function and pathology have become common knowledge. Your introduction of other more recent and popular authors, remedies this problem, but the reliance on this referenceseems to me to introduce an unnecessary level of confusion.
A more important concern is that you fail to consider (or discuss) some of the alternative explanations of Bush’s behavior. Various authors have advanced explanations for his behavior including early-onset Alzheimer’s, brain damage as a consequence of alcohol and (possibly) cocaine addiction, as well as some possible hypoxia which may have occurred during his fainting/choking pretzel incident, occurring early in his presidency. There has also been speculation that he wears a portable defibrillator, evidenced by some photos showing bulges in his clothing consistent with such a device. This is not to suggest that he is not a sociopath, but rather, that there is a much more “pure” representative of the class – Dick Cheney.
Your single paragraph description of brain scanning fails to clarify the potential that more intensive fMRI studies have for providing a reliable differentiation of the sociopath from those not suffering this disorder. Specifically, identifiable damage to the medial ventral pre-frontal cortex, and/or the amygdala appear to have great potential for reliable identification of the sociopath.
Frankly, the proposed solution to removing the sociopath from power, seems at best a distant and unlikely possibility.
If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt.
Expecting this to happen is a warm and fuzzy fantasy. Although difficult to bring to fruition, a demand for brain scans, as a part of the medical vetting undergone by candidates, could serve as an initial step to screen out the sociopaths from those not so disabled. Yet, how you get the electorate to make this an essential part of qualifying for election, when we see the limited amount of information the current candidates have made available, is by far an enormous challenge.
Finally, we come back to a fundamental problem. If, hypothetically, we were able to remove all of the sociopaths from access to leadership, could our incredibly complex society be successfully managed by those lacking in these very traits? We may yet find that the ruthlessness and quest for power demonstrated by the sociopath are necessary conditions to successful organizational management, be it in government or the commercial sector.
by
Sherwin Steffin (14 articles, 24 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 80 comments)
on Monday, June 2, 2008 at 8:01:43 PM
"Sooner or later all freedom loving Americans will realize that the only way to stop those who would bleed our nation dry, dismantle our constitution, and dissolve our national sovereignty is to say I will not work for you, buy from you, fight for you, or die for you, until the criminals are gone from the halls of our government."
Individually we find that we are powerless against corporate media or Big Oil or Washington. Our choices are limited. Our effectiveness diminished. This is not by accident. Unions, social gatherings, clubs that all flourished before the 1960s have all been destroyed by those who find you & me to be a threat.
Today people will tell you that protest are ineffective. And they are. But real change does not come from the ballot box as the politicians & media want you to believe. Great social change like the eight hour work day, child labor laws, a woman's right to vote, civil rights, etc., etc. all came about through blood & sweat & great effort. Just showing up every four years to pull the lever on election night only changes the faces of those who will lie to you. For the next four years.
In order to get involved, here are the five best steps to take now:
1) Sign up with your email address HERE in order to get updates,
2) Mark the day on your calendar and plan to be at a protest in your community,
3) Send this URL to all your friends, post it to forums, put it on your personal pages, http://www.votestrike.com There will be ZERO mainstream media discussion of this General Strike BEFORE it happens. ZERO. So, we must BE OUR OWN MEDIA and promote it. Link to this site from sites and blogs. Mention it with links in your comments on blogs. PROMOTE IT.
4) Join the Consumer Fast already underway. Click here: Shut'EmDown
5) Take the lead and help organize a protest on 9/11.
by
chris rice (45 articles, 12 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 137 comments)
on Monday, June 2, 2008 at 10:23:09 PM
Overall I really loved this article. However, I think that what is missing is the spiritual aspect. We can identify a psychopath by brain scans, but what came first. Some biological/neurological disorder or the spiritual infection of evil; and does this spiritual infection effect the brain waves? Are we simply seeing, in the strange brain readings of the psychopath, the echo of evil.
