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-UE
We are the master race!
"Sociopath" is a misleading word: it implies a disorder, something wrong and unnatural with the person, and this couldn't be further from the truth. We, the people you refer to as sociopaths, have nothing wrong with us.
We are necessary for the survival and sucess of the human species. Though we are found disporportionatly in prisons we are found with even greater frequency in your governments, your corporations, your military. Who else but someone devoid of concience could order thousands of soldiers to die, regardless of how noble the cause? Who can fire hundreds of workers to save a company from bankrupcy and then go to sleep that night? Who can so elegantly tell the lies that must be told, to protect the very people to whom the lies are told? It takes one of us to make those calls, the calls that the rest of humanity cannot make.
It is no coincidence that our lack of guilt comes with abnormally high intelligence and charisma; we are born to lead, all our traits support this conclusion. We are born knowing it, and the rest of you know it when you see us. Its why you elect us, follow us, and gives your lives by our command.
And yet a distressing number of us become the very thing you fear us all to be; criminals and abusers. This creates a cycle of ignorance, as all the "sociopaths" identified by the news are killers or wife-beaters, and so we identify this collection of gifts as evil, as pathological, and thus those of us in our proper roles feel the need to disguise ourselves for fear of being labeled evil. A simmilar cycle of ignorance has kept homosexuals oppressed for decades; homosexualty has been associated with childmolesters and perverts, drug use and desease, and it was called "evil" for this.
We are not evil, you simply do not recognise the good ones as the same phenomena. Google "Sociopath" and all you find is ways to recover from contact with a sociopath, information advising you to run from relationsships with sociopaths, and misinformation that will claim that "sociopaths cannot feel love" or that we "cannot think of others as human beings" or that we are "parasitic".
It is very distressing to discover, for a child who has always known that he was different, that he is a monster... that he is doomed to live a loveless life and become a criminal, that he will never be able to hold a job or raise a family. Indeed, one must wonder how often one of us discoveres what he is and buys into the paranoid misinformation and simply does what he is expected to do.
Your question: "What is a sociopath?" is answered thusly: a sociopath is one of your potential leaders, labeled by the paranoid masses as something sick and evil, and is left no alternative but an evil path. "Sociopath" is a negative label which only serves to further alienate people who simply need to be allowed to embrace their gifts. Getting rid of this misleading term should be the first step towards fully understanding who we are and the role we play in this world.
I disagree with this notion, but does anyone have any thoughts on this that is not covered by "What the fuck" or "Whatever"?
Comments
I kinda sorta agree with the sentiment that would normally behind this were it not for the rest of the text, to be honest. I mean, I feel that often times, when people hear about someone being a sociopath, autistic, or whatever, they think of the most extreme cases and then they tend to encapsulate them within those boundaries. I also feel that treating sociopathy as a disease or something that should be cured (When we can't, mind you) enables a lot of problems for the individual to fit into society.
What should be enforced is therapy and treatment, though.
I'm not so sure that sociopathy is something that can be treated, but I wouldn't know.
However, a sociopath is characterized by a lack of empathy. Generally, we consider that as an important thing because empathy is good.
I'm not saying that sociopathy should be seen as a good thing, I just think that sociopaths tend to get quite discriminated for being born in a way they didn't desire or choose and that if society didn't fear them and approached them, there would be a substantial difference.
I haven't really met a sociopath, so I wouldn't know.
But how would you have them treated?
that's kind of the issue, isn't it? I've heard of pills here and there to estimulate the empathy section of the brain, but I'm not quite sure how or if they're a thing.
Either way, the thing is there's therapy, study, research, etc etc.
I'm not sure how much you can really do if someone just lacks empathy though.
But I'm not exactly 100% clear on what can be done, so... without more research I don't feel like doing, I can't really comment, sorry.
That's kinda like saying that there's not much you can really do if someone lacks communication skills. For all we know, empathy just might be one of those things that, much like autism, you can be born severly deficient on.
I wonder if "sociopathy lol" will become the next "autism lol" in the next five years or so, like "ADHD lol" was previous. Like how this guy compares himself to mastermind business leaders and governmental officials the same way an autistic kid might compare himself to Einstein, like it's the disorder that made them that way and not actual smarts.
-looks it up-
You're not helping, doc.
To the argument that "you need sociopaths to do society's dirty work": this might be a long shot, but I bet if there weren't any sociopaths, society wouldn't need any dirty work.
^Sociopaths aren't the only variety of asshole.
No, I don't think so. Many of the actions he is attributing to sociopaths, like sending soldiers to die in a war, can and are still performed by people with a conscience and a sense of empathy.
Another thing is that sociopaths can still have moral codes and find substitute concepts for empathy to help them understand. The majority of them want to find a functional place in society and have no drive to hurt anyone, so they take steps to abstract the things they don't understand and find a way to understand their deficiency.
