Is Evil Impotent or Virile?

[Brant Gaede]

Evil is not impotent when good and evil are in one person. Consider the career--especially the war career--of Albert Speer.

--Brant

the good was his ability, the bad was his personal subjugation to Hitler--so, he sanctioned himself?

[Brant Gaede]

The basic problem is not that Rand was incorrect about the impotence of evil, but that evil was/is in people, not out there--metaphysically (existentially) speaking, and people are quite complicated.

--Brant

[Dennis Hardin]

Dennis,

Getting back to criminals, I have known people totally without a conscience. The popular terms for them are psychopaths and sociopaths. But I don't like these terms because they hint at mental disturbance. The ones I have known, including some who were criminals, were not disturbed in the slightest. They were simply missing a moral compass and any sense of guilt for harming others.

Michael

I really don’t understand this comment, Michael.

In addition to deception and impulsiveness, The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual includes the following criteria for “antisocial personality disorder”:

(1) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;

(2)lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

Dennis,

I was using the standard of "miserable" that you claimed they must feel.

They all looked perfectly happy to me and did not show signs of inner turmoil at all (which I understand as "disturbed" and "miserable"). From what I could tell, their degree of self-acceptance was quite high.

They had other issues, as I laid out, but angst was not among them.

If you want to use another standard for "mentally disturbed" versus "mentally not disturbed" like exercising a conceptual mentailiity as given in Objectivism or something like that, I can see it. But I don't use the langauage in that way.

I see these people as mentally lacking a component and morally scum, but not as "disturbed." The ones I knew were quite upbeat the vast majority of the time.

Calling these people "mentally disturbed" to me is like saying an amputee has a "diseased" right leg so he can't walk. The fact is he has no right leg at all and he walks using an artifical right leg.

EDIT: To try put it in a clearer light, if you are using the term "miserable" or "disturbed" to mean that these people are morally repugnant ("He's one miserable SOB" or "He's one disturbed SOB") I agree with you. If you are claiming that these people feel miserable inside and are unable to be happy, my experience does not bear this out.

And I cannot bear false witness to my own eyes. I could possibly agree that there is some hidden thing I am not seeing, but not the exact opposite of what I have seen after the years of close contact I had with them, where I got to see plenty, and my later study and reflection.

Michael

[Xray]

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

"Anti-conceptual" level? There are no indicators that e. g. a professional criminal acribically planning a deed operates on the basis of range-of-the-moment functioning. Every non-mentally impaired individual forms concepts. Doesn't e. g. a bank robber have a very clear concept of what a bank is? Criminals are often quite intelligent and have no cognitve impairment that would cause them to have epistemological problems.

I have the impression that by "anti-conceptual" mentality, Rand really means 'unethical' mentality.

[BaalChatzaf]

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

Are folks like this necessarily out of touch with reality? As long as someone is aware of what is happening in his/her domain of knowledge and perception they are not psychopaths. They might be sociopaths. If their sociopathology is within the bounds of the law then at worst they are nuisances and unpleasant to have around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Does there exist a characteristic component of "evil" that is present, without exception, in all evil acts? Imo this component it is always a lack of empathy on the part of the agent toward the targets of his/her act.

[Dennis Hardin]

Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

Dennis,

I was using the standard of "miserable" that you claimed they must feel.

They all looked perfectly happy to me and did not show signs of inner turmoil at all (which I understand as "disturbed" and "miserable"). From what I could tell, their degree of self-acceptance was quite high.

They had other issues, as I laid out, but angst was not among them.

If you want to use another standard for "mentally disturbed" versus "mentally not disturbed" like exercising a conceptual mentailiity as given in Objectivism or something like that, I can see it. But I don't use the langauage in that way.

Michael,

Looks like this is a semantical difference. I thought you were using the term in the clinical sense of “mental disturbance”--i.e., a mental disorder (e.g., Antisocial Personality Disorder). For all the reasons cited in my prior post, I see criminals as having a mental disorder.

