I watched a documentary about psychopathy. The program described brain physiology of the afflicted so there was some explanation for the phenomena. I was mildly interested in that portion so the best I can recall was that there were communication difficulties between the frontal lobe and one other that I can’t remember. Occipital maybe.
Males make up the overwhelming majority of the documented cases and the researchers were able to identify traits that are common to the condition. In fact, one or two of the scientists turned authors had written an instruction manual for recognising and managing the psychopaths among us. The Coles note’s version of traits for psychopath’s lists high IQ, lack of conscience and remorse, lack of empathy, high need for recognition, superficial charm, constant need for stimulation, high end manipulation, crafted or pathological lying, impulsiveness and sometimes criminality.
The idea for the publication is that recognition is necessary for protection, because one way or another your average psychopath is going to leave a trail of regret, misery and destruction for everyone else.
I’m tired of writing psychopath so I’m going to shorten a word. Henceforth psychopath’s will be simply O’paths. This is not meant to imply that Irish people are predominate in the group.
So, back to misery and destruction. For some reason the O’path authors thought they could make a dollar or two by selling their research and identification techniques to corporations. The sale was successful. But instead of using the data to weed out the O’paths the corporations chose to use this new tool to recruit. To be fair to the financial institutions that adopted this hiring method, a tool can be seen differently depending on your perspective. You can dig a hole with a shovel but you can also use it to smack the person in the head that necessitated the excavation. Depends on your requirements I guess.
So why would leaders of industry be attracted to O’paths and believe that type of personality is a good fit for business? Because O’pathy is a bit of a moving target. Not all of the affected are Hannibal Lector. Most are high functioning and successful. In fact if a person were to revisit the character descriptions I listed earlier you could be excused for thinking that the majority of the people on this planet that are interesting fit one or more of the O’path indicators. The corporate Human Resource group obviously felt confident enough to pick the creative and driven and exclude cannibals. I think too, that it was decided in a company strategy session that empathy was a detriment to good business. In other words the corporations felt that being a prick with no remorse was desirable in upper management.
Here is a test that should give you an indication of scale or depth of affliction.
I found the question that affirms honesty kind of amusing. Considering that your average O’path can lie with impunity you would have to wonder about the ease with which they can lie about lying. But, that said if you are going to take the test then it’s prudent to answer the questions as honestly as you can. Remember that honesty means answering the question in terms of who you are and not who you want to be. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if you get right down to the core of O’pathy what you find is selfish and greedy while giving zero fucks. In some ways, that sounds strangely well adjusted. Little or no internal conflict doesn’t mean morally ideal in this case. It just means comfortable and that’s about as good as it gets for an O’path because the key to real O’pathy is the ability to detect and understand emotion while remaining immune to it’s effects.
If you score on the low end of the test there is no need for discouragement. You very likely have some other neurosis or mental condition. I am beginning to think that each and every person on this planet is deranged in some way or another. We probably have always been, but these days we are much better at diagnosing and attributing behaviour to a condition as opposed to a choice. For example, wartime cowardice evolved to battle fatigue and then to PTSD. Similarly, boredom is now ADD or ADHD. There is a psychological or physiological excuse for every behaviour and the pharmaceutical companies are making a fortune medicating the population away from choices they would have made naturally.
Maybe our ability to survive is key here. Up until the last two or maybe three generations the human race perished from shitty nutrition, accidents, war and disease. The more our science prevents those occurrences the larger our population becomes of people who have deteriorating brains. People are working out because sixty is the new forty. We take Krill and vitamin supplements. Our doctors provide blood pressure medication and Insulin and we do our damndest to look after our bodies. Meanwhile our brains deteriorate. Each year it’s suggested that you see your doctor for a physical but we don’t schedule an annual sanity check with a professional.
So, if you assume once maturity is reached that the process of dying begins, then we are taking a lot longer to expire than we used to. We are now provided copious amounts of time to subject our brains to alcohol, every kind of drug, food additive and industrial pollution all the while with no real idea what effect the chemicals are having on our ability to perceive and to reason. We are in the infancy of understanding what all the additives do to our brains and at the same time we are exposed to a world of constant light, noise and motion. There is so much change in our technology that we don’t even make note of it any longer. It would seem logical that even if a person doesn’t take the time to be aware of the incessant noise that surrounds us that our brains are still trying to process the data.
So, everyone is going crazy. Some people quicker than others. Here are some of the ways:
I don’t think this list is all inclusive by any stretch of the imagination. Still, with what is provided I’m going to bet that 99 percent of the population can find at least one disorder they could call their own. I have a sleeping problem just as an example. I’ve learned to live with it but evidently this inability is a disorder and even gets listed as one of the symptoms of an O’path.
So, I guess what we’re headed toward is a planet full of old people with disorders ranging from compulsive to impulsive. From maladaptive daydreaming to morbid jealousy. From panic disorder to pyromania. From transient tic disorder to transient global amnesia.
I can barely wait for the next generation of reality shows. So, the current twenty to thirty something generation……the millennial’s or whatever the fuck you call yourselves. Stop whining about the job market. The future looks bright in pharmaceutical research and sales as well as any mental health option from psychiatry to prison guards.