Sociopaths don't choose their traits and most spend all of their lives quite harmless. While it is a disorder associated with calculated violence and manipulation, it's still only a minority of sociopaths that engage in such harmful behaviour. We ought not to profile people according to their disorders, I think.
Where did you get that information from?
I don't see how any of that really needs backing up or sources...?
I am simply wondering. I have never heard of sociopaths who find substitute concepts for empathy. Indeed, the only sociopaths I have heard of are either criminals (which I hear in the news) or people who just don't really care about their lack of empathy (in sociology and medical reports).
So, I would indeed like to know where that information came from, so that I can learn more.
Psychology class. I'm afraid I don't have any specific academic sources, though.
To give you an example, though, a sociopath might use a moral code as a substitute for empathy and sympathy. Where emotions would influence and drive a non-sociopathic person, a sociopath might calculate the correct course of action via a set of set values rather than "felt" values.
I would be wary of that, though. After all, we have seen what issues different sets of values have, in splits between cultures and such. Basing a set of behaviours upon your own set of values could drive a wedge between things.
I know what I'm saying in my brain. It's just not making sense on the screen.
The thing is, though, it's not like they have a choice and they can suddenly start feeling empathy, you know?
ETA: Not to mention that such a moral code would come from assimilation of the person's surroundings and the way people around them behave.
Everyone has a different set of values from everyone else, to an extent. We don't have, nor should be aim for, homogeneous sets of values beyond a baseline concept of justice and tolerance.
In all likelihood, the moral code the hypothetical sociopath adheres to comes from cultural influences in their lives, media and whatnot, so there's small risk of it being particularly dissonant with the people around them.
ninjuan'd
Really the part of the whole speech that annoyed me more than anything was that sociopath = genius thing. Because really there are plenty of stupid and average sociopaths (far more than smart ones) just like there are for people with normal empathy faculties. Really it reeks of a sort of karmic payoff thing like "well I don't have emotions and empathy the way most people do, so clearly I got something cool in return like being smart or being able to make the difficult choices."
I mean add in how the whole rant breaks down as you go along. If sociopaths are supposedly so far removed from normal functioning and smarter than the paranoid and ignorant masses around them, how do so many of them end up succumbing to the cultural idea of a sociopath?
But isn't that part of why there's so much stigma against them? I mean, even with most people, if you give them a chance and the help and sometimes force them into it, they're able to overcome whatever is causing them to act differently.
But when something that is intrinsic to the way most people act is missing in a person, it's easy to see why people would react badly like this. Many people base their actions upon their sense of empathy; "I would not wish this upon my worst enemy" is not a sentiment you will really find among people who don't base their moral code upon seeing why people would not be harmed, or something.
However, when a person does not have a baseline of "I would not want to affect a person because I know how that would make me feel", or hopefully you get what I mean by that, then I can understand why people would react badly.
A sense of empathy is something that nearly everybody has, and is the baseline for a lot of behaviour, especially altruistic behaviour, is what I'm saying, I guess.
Yes, this is true, but shunning a human being who desires to be part of society and has no wish for harming other people because they are not born in the right way is...well, wrong.
Let's try to think past what I already know, hm.
So, I would argue that with everything I have learned in a five-minute Google search, while it is certainly possible for a sociopath to function in society, it is... unlikely.
-shrug-
^^ On the other hand, I personally know someone who is, for all intents and purposes, considered a sociopath. While he has on occasion displayed some of those traits, he is by and large a functional human being within society. That said, he also went to the effort to train himself out of some behaviours with professional guidance -- which just proves that sociopaths need support, not ostracisation.
There's also the fact that "sociopath" is a hotly debated term in medical circles and in public parlance is often confused or mixed with "psychopath". Like many mental and behavioural conditions, it's not well understood and where it starts and ends will change depending on which expert you ask. For instance, someone could have all the traits you listed above and not technically be a sociopath -- they might just be an arsehole.
Basically, the issue is, sociopaths aren't defined purely by displaying these traits, but also the context in which they are displayed. Someone who displays these traits, but does not have a significant criminal record and does not intentionally toy with others, would not be classified as a sociopath (or, at least least, having Antisocial Personality Disorder, which is often considered as synonymous with sociopathy).
Or, this:
At the OP: who wrote this? Sounds like over-intellectual posturing from an internet forum. Wouldn't feel out of place at OTC.
I don't know who wrote this. I found it late last night when I was trying to get on /u/. I still haven't figured out what the hell I typed into Google to arrive here, but there we go.
...For some reason, Alex talking about them going off of a set of set values instead of felt ones made me want to go with the whole D&D alignment system and say they are strictly lawful in that they follow a set of already specified values instead of changing their mind on a whim based on emotions
Bleh. Maybe I need more sleep