I see these people as mentally lacking a component and morally scum, but not as "disturbed." The ones I knew were quite upbeat the vast majority of the time.

And I cannot bear false witness to my own eyes. I could possibly agree that there is some hidden thing I am not seeing, but not the exact opposite of what I have seen after the years of close contact I had with them, where I got to see plenty, and my later study and reflection.

Michael

I would say that yes, there is something you are not seeing--because they do a terrific job of concealing their chronic state of inner turmoil from others as well as themselves. They cut themselves off from the awareness of their suffering just as they cut themselves off from feelings in general. They retain the ability to have some limited enjoyment of immediate pleasures, such as food and sex, but on the same level as that of lower animals.

[Dennis Hardin]

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

Are folks like this necessarily out of touch with reality? As long as someone is aware of what is happening in his/her domain of knowledge and perception they are not psychopaths. They might be sociopaths. If their sociopathology is within the bounds of the law then at worst they are nuisances and unpleasant to have around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There is a fairly clear distinction in psychology between psychosis and other, less severe mental disorders. A person who is out of touch with reality is deemed psychotic. Schizophrenia, to use a clinical term familiar to most people, is a psychotic disorder (although many schizophrenics are quite functional with the right medication). There are a great many categories of mental disorders that do not usually involve what is known as a "psychotic break."

[Dennis Hardin]

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

"Anti-conceptual" level? There are no indicators that e. g. a professional criminal acribically planning a deed operates on the basis of range-of-the-moment functioning. Every non-mentally impaired individual forms concepts. Doesn't e. g. a bank robber have a very clear concept of what a bank is? Criminals are often quite intelligent and have no cognitve impairment that would cause them to have epistemological problems.

I have the impression that by "anti-conceptual" mentality, Rand really means 'unethical' mentality.

No human being can function completely without some primitive concepts, and no human being can avoid some dim awareness of potential future consequences of his actions. We are talking about very significant differences of degree here.

[Brant Gaede]

Antisocial PD is commonly associated with the criminal personality, which is brazenly pathological. Their lack of a conscience indicates something seriously wrong mentally. In addition, their utter lack of personal responsibility and range-of-the-moment functioning strongly suggests that they prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level. Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?

"Anti-conceptual" level? There are no indicators that e. g. a professional criminal acribically planning a deed operates on the basis of range-of-the-moment functioning. Every non-mentally impaired individual forms concepts. Doesn't e. g. a bank robber have a very clear concept of what a bank is? Criminals are often quite intelligent and have no cognitve impairment that would cause them to have epistemological problems.

I have the impression that by "anti-conceptual" mentality, Rand really means 'unethical' mentality.

No human being can function completely without some primitive concepts, and no human being can avoid some dim awareness of potential future consequences of his actions. We are talking about very significant differences of degree here.

It's not how the other person evaluates himself/herself, it's how we evaluate and deal--if we have to and should--with what is done and not done by same.

--Brant

[anthony]

About opposing evil. I do not doubt that we are passing through one of the most

objectively non-judgmental eras.

Mass evil wins by stealth, by increments: if the people can be made to fear, we can offer

them this; if this works, then we can give them that; then, they will swallow anything.

Nothing works better than appeals to duty, egalitarianism, and tribalism - and vague

arguments from emotionalism. Everything subjective.

As long as objective moral judgment is considered passe, or harsh, we continue to seed the ground for future

evil on a grand scale.

"They are doing it for our own good" and, "Oh, he doesn't really mean what he says!" - are the tell-tale signs

of a new dictator on the rise. "Yes, I believe every word literally", and "I'll take care of myself", are the antidotes.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Looks like this is a semantical difference. I thought you were using the term in the clinical sense of “mental disturbance”--i.e., a mental disorder (e.g., Antisocial Personality Disorder).

Dennis,

I have no problem with using the term "mental disturbance" to include the mentality of a sociopath (altough you did refer me to thesaurus and not a dictionary).

