This is tangential, but it's striking to me that in today's egalitarian culture sociopaths are so obviously outside the umbrella of protection from generalization.
With most groups, especially disadvantaged groups, we hesitate to make any negative generalization. For example, I would never say, "blind people excel at subtle manipulation; they learn this skill in order to work around their inherent social deficiencies." In fact, I wouldn't even make any negative generalizations even when I have reason to believe they are probably true, like "blind people tend to be less productive programmers."
I just think it's fascinating how sociopaths are totally barred from this protection. We really do fear them, and that fear puts them out in the cold, outside the usual embrace of diversity. I wonder if you could make the statements you've just made about any other group of people with a genetic condition without incurring the wrath of the community or even the moderators.
I'm really not moral grandstanding here. I'm not sure you're correct about typical sociopath behavior, but if you are then I have no issue with you saying it. I'm only pointing it out because I'm genuinely fascinated by this exception to a very strong cultural norm.
This is a really important point. One of the problems with the diagnosis of psychopathy, and ASPD in general, is that psychologists hate their patients with this diagnosis, and ironically, feel very little empathy for them. The result is that pop-psychology paints them as incurably evil. The problem is that if you give the standard psycopathy test to a random sample of the population, about 1% of people meet the clinical diagnosis, many of whom lead perfectly normal lives!
While psychopaths are heavily over represented in prison populations, most criminals are not psychopaths, and most psychopaths are not criminals.
Psychopaths aren't usually terribly dangerous. Don't lend them money, but almost certainly they won't kill or steal from you! (people with borderline personality disorder, a terrible and debilitating disease, are far more dangerous to the people in their lives)
Psychopaths are perfectly capable of behaving morally. They lack to a degree the emotional aspects of personal morality, but they can certainly reason morally, and thus can be productive members of society. The idea that they don't have emotions is an exaggeration. They do have emotions, though these emotions can be unusual or weak, and they can suffer. We should have empathy for them, even if they may not have for us
>Psychologists hate their patients with this diagnosis, and ironically, feel very little empathy for them.
I've seen no evidence in the clinical literature that psychologists hate these patients, just that their is little help that can be provided them, especially given their propensity for manipulation and deceit. Talk therapy has been proven to actually polish their skills in these domains and there are no drugs or other treatments that can develop the capacity for empathy or remorse where none exists. The best one can hope for is that they can be instilled with a kind of risk vs. reward calculus that will prevent them from indulging the more extreme aspects of their behavior. But this largely is largely determined by their level of intelligence and upbringing.
>Psychopaths aren't usually terribly dangerous.
This depends on your definition of dangerous. Not every psychopath is violent, but they almost universally engage in constant lying, manipulation, exploitation, and pushing of boundaries, which take, at the very least, a strong psychological toll on those around them. If you end up working for a psychopath or in a relationship with one, your life is likely to be more miserable than not, regardless of whether they behave in an explicitly antisocial fashion.
Sociopaths don't necessarily have malicious feelings toward others. The problem is that they have very little true feeling at all for others, which allows them to treat others as objects.
With most groups, especially disadvantaged groups, we hesitate to make any negative generalization. For example, I would never say, "blind people excel at subtle manipulation; they learn this skill in order to work around their inherent social deficiencies." In fact, I wouldn't even make any negative generalizations even when I have reason to believe they are probably true, like "blind people tend to be less productive programmers."
I just think it's fascinating how sociopaths are totally barred from this protection. We really do fear them, and that fear puts them out in the cold, outside the usual embrace of diversity. I wonder if you could make the statements you've just made about any other group of people with a genetic condition without incurring the wrath of the community or even the moderators.
I'm really not moral grandstanding here. I'm not sure you're correct about typical sociopath behavior, but if you are then I have no issue with you saying it. I'm only pointing it out because I'm genuinely fascinated by this exception to a very strong cultural norm.