As I look at what is happening in the world today, the "end game" or more properly the "End Time", I see not just a problem with psychopaths who lack conscience and morality but the classical struggle between good (God and His followers) and evil (the fallen Lucifer and his followers). We are now in that point of human history where we have the power to destroy ourselves via nuclear war, biological war, and scalar war. All of this was foretold in the last book of the Christian Bible almost 2,000 years ago.
It appears that we will soon go through a very great bloodletting, a war far worst than all those in the past including World War I and World War II. Only the return of Jesus Christ Himself will save those of us that are not quickly killed off. But we are promised a New World and a New Heaven. Many people are taking a hard look at the concept of the End Time as events, and the overall ever growing level of evil, seem to be driving the human race to its extinction via the next global war.
Stirling
by
Lord Stirling (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 99 comments)
on Monday, June 2, 2008 at 11:05:02 PM
The major religions of today could have been created by aliens who descended as angels or sons of god. They then bio-engineered humans to make us smarter and more warrior like, which was not hard since they found the daughters of man pleasing. There were some failures, and the floods were needed to erase most of the genetic monsters that were created, and Noah and his crew were saved to begin again.
Their mission was to develop us and colonize the world within 6000 years, and thats why we had to be more warrior like (before we were like lambs, and dumb as all get out). Their race had much experience doing this and found faith based religion of a personal god a good way to control local people. They then created additional religions as a divide and conquer strrategy. The blue print of their plan is in what we call the Old Testament, New Testament, Talmud and Quran. At one time the aliens hid behind the Jewish religion which was the first one they established, and both Islam and Chrstianity are extensions of Judaism. Over the last 2 centuries, this is not true and they have seized control over, and are members of all the religions at the highest levels, since the time is coming to globalize us. They do not believe in these religions, they use them.
The End Times that the major religions have in common is the way they put the finishing touch on the Globalization, or One World Totalitarian Government necessary for Colonial Rule of the aliens. The elite are genetically polluted by the aliens way of thinking, but the top ones have maintained a certain level of purity and will maintain their standing when the aliens come. They basically control pretty much everything today.
Anyways, the technology exists today to give us bioengineered pandemics, earthquakes, cyclones, volcanos, pretend wars, famine, holographic images in the sky showing UFO's, radio messages sent to mans minds in every language announcing the return of the messiah, a rapture by remote control crashing of planes and vehicles, etc. A perfect enactment of the End Times and the return of the King to rule us all.
Once this is done, well, they will start culling the herd. They do not need so many slaves to exploit our resources for them, maybe 600 million, the other 6 billion can be disposed of, as they have tremendous technology. DNA testing will help determine who stays and who goes, based on how much alien DNA they have and how free it is of mutations . The young good looking ones might be kept as sex slaves, even if they have bad DNA.
They needed the infrastructure that we have built up for them, and slaves that are technologically competent and in enough numbers, and that took 6,000 years. Also, they are great genetic engineers, and can utilize our DNA in their experiments, and provide surplus humanity as food for intergalactic and galactic travellers who stop by earth for a resupply shopping (frozen meat, including human) or fast food human burgers. Perhaps we will be a major food exporter in galactic trade if we are tasty enough, then they might keep us in bigger numbers, in conditions sort of like the cattle and hog factory farms we have today.
Many of the religous could be duped into heading to the camps peacefully by giving them a bus ticket to one of the God Ships that will take them to heaven. They will process them on arrival. They will be told to pack lightly. Heh heh. You can just hope you get ordered rare and not well done. The rest will be taken forcefully using the police state apparatus that has been built up globally.
The Hollyood writers took some down time on their strike to work it out and it's been filmed for CNN and Fox to show as breaking news.
My analysis suggests that the Tribulations have begun, not sure if 2001 was the start and this year is the last one, or if this year is the start, and we have 7 years to go, or 7 months starting from May 1.