I don't like the implication in this term, though, that there was something normal that existed and it got disturbed, rather than something that came into being as a condition from birth. Ditto for disorder.

I don't like these terms because of this kind of lack of precision. I much perfer terms like "not normal" or "mentally ill" as these refer to general standards you can observe like normal or health. What's the opposite of disturbed? Calm? Relaxed? Or what's the opposite of disorderd? Neat? Ordered? So what kind of observable standard can you get from those opposites?

But if the psychological jargon is that way, it's that way.

My real problem comes when "disturbance" suddenly turns into "miserable" and "drug abuser" as synonyms. I simply have known too many criminal sociopaths who were not miserable and did not use drugs to accept that without disagreeing. I'm fine saying they have a clinical mental disturbance (i.e., they are sociopaths, so they lack empathy and so on). I am totally unconvinced that they must be miserable or abuse drugs as part of it.

I would say that yes, there is something you are not seeing--because they do a terrific job of concealing their chronic state of inner turmoil from others as well as themselves.

This is what I'm talking about.

Using this kind of reasoning, I could say that even though the people I knew didn't use drugs because of their chronic misery (as you claimed they must feel), they secretly wanted to and were very good at concealing this, both from themselves and from others.

Or I could turn this around and say there is something you are not seeing--them. You don't know them and never met them. So when you say you know something hidden about them that I am not seeing, I have to take your lack of familiarity with them into account.

Or I could say that everybody is good at hiding their emotions on some level and for some situations, and that everybody has to deal with inner issues that cause them to be unhappy at times.

Or I could start looking for fMRI scan studies (there must be some out there on sociopaths by now) and see what parts of the brain light up with test subjects and what the patterns are under controlled testing conditions. Including the criteria used for choosing these subjects.

Or I could probably go in a million different directions. All this is speculation anyway so, until I can find a good reason to think otherwise, I prefer to stay with what I see, have learned and can verify.

If that means saying that the sociopaths I knew for years were not miserable and didn't use drugs--at least not whenever I was around them, nor did other people who knew them that I knew notice these things--then so be it.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree.

Michael

[Xray]

But Rand would say that any "power" evil may achieve is inherently destructive.

<...>

Coercion does not create a properly human mode of existence, and destroys the lives, well-being and happiness of all those involved in it. That is the sense in which it is inherently destructive.

What about e. g. the conquest of the American continent which involved many 'evil' acts against the natives, but still ended up with America becoming one of the most flourishing and wealthy nations on earth?

The role of evil in human history is quite complex. Past societies probably did not regard many acts as "evil" which we would call "evil" in our time.

I venture to say that no individual currently alive would have been born if countless of our human ancestors in past millenia had not committed 'evil' acts in the course of the struggle for survival, for power hunger, etc.

[Brant Gaede]

I suppose, too, Michael, that there were/are many criminal sociopaths who did/do use drugs and were/are not happy and were/are in prison so you didn't/don't know them as their street life was/is unnaturally limited by the consequent incompetence..

--Brant

[Peter]

Xray wrote:

What about e.g., the conquest of the American continent which involved many 'evil' acts against the natives, but still ended up with America becoming one of the most flourishing and wealthy nations on earth? The role of evil in human history is quite complex. I venture to say that no individual currently alive would have been born if countless of our human ancestors in past millennia had not committed 'evil' acts in the course of the struggle for survival, for power hunger, etc.

end quote

Evil acts may lead to good though their intentions were evil? Now that is an interesting turn, with too many historical “what ifs,” to be answerable. I would not praise evil, even if subsequent events turned out well. Sure, it is causation at work but the good coming from evil is in spite of the evil, not because of it. “We must save them by destroying them” is a logical contradiction. If World Wars did not happen, then we would not be as scientifically and politically advanced as we are now, is a contradiction. Instead, I would subscribe to the paradigms of good = The Reformation, The Enlightenment, The Industrial Revolution, The Age of Electronics, The Space Age, The Computer and Digital Age, and I welcome an age of Star-Trek’ing, to boldly go where no one has gone before in the 24^th Century. Let us, The Good, make it happen.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Brant Gaede]

But Rand would say that any "power" evil may achieve is inherently destructive.

