National Disease: Sociopaths in High Places. [View All]

[Cal33]

Hi All:

This is a fresh view of our national problems from another perspective:

National Disease: Sociopaths In High Places

People and the news media endlessly discuss the merits and demerits of those who are in high places and how they are performing in their jobs. It seems to me that not much emphasis has been placed on one very important factor: voters know too little about the character of the people they are helping to put into power. Incredibly, some have voted for candidates on the basis of, "he is one of those people I would enjoy having a beer with." Other reasons given have been even sillier and less relevant. This can be disastrous for our nation.

The news media could play a larger role in educating the public. More stress could be placed on signs of sociopathy, because, among the various misfits seeking high office, sociopaths are the most dangerous.
And most people are not even aware how dangerous they are.

What is sociopathy? Another name for it is "Anti-Social Personality Disorder," one of the eleven
Personality Disorders described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) used by mental
health professionals, and it affects about 2% of the general population. A sociopath can be recognized
when he shows the following character traits:
1. selfishness, greed, aggressiveness;
2. exploitation, manipulation and violation of the rights of others;
3. a defective conscience, revealed by such traits as: pathological lying, deceitfulness, and a lack of
compassion for others in pain or difficulty;
4. a superficially charming personality that is often used to mislead, take advantage of and exercise
controlling power over others, ...etc...

People are usually attracted by and gravitate to those professions where their particular needs and desires can be more easily met and satisfied. This also applies to sociopaths:

A. Business executives: Corporations usually promote those employees who bring in the most profits. It also happens that those executives who are the most ruthless in their business dealings (and are smart enough not to get caught), are the ones who make the most profit for their companies. So, they have the best chances of being promoted. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of sociopaths among the higher business executives is considerably more than the 2% in the general population.

B. Politicians are well-known to speak from both sides of their mouths, and they do have power over others, even when they're supposed to serve them. Most of them are fine people, but here again I'm also convinced that the sociopaths among them number more than the 2% found in the general community.

I am sure sociopaths are found in every profession, but the above two are probably the biggies. Prisons have the highest concentrations of them all, since they are the ones who show the greatest disregard for the rights of others, and are also the ones who most frequently break the law.

Having a defective conscience, they don't feel badly about harming someone else. Lacking a sense of morality, they are not guided by it -- much like a two-year-old. The difference is that a two-year-old does not yet have any concept of morality, but a sociopath will hardly ever have an effective one. This is explained more in detail below.

A sociopath can learn that certain actions could land him in jail. He avoids them, not that he feels they are wrong, but because he doesn't want to be caught and punished. He is not capable of putting himself in
someone else's shoes and see things from the other's point of view, but he can be made to do something out of fear. This explains why he so often uses the tactics of fear and intimidation to get what he wants -- these being the main things he, himself, responds to. By the same token, if he feels confident enough of being able to avoid being caught, he will continue any action -- even a criminal one -- as long as it serves his purposes. He feels no guilt or shame, neither pride nor honor. He may acquire an intellectual concept of the meaning of the words, but these, too, are used by him only for his own advantage.

Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, who died some 30 years ago, is the author of the present-day widely used theory of the development of morality in children, who pass through successive stages of moral growth, from childhood on:

Stage 1: small child. To him it's "right" when he does what he is told by authority figures, and anything
is also the right thing to do if it can help him to avoid punishment.
........................................................
Stage 5: the "Social Contract level" where the older child begins to understand the concept of individual
rights, and follows laws as prescribed by the society in which he lives, and

Stage 6: the last and most advanced, where the adult individual is now being guided by his own conscience, which has developed according to universally accepted principles. An example of a Stage-6 universally accepted principle is "Reciprocity," which has become a part of the individual's conscience.

Reciprocity is aptly described in the biblical injunction, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Sociopaths have never reached this last stage, their moral development having been arrested at
an earlier and more primitive one. Many have not even reached Stage 5. This could explain why they can exploit and abuse others without any sense of shame or remorse. They might not even understand what the fuss is all about when the offended party complains. However, they do object -- and very loudly -- when they, themselves, have been taken advantage of.

THE IMPORTANT POINT: They do not see any connection between their being abused by others, and their own abuse of others. This is one of the "defects" in their consciences. And I wonder if this could also be a cause for the radical and seemingly irreconcilable differences between the logic and reasoning of the sociopath and that of the non-sociopath. The very way they think and feel seems to be so different.

Intelligence does not play much of a role here. Sociopathy most likely developed as a combination of genetic inheritance plus environmental influences while growing up. So, can a sociopath really be blamed for being the way he is? I think not. But the fact remains that he can and does harm other people. And these other people also have the right to be protected from the sociopath's misdeeds.