Now, in the perfect world, Jesus will return and punish the psychopaths. I hope this to be true, but I see no evidence for it, and blind faith is not something I have, not even in my own theories.
by
pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 296 comments)
on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 1:34:57 AM
It was Jung, as I recall, who esimated that in every 'society' could be found a 'psychopathic' thirty percent. It's sobering to think that some thirty percent of every society --even those we think most cultured --may be largely 'ruled' by about thirty percent who are utterly lacking the restraints most of us associate with personal maturity and social cohesion.
Dr. Gustav Gilbert, whose task it was to keep Nazi war criminals alive until they could be hanged, summed it up simply: evil, he said, was the utter lack of empathy. Hanah Arendt (The New School, New York) wrote of the 'banality of evil'.
Thanks for your insightful article. There is always the hope that as more become aware of this, steps may be taken to ameliorate the more overt and horrific effects which include the acts of genocide, heinous war crimes, indeed, war itself.
There are some reasons for optimism. The GOP 'base' consists, interestingly, of about 30 percent of the population. I've often thought that 30 percent hard-core, GOP support to be the psychopaths described by Jung. Unless, the GOP can appeal to 'sane' people, it is sunk. In my article, I have made the case, that lately the GOP is losing support even among the thirty percent base (of Jung's description?). See: GOP Front-Runners Run Out of Wiggle Room
Is there hope that the world will achieve what Henry Miller hoped would be a 'quantum leap'?
by
Len Hart (122 articles, 158 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 474 comments)
on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 3:03:46 AM
I will not work for you, buy from you, fight for you, or die for you, until the criminals are gone from the halls of our government."
Until someone comes up with a 'silver bullet', you have articulated the only rational response. It is a strategy that I have adopted. Many, however, don't have the luxury of going 'cold turkey'. Even so --there is little excuse for enriching Wal-Mart. There is NO excuse whatsoever for watching Fox or patronizing its advertisers. With any luck and some publicity, we might even begin an ADVERTISER boycott of Fox. Now ---THAT will change things in the Fox boardroom. The sound of money 'walking' is the sound of people 'talking'. And telling the truth.
With a bit of study, consumers should seek out local merchants and local companies while BOYCOTTING any multi-national that is overtly a part of the problem. A small thing ---but I have patronized a small roaster in New Orleans called "Community Coffee". Not only was this locally owned roaster putting a protion of its profits BACK into the neighborhood even before Katrina, it is a superior producct. To reinforce the point of this excellent article, the 'corporate' structure of American society is, itself, I think, psychopathic. Despite what is written by economists with regard to 'economies of scale', local firms often do a better job than multi-national conglomerates whose only purpose is the enrichment of some one percent of the population.
These days, it is possible to get a lot of information about companies on the 'net. Boycott any business having anything to do with the Military/Industrial complex. The obvious boycotts are the oil companies. Unless a car is ABSOLUTLEY essential, get a bike or use public transportation. Some cities, like Houston, have come around to the use of TRAMS but very late in the game. Still --late is better than never.
As Murrow would have said: "Good night and good luck!"
by
Len Hart (122 articles, 158 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 474 comments)
on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 3:24:07 AM
Good article -- a few points & minor disagreements
I wouldn't say that psychopaths are responsible for civilization at all. Civilization is due to the cooperative creation and hoarding of surplus. Psychopaths showed up a split second later to claim more than their share.
I've spent the last 25 years or so in investment banks and it was there that I learned, indeed, that psychopaths have self-awareness and a group identity. It's good to see this mentioned and should never be forgotten. I would say that psychopaths simply hate to see one of their own brought down by a non-psychopath. This hits them where they live - the idea of their superiority. I would advise paying close attention to the supporters of individual psychopaths such as Jeffrey MacDonald and Ira Einhorn, though there will certainly be a number of the fooled. A hidden problem is that this group awareness is a horrendous problem in the courts with psychopathic judges siding with psychopathic defendants (or claimants).
There's no doubt that war machines select for psychopathy. The holocaust in particular did. Hannah Arendt did the world a disservice by not recognizing Himmler as a psychopath. I believe she made the common mistake of considering only lower level psychopaths as being psychopaths.