<...>

Coercion does not create a properly human mode of existence, and destroys the lives, well-being and happiness of all those involved in it. That is the sense in which it is inherently destructive.

What about e. g. the conquest of the American continent which involved many 'evil' acts against the natives, but still ended up with America becoming one of the most flourishing and wealthy nations on earth?

The role of evil in human history is quite complex. I venture to say that no individual currently alive would have been born if countless of our human ancestors in past millenia had not committed 'evil' acts in the course of the struggle for survival, for power hunger, etc.

If, say, three million Americans conquered the continent and 100,000 had real blood of the natives on their hands by what should have been objectively known as acts of gross criminality, how is it fair to paint the remaining 2.9 million with the same brush and how is it fair simply to let the natives off the hook for similar harm some of them may have done to Americans and members of other tribes? Before the white man came there were merely many dfference tribes bumping up against each other in various conflicts frequently resulting in displacement of one by another by the use of horrific violence. Then this big white tribe came and did to the reds what they had been doing to each other, on the one hand cursing the reds with violence and disease like smallpox and influenza and blessing them with the very imperfect rule of law on the other. The real questions here are whose rights are being violated today by whom for why, not whether wealth seemingly rooted in previous centuries is anybody's by right at all? Did you earn it? Did you produce it? Did you make it? Did you trade for it?

--Brant

I know my own hands aren't entirely clean because I live in a mixed economy: A piece of gold may have been mined by Soviet slave labor, etc.

[william.scherk]

Or I could start looking for fMRI scan studies (there must be some out there on sociopaths by now) and see what parts of the brain light up with test subjects and what the patterns are under controlled testing conditions. Including the criteria used for choosing these subjects.

Great point, Michael. It surprises me that a psychotherapist/author like Dennis Hardin is so categorical in his dicta.

First you introduced criminals you have known without a conscience (psychopath/sociopath**). You described them. You clarified that you do not like terms that hint at "disturbance" in the sense of angst, torment, pain and suffering.

You noted lack of conscience, missing moral compass, missing sense of guilt for harming others (as Angela points out, another name for lack of empathy).

I remember many bits of information on OL regarding sociopathy over the years. I think someone, maybe you, may have posted neurology on the genesis of disempathetic syndromes/APD/frontal lobe abnormalities. I also recall sharply a prospective study that followed young brain injury patients. The kids went on to develop several hallmarks of sociopathy such as impulsiveness, lack of conscience, inability to feel guilt, etcetera. As I recall, that study did not measure emotions such as Dennis implies must be there, seething. But I may be wrong in my recall.

Dennis did not understand your statement that simply takes issue with the implication of angst and suffering. He said, "I really don’t understand this comment."

(I thought to myself of some high-grade sociopathic monsters in the news the last half-century. On the one hand, supporting Dennis, would be John Wayne Gacy, who was alternatively Bubbles the Clown for charity -- and someone who piled young male corpses downstairs till his wife complained of the stink. Gacy was quoted as saying to a friend: "I do bad things, but I do good things, too."

On the other hand, supporting MSK, might be the implacable cool of Jeffrey Dahmer and Willy Picton and Ted Bundy and on and on. Did these guys suffer torments such as Dennis sketches? I think not.)

Michael, by your witness you counter Dennis's suggestion that every last one of your acquaintances (who were perhaps sociopathic) were suffused with a hidden suffering that he can see from California. He said, "Why would you say that people with these deeply ingrained characteristics are not mentally disturbed?"