I've recently read that a lab test has been devised that can objectively detect sociopathy in people. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is used. When the average person is shown a movie of cruelty, brutality, torture...etc..., the center for unpleasant emotions in his brain becomes aroused. And because of the increased brain activity, more blood goes to that particular area. This shows up in the MRI as an enlargement of the arteries supplying more blood to that part of the brain. Since the sociopath feels little or no compassion for others in pain, his MRI shows no such change. And this identifies him. Or, if he is also a sadist and enjoys the cruelty shown, the "pleasure center " (which is in a different area of the brain) becomes aroused. This is also identifiable in the MRI.

Is it possible that the above might lead to a compulsory testing of all future candidates for high positions -- whether public or private? Hardly! Why not? Tests may be helpful, but they are not fool-proof. And
there is also the question of the invasion of one's civil liberties.

I believe that the actions of the Bush Administration over the past eight years are strongly indicative of
sociopathic traits. Let's look at a few examples:

a. Lying our nation into an illegal and immoral war against Iraq for that nation's oil. (Lying, greed, deceit, fraud, robbery, mass murder -- 4,000+ American military, unkown numbers of Iraqi military, and 1,300,000+
innocent Iraqi civilians killed caught in the fire)
b. Torturing of prisoners, which is against our own national laws as well as those of the Geneva Convention.
(Violation of others' rights, total absence of human compassion, and sadism)
c. Awarding no-bid government contracts to favored business corporations. (Corruption, waste and misuse
of taxpayer money)
d. Allowing business corporations to do as they pleased, without supervision, resulting in the large-scale
corruption and economic disaster that our nation and the world are facing today. (Greed, deceit,
massive corruption, stealing from the people) ...and on and on... ad infinitum.

From the above we see that when sociopaths get into positions of power, they'd try to enrich themselves through any means. SOCIOPATHY is the PERSONALITY OF THE CRIMINAL (although not all criminals are sociopaths). Fomenting trouble lies in the core of its very nature. And sociopaths can be found in all political parties - but the Bush Administration seems to have been the place where too many high-placed sociopaths have found their own true home.

With sociopaths in power, the conclusion can hardly be avoided that there always will be wars. They cannot resist the urge to violate other people's rights and to rip them off, when they smell profit in the air. And their victims, of course, sooner or later will fight back. The Bush Administration attacked Iraq, a small country of 27 million people with no ability to do us harm. Just imagine having a major war with a powerful nation! With the science and technology of today, there might be NO WINNERS, ONLY LOSERS! I don't think we're ready to self-destruct yet, are we?

Yes, sociopaths are simply too dangerous! One way of having fewer of them in high places is by way of the vote. To this end, new fool-proof election laws have to be enacted. They are an absolute necessity! Without them democracy will not survive for long.

Honest elections represent only one method of reducing their numbers in government, but they do not touch the people in PRIVATE INDUSTRY. And we have seen above how sociopaths in government and private industry come to the aid of one another in their quest for more profits -- which is exactly what happened to excess during the disaster-filled years of the Bush Administration. Half a centruy ago Eisenhower warned the nation to beware the dangers of the Military/Industrial Complex, but we did not heed him. This double-whammy assault from the sociopaths in both government and private industry was too much for the American people to absorb, and our present global economic chaos is the result.

What to do about the sociopaths who exercise such a strangle-hold power on business in the private sector? Congress, of course, could enact fair but strict laws, without loopholes, to prevent dishonest practices. But big business, as usual, will fight to the death against such attempts. And we know how
successful their lobbying, propaganda and money can be.

There probably are other effective ways of shaking loose the death-grip sociopaths have on our nation. I wonder if a combination of experts from different fields, such as economists, lawyers and mental health porfessionals experienced in the area of sociopathy, might work together in looking for answers on how to deal with the large-scale corrupt practices of business corporations. This will be a long, slow and arduous process. The sooner it gets started, the better. The very life of our nation as a free society is at stake.

I hope more of us will become aware of this vast problem and recognize it for what it is -- a nation-wide disease that has a devastating effect on every single one of us -- man, woman and child. It is our national sickness. And sociopaths are not about to cure themselves by changing. They cannot change their ways, but we can change ours. We must find the means to effectively curtail their numbers and influence in high places -- regardless of party affiliation. Not to do so would be to fail in our duty to ourseves, our children and all future generations.

Many of us do not yet see this dangerous and pervasive cancerous growth for what it really is. Does the above presentation sound logical to you, that it is the misdeeds of the high-placed sociopaths in both the public and private sectors that are a main cause of the economic and general chaos in our nation and elsewhere today - and over the past centuries as well?

If you agree with the above, would you pass this message along to your friends, and ask them to do the same?
I don't think we can afford to wait much longer.