( 1 ) We don't care about your emotions ( 2 ) We don't want to care. ( 3 ) We're just an oppressed minority. The fact that 1 + 2 = incorrigible antisocial behaviour rather negates 3. It's not often that evil mocks us with such chutzpah.
Yeah, I found the whining pretty cringeworthy; for all the kinda romanticising spiel about 'we are non-empaths and you are empaths' like it's humans vs vampires - two different species - I still struggle to find much difference between 'sociopath' and 'fucking arsehole'. I don't care or want to care about their lame self-justification. Morality is part and parcel of self-awareness, personhood: if a wonky chromosome really causes it to disappear I reckon we're no longer talking about an actual person any more. But I don't think this is the case.
Why do I say that morality is part and parcel of personhood? Because if I know that I am then I know that others are. If I know I suffer then I know others suffer. I don't even need to possess the capacity for tender emotions in order to see the significance of this: reason and awareness are sufficient and make their demand for integrity. Even sociopaths want to be 'right'. But do we satisfy ourselves with paltry, pseudo 'rightness' or aim for real truth? If some so-called sociopaths are people who are only different due to congenitally blunted social/empathic faculties, well I say that this does not exclude them from the moral dimension of life or in itself predestine them to evil actions.
Maybe the best trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he's a medical condition.
I do have a sociopath friend or two, people who are deeply ethical and honorable. I trust them. They know they don't have an internal sense of right and wrong, so they've studied and taken on external ones which work better than most people's.
If I ask "does anyone really have an inbuilt sense of right and wrong"? will tahkhleet call me evil?
This is an incredible site, thank you. I've used "sociopath" as an insult, or a dismissive diagnosis, myself before, and it's scary and edifying to read about people coming out about it.
For clarification, I don't think I'm a sociopath, and I'm certainly not posing as one here. I often don't know what to do, and I tend to treat police and other authority figures as dangerous predators, but my sense is that these are normal reactions.
I didn't say anything about "innate sense of right and wrong". I implied, if tersely, that anyone who says they don't care about the emotions of their fellow beings and they don't _want_ to care is _dangerous_. I have seen people with those two traits do damage over and over again in my life and the lives of people I love.
There is only so far tolerance and understanding should go. When someone declares themselves your enemy and then slyly suggests "you can't censure me now (much less act against me) because I've told you the truth about myself, we're all just special case minorities, my unique difference is not qualitatively any better or worse than your unique difference"...is staggeringly disingenous at best.
For every "honorable sociopath" you trot out to "contradict" me...if they had a shred of honesty they would not pretend the group of sociopaths as a whole is a neutral, inoccuous demographic. Because they are a minority and there is no sign "Honorable sociopaths" will be anything else in the forseeable future.
It's odd how well this matches up with many of the major characters in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, which I am now reading, including the central female character, Lisbeth Salander. She is... maybe Asperger's, certainly does not experience emotions neurotypically. And she is a highly moral person, extraordinarily so, although she does not give a f*ck about the law (which has never cared about her). In D&D2 terms I would call her Neutral Good or Chaotic Good, though of course those characterizations aren't nearly rich enough for reality.
Having read only the first one, it seems to be an extended essay in sociopathy and/or Asperger's - I'm inclined to think even Blomkvisk is merely better at maneuvering - while the perceived moral reality of "society" is everywhere revealed to be a hollow sham: a collective idea of "normality" that each character projects onto the world around them, excluding themselves from that picture.
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zvi and
no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 11:45 am (UTC)Impressive
Date: 2010-10-13 12:03 pm (UTC)( 2 ) We don't want to care.
( 3 ) We're just an oppressed minority.
The fact that 1 + 2 = incorrigible antisocial behaviour rather negates 3.
It's not often that evil mocks us with such chutzpah.
Re: Impressive
Date: 2010-10-31 02:26 am (UTC)Why do I say that morality is part and parcel of personhood? Because if I know that I am then I know that others are. If I know I suffer then I know others suffer. I don't even need to possess the capacity for tender emotions in order to see the significance of this: reason and awareness are sufficient and make their demand for integrity. Even sociopaths want to be 'right'. But do we satisfy ourselves with paltry, pseudo 'rightness' or aim for real truth? If some so-called sociopaths are people who are only different due to congenitally blunted social/empathic faculties, well I say that this does not exclude them from the moral dimension of life or in itself predestine them to evil actions.
Maybe the best trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world he's a medical condition.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 01:30 pm (UTC)This is an incredible site, thank you. I've used "sociopath" as an insult, or a dismissive diagnosis, myself before, and it's scary and edifying to read about people coming out about it.
For clarification, I don't think I'm a sociopath, and I'm certainly not posing as one here. I often don't know what to do, and I tend to treat police and other authority figures as dangerous predators, but my sense is that these are normal reactions.
non sequitur
Date: 2010-10-14 12:59 am (UTC)There is only so far tolerance and understanding should go. When someone declares themselves your enemy and then slyly suggests "you can't censure me now (much less act against me) because I've told you the truth about myself, we're all just special case minorities, my unique difference is not qualitatively any better or worse than your unique difference"...is staggeringly disingenous at best.
For every "honorable sociopath" you trot out to "contradict" me...if they had a shred of honesty they would not pretend the group of sociopaths as a whole is a neutral, inoccuous demographic. Because they are a minority and there is no sign "Honorable sociopaths" will be anything else in the forseeable future.
Salander
Date: 2010-10-13 01:34 pm (UTC)Re: Salander
Date: 2010-10-13 01:48 pm (UTC)Makes me wonder about Larsson.