Now, strangely, Dennis hauls out the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, and points to criteria that support your observations. But he does not cite anything from the DSM to support his own. Where are the necessary emotions that Dennis tells us must be there -- can he find this general observation in the DSM? Dennis claims that sociopaths as designated by DSM criteria "do a terrific job of concealing their chronic state of inner turmoil from others as well as themselves. They cut themselves off from the awareness of their suffering."

How does he support this?

Well, ultimately, both of you are on the side of rational inquiry into this matter, so I will go all diligent on you both, and dig up fMRI findings from the population at issue, the sociopathic cohort you are at least both describing.

Is there an already staked out field of inquiry? I would say so. It isn't a new question, measuring emotion, pain, torment, mood, baseline, fear, rage.

Certain emotions I believe have long be assessed physiologically without fMRI. Simple experiments were no doubt done back in Wundt's day, with galvanometers, to try to find a physiological 'signal' for emotions -- not relying on the face or gesture to compare against the results of 'scientific introspection,' and psychological instruments have most certainly advanced.

What I will specifically look for are 'hallmark' physiology: the emotions that can be read by some kind of instrument reliably. If there are discrete markers in physiology for things like misery, torment, or other chronic states of inner turmoil -- great. If there are no markers for these Hardin labels I may have to choose things from either the Tone Scale or Plutchik to narrow my inquiries!

This is the question posed by Michael and answered by Dennis: Are sociopaths 'disturbed' by feelings of misery, inner turmoil, suffering?

Dennis says, Indubitably. Michael says, Inquire.

_____________________

** Anyone who thinks they know anything about psychopathy/sociopathy should know all about Robert Hare, his work and measures. Let me ask Dennis Hardin directly: have you even had occasion to assess someone formally using any of the Hare scales?

[Xray]

I would not praise evil, even if subsequent events turned out well.

I would not praise evil either, no matter what the outcome.

I'm interested in establishing a list of components present in all 'evil' acts, in order to get an objective, factual basis we can refer to.

The component 'wanting to exert power' over one or more individuals has been mentioned upthread (in a slightly modified context); if we add 'lack of empathy': would everyone here agree that these components are always present in acts of evil? (I'm putting this to the test - counter examples are welcome).

[william.scherk]

I'm interested in establishing a list of components present in all 'evil' acts, in order to get an objective, factual basis we can refer to.

The component 'wanting to exert power' over one or more individuals has been mentioned upthread (in a slightly modifed context); if we add 'lack of empathy': would everyone here agree that these components are always present in acts of evil? (I'm putting this to the test - counter examples are welcome).

Good insight. Objectivist Living-ites like you and me and most everybody are constantly doing sets of criteria. If we are to get closer and closer to understanding both the word and the reality of evil it makes most sense to isolate evil in acts.

I think that every last responsible inquirer on this thread believes that one can find evil in evil acts. We agree that there are evil acts (although we might separately disagree with the catalogue). Thus we could agree that we should look at evil acts to see if we can tease out further mutually-agreed factors in the behaviour.

But first, please, add the factor of effect. Remember that we discern something negative in evil, something that throbs in every single definition of evil that we can find in all the world's dictionaries and all the world's thesauruses in all the world's languages that define something quite like evul.

Harm. (and cognates, of course, each also throbbing: pain, damage, blood, suffering, terror, death, horror, torture, misery, grief)

You need more than one set of eyes to properly operationalize, perhaps. Why don't you borrow the concept of 'marker,' Angela? This would be criteria collapsed into label. You want markers of evil, I think

If you use this, you have the item concept: Act on one axis, markers on other, with the question uppermost: can we actually measure evil or something like it?

So, perhaps something like an x reflecting ACT against the y reflecting markers like an INTENT and a SUBJECT and an OBJECT and a RESULT.

These are all the things I take it we have or will have generally agreed upon, in sentence form:

We can catalogue acts that intentionally bring harm to individual human beings. We can discern in that catalogue acts that are marked or inscribed as not merely harmful, not merely bad, not merely criminal, not merely cruel or horrible, but inscribed by the powerful word Evil. By separating, weighing and sorting components or factors of such evil acts, we may be able to discern evil more clearly.

