Political Corruption, Wall Street Frauds, and Sociopaths
With so many media people manifesting amazement at the revelations about political corruption and Wall Street scams, one wonders if the media are really amazed or is the surprise just one more example of the fakery endemic in American society.
Is the apparent surprise merely a device to maintain the myth that we're all such wonderful people living in a free-market paradise where scams against the public are so rare nothing needs to be regulated?
The roots of all of this are deep and troubling. Aside from the general American ethic of "money talks"--net worth more important than personal worth--there's a real psychiatric problem.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have learned a few things about what they call "social cognition"--our awareness of our connections to the people around us. People with normally developed social cognition appear to have attributes that foster social understanding. For example, they have what psychologists call a "theory of mind"--the ability to recognize what some person may be thinking from that person's facial expression or from cues related to what that person is doing or saying. Those with normally developed social cognition also have an attribute called "empathy"--the ability to imagine or feel the emotions of another person.
Unfortunately, either as a consequence of variant genes or very early environment or an interaction of both genes and environment, not everyone is operating with a full deck in the social cognition domain.
For example, 30 to 50 percent of all incarcerated criminals in American prisons have measurable problems in social cognition.
Autistic children have problems in social cognition.
Many psychotics such as schizophrenics have problems in social cognition.
Serial killers have special problems with empathy, although they do have good theory of mind--they excel at reading people and manipulating them. But lacking empathy, they can kill without batting an eye.
Sociopaths in general usually have social cognition problems, especially with empathy. They are people who feel nothing when viewing or imagining the pain and suffering of other people.
Most clinical psychologists and psychiatrists use a rating scheme called the Hare Psychopathy Checklist to diagnose sociopathy (also called psychopathy).
Here are some items on the checklist to detect sociopaths:
Glibness and superficial charm. Grandiose sense of self-worth. Pathological lying. Conning and manipulative behavior. Lack of remorse or guilt. Lack of empathy. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.
Yes, we could make a list of politicians and Wall Street scam artists described by the above cluster of traits.
Sociopaths? Labels are just linguistic conveniences that we use to organize reality. We need to keep in mind the continuities in the real world, the gradations, the way traits gradually differ along a spectrum from one person to another, from ordinary to extreme.
Not everyone with the traits of a sociopath is a serial killer. Not everyone with the traits of a sociopath is in prison. Not everyone with the traits of a sociopath is autistic or psychotic.
One can have enough empathy to refrain from homicide, but not enough empathy to refrain from fraud or political callousness that causes harm to many thousands of people.
So if you want to understand how someone can run the huge scam that was Enron, or how someone can rip $50 billion out of the pockets of charities and people, many of whom are "friends," or how some people can be callous about a torture called water-boarding (a "no-brainer," he said), or offer nothing but a shrug when reminded they have caused the death of thousands--if you want to understand the dynamics of these behaviors it might help to remember the continuum that runs from ordinary people with empathy to people with no empathy at all.
It seems that's the real America. Or is it? These days it seems we're living in a society that's a candy store for sociopaths and almost-sociopaths and wannabe-sociopaths.
I don't have a fix. Regulation will help on Wall Street, but it's only a band-aid. The general problem is apparently psychiatric.
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"Political Corruption, Wall Street Frauds, and Sociopaths"...
A.K.A... Today's Republican Party
Sociopaths are probably the biggest problem facing our society that no one seems to know about. Bernie Madoff would probably be diagnosed as one. Unfortunately, most sociopaths are diagnosed only when they're dumb enough to get caught and go to prison. And many, many sociopaths are not dumb. In fact, they can be brilliant.
Sociopaths are responsible for financial fraud, domestic violence, child custody battles, business meltdowns and violence. But because they blend easily into society, most people do not realize that we are living among them.
I am author of a website called Lovefraud.com. Lovefraud's goal is to teach people how to recognize and avoid sociopaths. More than 1,200 people have written to Lovefraud with their stories of destruction at the hands of sociopaths, and some of the tales are truly shocking. But it's rare for the sociopaths to face consequences for their actions. That's because law enforcement and the courts are also unaware of this personality disorder. Sociopaths are calm under pressure and talk a good game, so they often get out of jail free. How do you think Bernie Madoff escaped prior investigations?
The only solution to this problem is education. People need to know that sociopaths exist, and what the warning signs are. And if they see those red flags flying, they need to exit as soon as possible.
With the massive size of corporations it shouldn't be any surprise that sociopaths overpopulate them. The bigger they are & the more complicated their ties, the easier it is to rationalize or bury antisocial behavior. Insiders who object or blow a whistle are likely to punished not praised. Fear rules and individual responsibility doesn't exist, nirvana for madmen.
how refreshing to live in a world of sociopaths...dogs eating dogs under the guise of " individuality"
Yes, apparently Pink Floyd's "Animals" was both realistic and prophetic.
