
Behind the Mask: The Myth of the Psychopath - mercer
https://psmag.com/behind-the-mask-the-myth-of-the-psychopath-14e8199c5dab
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RogtamBar
So.. advert for a shitty book by a bunch of psychologists.

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neuronexmachina
Could you elaborate?

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RogtamBar
The article is basically an unhelpful load of bull plugging a book.

Yes, of course the word 'psychopath' is abused.

Yes of course it's not an either-or thing, and a lot of law abiding people
have some features of archetypal psychopaths.

Any psychiatrist would tell you something like this. So, a lot of 'water is
wet' type of filler.

>> The Myth of the Born Criminal argues that, rather than genes, psychopaths'
most significant commonality appears to be an abusive childhood, which related
research has demonstrated can affect the anatomy of the brain in various and
profound ways.<<

The book dismisses all those cases (there are some) where perfectly normal
families produced complete monsters. A good share of serial killers weren't
abused. It's thought that those are just people who happen to express a set of
genes good for social predation. Nice explanation in this abstract:

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14786010802159814...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14786010802159814?src=recsys&journalCode=gjup20)

Also, the article has howlers like:

>>It never occurred to me that Gregory’s behavior in Kenya could be the
product of anything other than his brain, and thus I never asked or inquired
about what might have been going on in his life. I ignored the strong,
decades-long relationship he had with our boss, the sort of relationship that
psychopaths are supposed to be incapable of sustaining.<<

Because whatever goes on in your life of course cannot affect your brain. Why
is this sort of stupid dualism even allowed in the 21st century? A person is
their brain, and their body, taken together. You can't separate it.