[Edit: Bill will try to jam in an illustrative and potentially annoying HTML table here]

<table style="text-align: center; width: 744px; height: 209px;" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br> </td> <td colspan="3" rowspan="1" style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;">SUFFICIENT MARKERS OF EVIL?<br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 77px;">OBJECT<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 67px;">INTENT<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 11px;">ACT<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 78px;">SUBJECT<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 90px;">RESULT<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">DISEMPATHY<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">ITEM 2<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;">ITEM 3<br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 77px;">Human<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 67px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 11px;"> Killing<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 78px;">Human<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 90px;">Death<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;">?<br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 77px;">Human <br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 67px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 11px;">Killing<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 78px;">Dog<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 90px;">Death<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;">?<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;">?<br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 77px;">Human<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 67px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 11px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 78px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 90px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;"><br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 77px;">Human<br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 67px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 11px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 78px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 90px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 120px;"><br> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 107px;"><br> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

An ACT that BRINGS HARM to a HUMAN BEING by INTENT marked by egregious behaviour (without justice, without mercy, without regret, without empathy, without thought, without fully considering its consequences).

________________________

Of course, Angela, I realize we all set sail on the Subjective Sea when we go to capture Evil (Evul is much easier to net), wouldn't you agree? Like you, I think multiple perspectives and much argument leads to best results. Seeking objective answers to life's vexed questions is valid and valorous in my scheme of values, even when such seeking stumbles.

Edited January 9, 2012 by william.scherk

[BaalChatzaf]

An ACT that BRINGS HARM to a HUMAN BEING by INTENT marked by egregious behaviour (without justice, without mercy, without regret, without empathy, without thought, without fully considering its consequences).

________________________

Where does killing an enemy in time of war fit in this scheme?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dennis Hardin]

I would say that yes, there is something you are not seeing--because they do a terrific job of concealing their chronic state of inner turmoil from others as well as themselves.

This is what I'm talking about.

Using this kind of reasoning, I could say that even though the people I knew didn't use drugs because of their chronic misery (as you claimed they must feel), they secretly wanted to and were very good at concealing this, both from themselves and from others.

Or I could turn this around and say there is something you are not seeing--them. You don't know them and never met them. So when you say you know something hidden about them that I am not seeing, I have to take your lack of familiarity with them into account.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree.

Michael

Michael,

In the field of psychology, given the fact that each of us is confined to our own inner experience and that we cannot see inside each other’s minds, a certain amount of speculation is obviously required. You have your experience with sociopaths and, as a therapist, I have mine.

Perhaps one day the field of psychology will become an exact science. Until then, issues like this will doubtless remain controversial. I am simply defending my point of view, and I am not alone in holding it. Here is a quote from Robert Hare, whose works on psychopathology are well-known.

Psychopaths seem to suffer a kind of emotional poverty that limits the range and depth of their feelings. While at times they appear cold and unemotional, they are prone to dramatic, shallow, and short-lived displays of feeling. Careful observers are left with the impression that they are play-acting and that little is going on below the surface.

Robert Hare, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, p. 52

Hare also states that psychopaths have “an ongoing and excessive need for excitement,” which is also consistent with someone who has an obsessive need to escape emotional self-awareness.

These are classic descriptions of a human being suffering from massive emotional repression and self-alienation. If you have read the discussions of these topics by Nathaniel Branden in his books, and you still think such people can be genuinely happy in any meaningful sense of that term, then there is simply no point in continuing this discussion further.

As you say, we will just have to agree to disagree. Let's drop it.

[william.scherk]

[sociopaths] do a terrific job of concealing their chronic state of inner turmoil from others as well as themselves.

This is your statement or claim, but you have not been able to dig up one single piece of evidence to warrant your enthusiasm.

In the field of psychology, given the fact that each of us is confined to our own inner experience and that we cannot see inside each other’s minds, a certain amount of speculation is obviously required. You have your experience with sociopaths and, as a therapist, I have mine.