Sherwin, pardon me but you come across as a psychopath apologist. This may be unintentional, but it is what it is. You write:
However, your heavy reliance on Lobachevski, raises a couple of problems. For anyone wanting to become acquainted with the work that has been done in this area of disorders, he is the last one to provide an introduction.
Have you actually read the book? If you had, you would understand (assuming you aren't pathological yourself) that the description of the social dynamics is what is important in this book and that no other work available approaches this topic at the political level. The next closest thing would be Hare and Babiak's "Snakes in Suits," but even that only scratches the surface. You might also benefit greatly by reading the Sylvia Cattori interview with the book's editors: The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade: Make Us Believe that Evil Comes from Others
There you will learn that much of what was written about psychopathy 30 years ago is far more accurate than the research that has been done since then, with several important exceptions. And those exceptions tend to validate what was being written years ago by Cleckley and others. Pay particular attention to the notes at the end of the article that describe the diagnostic controversy. If you are sincerely interested in helping others and contributing to a truthful discourse on the topic, you will undertake to educate yourself as thoroughly as possible.
You have actually demonstrated this diversionary trickery in your comments.
Along with some of the most turgid writing in the history of the printed word, his manuscript was completed almost thirty years ago – long before more recent understandings of brain function and pathology have become common knowledge.
Wow! Can we say "subtly derogatory." "Turgid writing"?? Did you actually read the book? If you did, and this is your description, then I think we must live in different realities. Obviously, the book was translated and what you call "turgid writing" is the responsibility of the translator.
Yes, the MS was completed 30 years ago and that is what gives it value since it is clear that, subsequent to that time, psychopaths - and their apologists - have taken over not only government, but psychiatry, academia, industry and the media. You obviously aren't very familiar with the diagnostic controversy that rages among academics on the topic, nor the obvious reason for this: that psychopaths have taken over the asylum. See:
Your profile says you are an educator; if so, your ignorance of the topic is appalling.
Your introduction of other more recent and popular authors, remedies this problem, but the reliance on this referenceseems to me to introduce an unnecessary level of confusion.
Your rejection of this reference remedies my confusion entirely: you are either "one of them" or one of their lackeys - a psychopath apologist. There's a lot of them around, you know, trying to make life easier for their masters - veritable Renfields wringing their hands in glee at the coming of the Master - authoritarian personalities that follow the "rules" no matter what. Here's a good one for you:
Notice that your comments seem to fit the description of the authoritarian "followers."
A more important concern is that you fail to consider (or discuss) some of the alternative explanations of Bush’s behavior. Various authors have advanced explanations for his behavior including early-onset Alzheimer’s, brain damage as a consequence of alcohol and (possibly) cocaine addiction, as well as some possible hypoxia which may have occurred during his fainting/choking pretzel incident, occurring early in his presidency. There has also been speculation that he wears a portable defibrillator, evidenced by some photos showing bulges in his clothing consistent with such a device. This is not to suggest that he is not a sociopath, but rather, that there is a much more “pure” representative of the class – Dick Cheney.
There you go again: apologizing for Bush with some of the most ridiculous excuses. A comprehensive review of Bush's life indicates that he behaved psychopathically long before any of the above excuses could have been valid. Not only that, but you use the term that is a sure sign of the psychopath apologist: "sociopath." Do some reading and discover the diagnostic controversy and what the world's leading expert on the topic, Robert Hare, has to say about the distinction between "psychopath" and "sociopath."
Your single paragraph description of brain scanning fails to clarify the potential that more intensive fMRI studies have for providing a reliable differentiation of the sociopath from those not suffering this disorder. Specifically, identifiable damage to the medial ventral pre-frontal cortex, and/or the amygdala appear to have great potential for reliable identification of the sociopath.
Again, muddying the waters and proposing an impossible solution. Who is going to set up brain scans? Who is going to run them? Who is going to analyze them? Who is going to ensure that psychopaths don't take control of the whole process and use it to destroy anyone who does not follow their agenda?
On this topic, you might gain some insight from the very book you have rejected as a resource: Political Ponerology, which discusses the "abuse of psychiatry."
