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writing for godot

What Makes Evil Men Evil?

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Written by Mike Wolf   
Sunday, 08 June 2014 11:37
Adolf Hitler was clearly an evil man. He oversaw the killing of six million people, the vast majority of whom were buried in mass graves. He oversaw the invasion of nations and the enslavement of his own people. Yet this man did not come to power through force, he was freely elected and followed by a majority of the German population.

What made Hitler evil, yet still allowed him to be able to charm an entire population into following his sick, obviously personal agenda? Hitler was a devout Christian. A statesman. A diplomat. A leader. But Hitler was also a damn good liar.

Charm, charisma, a knack for telling really big lies, and a heart of pure evil are the characteristics of people like Adolf Hitler. And these people have a common description they share, one you need to become familiar with for the possibility that your world might be run by lots of other people similarly afflicted as Hitler was. This disease, this element that differentiates a good man from an evil man, is called psychopathy.

It is worthwhile to note that all serial killers are psychopaths. Though it should also be noted that not all psychopaths are serial killers. But they do all have the potential to become serial killers, as dramatized in Charize Theron's brilliant performance in "Monster."

Psychopaths are no more than human beings who failed to develop empathy. The usual, the most common pathology by far, is development in a home where the dominant parent lacks empathy. In other words, psychopaths raise their children to be psychopaths. Learning empathy at the critical age is the only means by which a child can escape the curse of psychopathy; as my childhood and ubringing are dramatic evidence (and thus of course my interest in and familiarity with psychopathy.)

Why must you be concerned about psychopathy? Quite simply because it surrounds you and rules your life. Psychopaths, if my memory serves me correctly, represent a rather small percentage of the population, something like 3%. Prisons are chock full of them, with some 15% of inmates being psychopaths - again if memory serves. But there is a place where psychopaths are quite a bit more frequent and growing in representation - management, especially corporate and, quite disturbingly, in political and even justice arenas. In these areas, psychopaths are saturating the population.

An argument could be made, in fact, that our President is a serial killer.

And all corporations, when examined as the individuals they love to claim to be, demonstrate the precise characteristics of a really big, really powerful psychopath. In fact, they are legislated to be psychopaths (profit is mandated by law.)

This is not an accusation, this is my observation. Having been an outside observer living within the culture of the United States - a cruel side effect of my having escaped the curse of becoming a psychopath myself, as I apparently did so by hanging out with the family dog who apparently neglected to teach me human social skills - I have been in an excellent position to make such observations.

In my mind, the idea of a psychopath running anything is just plain scary. I was raised by a psychopath; who regularly beat us children. I remember quite well seeing both my mother and my stepmother laying in bed the morning after being beaten; bruised and with patches of hair missing. The consequences of my father's actions were quite clear to me, but not to him, and not to my brothers. I also lived with two psychopaths; the first, a woman, tried to get me to get her pregnant so she could have another child to abandon and take the welfare check to another live-in situation; which she did three times before me and at least once since. The second was a man who took over my life and robbed me blind and even physically abused me.

There is a simple test they give as an initial screening for psychopathy. It is based on the theories of moral reasoning and the fact that psychopaths do not reason morally - moral reasoning occurs only when one recognizes his co-dependency with others and with the world around them. That test is touted as a brain teaser, the short version of which goes something like this: a woman attending her uncle's funeral meets a man, falls head over heels in love, but for whatever reason does not get his contact information. Three weeks later she is arrested for killing her sister, why? A normal person would see this as a crime of passion and try to figure out what emotion drove the killing. But a psychopath would not reason that way, and would only see the logic - that if the man attended her uncle's funeral, that he would also attend the daughter's. And as a psychopath always likes to "win," they will see that the information they need is all there in the scenario, and will reason that the sister was the daughter of the uncle, and that the man having attended the father's funeral, would also attend the daughter's.

Psychopaths operate on ego alone; dedicated to their own survival and at any cost. And psychopaths must be right, even if it means changing the entire world to fit their view of it. And in order to feel like they are always winners, psychopaths become addicted, quite easily. This is why many end up in jail - addiction to drugs, the simple way out. And it is also why they end up as captains of industry, of the military, and heads of government: because they work hard to fill their addiction - to power.

Awareness is our greatest asset. If we can become aware of what psychopaths are, what psychopathy is; we can combat it. We can pressure the APA, for example, to adopt Psychopathy as a formal diagnosis; rather than lumping psychopaths in with people who suffer from personality disorder. I am hopeful that the APA can also recognize addiction to power as a disease, one held almost exclusively by psychopaths. That hope of course depends on whether or not the APA is run by psychopaths; who would of course not want to act against their own best interests.

In the meantime, I highly encourage you to read through Lovefraud.com, a website dedicated to the domestic version of the psychopath, a sociopath (the terms are largely interchangeable, but as I understand it, sociopathy is more often discussed in domestic situations, such as the psychopathic woman and man who lived with me.

Spread that awareness as you gain it. Only through universal awareness can the problem be addressed. Once enough people are aware of what psychopathy is and how psychopaths behave and are able to charm us into doing their bidding, we resist them, and not allow them to take positions of power.

For the record, I believe that psychopathy can be cured. As psychopathy is lack of empathy, and as I believe that empathy is what allows humans to spontaneously learn moral reasoning; I believe that teaching human potential in moral reasoning: universal ethics; to a psychopath is all that is needed to cure them. Just some basic education in how to be a human being should be all that's required to, say, cure our politicians and captains of industry and fix the mess the world is in.

But then again, I have been called hopelessly optomistic. But never by anyone familiar with psychopathy now that I think about it... The only way to find out is to study up for yourself.
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