This is a dodge. You have been asked to provide some support for your contentions above, but you have not provided anything. You, as a licensed (I presume) therapist in California (licensed in what capacity is not known**) claim expertise in sociopathy. I am glad you are explicit. You have had a sociopath (at least one) as a client, you claim. This is why I asked you if you had ever had need to use Hare's instruments formally. I should mention that you may have examined someone for sociopathy while being paid by another, such as an attorney at law. But I should not be surprised to learn nothing about your clinical practice, because -- unlike Nathaniel Branden PhD -- you have not published articles or books or given lectures or courses. He describes his therapy. You do not.)

Perhaps one day the field of psychology will become an exact science.

You know what? While you have been pontificating on matters psychological (such as your pronouncements on sociopathy) psychology -- in the guise of Robert Hare and his peers -- have been publishing and reviewing and validating a whole raft of instruments for detecting and assessing sociopathy. Maybe we will not call psychology a science for a good many centuries, but in the meantime, did you not want to have a peek at progress since your PhD? (which reminds me, we know where Nathaniel Branden, PhD got his doctorate and in what and under what supervision, and we know where John Lewis got his PhD and we know where Robert Campbell and others here on OL got their PhD. Where did you get yours?)

Have you used Hare's checklist, at least? Maybe the one in his book?

Until then, issues like this will doubtless remain controversial.

Doubtless you will have nothing more to say on sociopathy until such controversies are decided in the field. Meanwhile, please do not discourage Michael or I or anyone who is actually seeking to test your statements for truth and accuracy.

I am simply defending my point of view, and I am not alone in holding it.

Your point of view? Your pronouncements on sociopaths have been challenged. I and everyone else notes here that you have not brought any support for your contentions. If indeed you are Not Alone in pronouncing, it is surely not to much to ask of you that you Name Names. If you are not alone, who is with you, for heaven's sake. Why be so coy with what you know and believe. If there is something that supports your pronouncements, fork it over.

Hare also states that psychopaths have “an ongoing and excessive need for excitement,” which is also consistent with someone who has an obsessive need to escape emotional self-awareness.

Nope. You are grasping at straws trying to validate your own misapprehension. Moreover, these two things are not tied together, dude. A need for excitement is not simply nor does it always imply a need to escape emotional-self awareness. If you had been paying attention and not flattering yourself that you knew your shit, you would have grasped that disempathetic sociopaths are notably not concerned about their lack of empathy. It does not cause them anguish. It is not on their self-reported tone scale.

These are classic descriptions of a human being suffering from massive emotional repression and self-alienation.

Oh gawd. This is just more proclamation, and pretty flatulent and sloppy besides. Emotional repression is so not a part of sociopathy, brother, whether you use a stupid Freudian concept or a stupider neo-Freudian one, and Massive Repression is a weasel term right out of the Kook Workbook that I have long been familiar with.

I wager that you have never properly assessed one single sociopath using the best instruments science has yet produced. I bet you have never written up your notes for possible inclusion in a case study. I bet you have no experience or reading or anything else but a notion to hold to your conception of psychopathy or sociopathy.

If you have read the discussions of these topics by Nathaniel Branden in his books, and you still think such people can be genuinely happy in any meaningful sense of that term, then there is simply no point in continuing this discussion further.

In the trade we call this Hand-Waving. It doesn't even look like an argument. It is like watching a new skater take twenty feet to fall down.

Dennis, you have made some psychological claims about sociopaths. Michael invited inquiry. You are going home to have a nap. Lurching into 'such people' are 'not genuinely happy' shows such a feeble comprehension of the usefulness of Michael's caution to you. For you to turn into an elderly snap turtle before you go for your nap is just so sad.