The only real solution is education of the masses presented in ways that they can easily understand. From the referenced Sylvia Cattori interview:
SC: In conclusion, there are manipulators everywhere. They form a part of society that is structured according to this model, a structure that permits them to behave according to this perverse psychological functioning anywhere they intervene. They are twisted people, held by no moral code, ready to do anything to defend their interests. They are more and more numerous. They are not necessarily linked to any specific ideology. And at the moment when we begin to suspect that someone is part of this percentage of twisted people, do we need to take a different attitude?
Henry: Yes. We need to learn how to say no to the manipulations. That means we need to learn the ways we are manipulated and refuse to do the dance.
Laura: On the whole, a capacity to cheat, to compete and to lie has proven to be a stupendously successful adaptation. Thus the idea that selection pressure could ever cause saintliness to spread in a society looks implausible in practice. It doesn't seem feasible to out-compete genes which promote competitiveness. "Nice guys" get eaten or out-bred. Happy people who are unaware get eaten or out-bred. Happiness and niceness today is vanishingly rare, and the misery and suffering of those who are able to truly feel, who are empathic toward other human beings, who have a conscience, is all too common. And the psychopathic manipulations are designed to make psychopaths of us all.
Nevertheless, a predisposition to, conscience, ethics, can prevail if and when it is also able to implement the deepest level of altruism: making the object of its empathy the higher ideal of enhancing freedom and altruism in the abstract sense, for the sake of others, including our descendants.
In short, our "self-interest" ought to be vested in collectively ensuring that all others are happy and well-disposed too; and in ensuring that children we bring into the world have the option of being constitutionally happy and benevolent toward one another.
This means that if psychopathy threatens the well-being of the group future - which it is doing - then it can be only be dealt with by widespread refusal to allow the self to be dominated by it on an individual, personal basis. Preserving freedom for the self in the practical sense, ultimately preserves freedom for others. Protection of our own rights AS the rights of others, underwrites the free will position and potential for happiness of all. If mutant psychopaths pose a potential danger, then true empathy, true ethics, true conscience, dictates using prophylactic therapy against psychopaths.
And so it is that identifying the psychopath, ceasing our interaction with them, cutting them off from our society, making ourselves unavailable to them as "food" or objects to be conned and used, is the single most effective strategy that we can play.
Samuel Johnson once said "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
I don't think you are a fool, you are a very clever man, but what you have written removes all doubt about your agenda.
by
Bonnee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments)
on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 6:07:53 AM
I don't usually post here on OpEd, but Mr. Steffin's comment deserves a response. I have read Lobaczewski's book, as well as all the classic works on psychopathy and I must say that Steffin is either very confused or just ignorant on the matter. In the 40s and 50s Lobaczewski and his Polish/Hungarisn/Czech colleagues aleady knew about the genetic nature of psychopathy, the peculiarities of the way psychopaths use language, that psychopathy is characterized by a complete lack of higher emotion, the existence of subclinical and subcriminal psychopaths, their traumatizing influence on families, social instiutions, and countries, etc.
It has taken Western science decades to catch up to these understandings, and we are still lagging behind what Lobaczewski knew FIFTY years ago. Essi Viding did her study on the heritability of psychopathy only in the last few years. Subcriminal psychopathy was barely recognized let alone understood until the last couple decades. There are STILL researchers who refuse to acknowledge that psychopathy is characterized by a DEFICIT in higher emotion. There are still psychiatrists that think psychopathy is an acquired disorder. There are still researchers who conflate sociopathy with psychopathy. And western science has yet to identify and recnogize the implications of psychoathic leaders on health of nations.
Barrett's reliance on Lobaczewski is perfectly acceptable considering that he is one of the world's experts on psychopathy, and decades ahead of his time. Mr. Steffin, perhaps you should read Hare's books, and some textbooks on the subject in order to learn just how accurate Lobaczewski's work has proben to be.
by
Arthur K. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 12:20:54 PM