As you say, we will just have to agree to disagree. Let's drop it.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Okay, everybody. Now that Dennis is 'resting,' we can examine the result of his validation exercise:

Psychopaths seem to suffer a kind of emotional poverty that limits the range and depth of their feelings. While at times they appear cold and unemotional, they are prone to dramatic, shallow, and short-lived displays of feeling. Careful observers are left with the impression that they are play-acting and that little is going on below the surface.

• Emotional poverty
  
• Appear Cold and Unemotional
  
• Prone to dramatic, shallow, short-lived displays of feeling.
  
• Leaves strong impression (on careful observers) of play-acting, that little emotional feeling of these displays.
  

... and/or Dennis's observations ...

• Conceal a chronic state of inner turmoil
  
• Prefer to live on an animal-like, anti-conceptual level
  
• Cut themselves off from the awareness of their suffering
  
• Retain the ability to have some limited enjoyment of immediate pleasures, such as food and sex
  
• Resist any sort of genuine therapeutic interaction.
  
• Go to therapists because they are court-ordered to do so
  
• Go to therapists because they hope that attending therapy will convnce the world they have reformed
  
• Able to enjoy mindless, range-of-the-moment "pleasures"
  
• Chronic sense of futility and self-doub
  
• Can achieve nothing remotely resembling a satisfying life.
  

_____________

** I should mention that I have more than a glancing familiarity with California licensing laws. In BC, I can put up a shingle announcing Psychotherapy and get to business. I do not need to register anything else but my business. I can call myself a Psychotherapist and not cross one single legal line by doing so. I have no beef with ethical, responsible and well-informed psychotherapists whether licensed or not, whether psychologists or not. So, I do not mean to harry Dennis for his credentials, just wondering if all that stuff is a secret or something, since it hasn't yet been mentioned, and is not obvious at Dennis's website.

One of the people whom I drew fire from during the memory wars was Diana Napolis, MA. She was, for a time, an officer of the court charged with the best interests of children finding themselves in abuse proceedings. She was a ritual abuse nutcase, so you can guess the rest (she was the worst). She had a license as a Marriage and Family Counsellor. She ran with it and ended up like this. She ran with her initial enthusiasm and ran it into severe mental illness. She 'helped' children with their Massive Repression of satanic ritual abuse.

Nathaniel Branden's PhD is one of the reasons I am not the world's biggest fan. It was from the California Graduate Institute.

Psychology can only be a science in the way Lysenkoism was a science.

And in the same way Stalinist Russia was deformed by the kind of theory imposed by Lysenko in biology (which essentially was a gamble that wheat could be 'taught' to grow better), some of the autocracies of psychology are also in hope of a theory's payoff. But the autocracies are smaller, Brant, much smaller, even though they follow the same path to pitfalls as did Stalin and Lysenko. Disengaging from the (scientific) community of debate and discussion and peer-review pays no dividends. Autocratic pronouncements un-accompanied by research are shit, the same shit delivered by cranks and crackpots and solitary nuts since time began. In every field. If we do not have a way to tell the difference between the work of an autocratic crank and the work of a fair inquirer, then we are surely doomed to follow autocrats forever.

The autocracies I have in mind, Brant, are more like impervious cults. And so, within the broad and broadest concept of psychology (understanding behaviour), some people wall themselves off from other people's inquiries. You have complained of his enough in Objective-ish circles to recognize it, I suppose.

Anyhow, whatever brand of Psychological Lysenkoism informed the practice of psychotherapy that you paid for in New York, Brant, what made it so? Was it by paying rigorous attention to, or engaging in debates about best practice? Was it by ignoring the field or inquiry?

[Brant Gaede]

Psychology can only be a science in the way Lysenkoism was a science.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

A good therapist in my experience--N. Branden--does not label clients with a diagnosis. At least he doesn't usually tell them. That would have been by request. Too much chance to be wrong and even if right the client can't do much of anything with it. In the hands of his client, the therapist can be quite helpless if the client doesn't want to work. The trick is to get him to change his mind. I always wanted to work; it got quite theatrical at times. That was 1976.

--Brant