It appears from the article that most of wall st and a lot of our policticians, all the way to the top, fit this description. I have been spotting this for many years since I previously worked in a mental health facility, and saw first hand these personalities. While I hate psychiatric labeling, the behaviors exhibited by these types always bears watching. They can seldom be trusted to do what is right for others. They only see their goals and how to get to them. Often when caught in their misdeeds, they flaunt their actions, almost defying others to "catch them". Of course they are often caught and thus the prisons, and psychiatric hospitals are full of these types. Unfortunately some are not noticed and continue their quest to achieve their goals, be it more money, or more attention.
Sometimes the best politicians are not those who are charming, but those who are serious and quiet.
I have never liked to prejudge people, but people do seem to follow a pattern. If there are a lot of 'rumors' it would be best not to totally ignore them.
Your reputation follows you wherever you go. It goes ahead of you and stays behind you.
'Glibness and superficial charm. Grandiose sense of self-worth. Pathological lying. Cunning and manipulative behavior. Lack of remorse or guilt. Lack of empathy. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.'
Chapeau! Not a moment too early to apply the full force of psychiatry to the problem at hand. Not only psychiatry, but everything including psychiatry - because nothing less will do!
I think it is crucial to separate those traits on the above list whose avoidance may contribute to normal and decent life with a chance of fulfilment (which would be: all of them) from those whose avoidance is absolutely essential and non-negotiable if anything remotely like capitalism is supposed to survive: Grandiose sense of self-worth in conjunction with manipulative behaviour and subsequent failure to accept responsibility for own actions does in any system or sub-culture (such as Wall street) at any time. In no time, you would think. Well, sometimes it takes a while. But it's a no-brainer that such ships must sink eventually. Call it John Galt's paradise of emotional losers. Not sustainable. The point is: Not even at the expense of others.
Sociopathic behavior in some groups seems to have become an accepted, normative quality; even a behavior that is praised. Within dominant groups, sociopathic behavior combined with the so-called "A-Type" personality is a dangerous combination for the all groups within a society.
Sociopaths? Duh uh. Ask Native peoples. In California just before the Civil War, citizens were paid to kill Native Americans. They collected a fee by bringing in scalps of Indians. It was written into law. Before the 20th Century, husbands were not prosecuted for beating their wives so long as they did not use a rod larger in diameter than their thumb.
We currently are repeating the policies of alcohol prohibition in the form of drug prohibition. Before Prohibition, organized crime was negligible. With exaggerated income from banned substances, crime began to pay so well that it got itself organized.
So long as we live in a society where everything is for sale, we will have sociopathology masquerading for normal behavior. We admire gamblers. We reward those willing to risk their lives. We entertain ourselves with sociopathological behavior in the media. Does that mean we are a sick society? Or does that mean there ain't no other kind?
excellent article. it's good to try and make some sense out of all this madness.
With all Washingtoon a mutual self-congratulation society, we need a more powerful "check and balance" to regulate the regulators. The most profound project for this is Sen. Mike Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy, which allows The People to check and balance with ballot initiatives at all levels of government. See http://Vote.org
Mike is not a good promoter, though he sacrificed his retirement to run for President.
My longtime friend and Congressman-elect Jared Polis explained on radio on 12/8/09 why he will introduce a
bill next year for NATIONAL ballot initiatives: http://spryeye.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-congressman-jared-polis-on-record.html
"...which allows The People to check and balance with ballot initiatives at all levels of government." As a long time Californian I think government by ballot initiative should be done away with, not promoted. We got Prop. 13 which emasculated our primary and secondary schools for the tax benefit of corporations and the recent, onerous Prop. 8 to name but two. I don't think that the gay victims of it would consider iot a check and balance. Most initiatives are funded by special interests, promoted with deceptive advertising and signed by people who don't read them.
Perhaps the best way to reduce damage such people do is simply to increase general awareness that people with this mental defect live among us. Most full fledged psychopaths (the perhaps 1% of the population that have no conscience or empathy but can behave completely rationally) are never charged with a crime and may be extremely successful in businesses, politics, and even religious organizations due to their ability to combine great charm with complete ruthlessness.
On a practical level, laws and regulations must be written with rational psychopaths in mind. For these people, ‘self-regulation’ as we have had in the financial markets just provides a good cover for their evil deeds.
Also, if it became common knowledge that people with such mental defects live among us, they should find it harder to get away with bad, but legal, behavior and continue to ‘pass’ as normal.
While we must always respect “innocent till proven guilty”, early diagnosis of a lack of conscience could allow greater attention to be paid these individuals, particularly those who run afoul of the law early in life. Unfortunately, people could be unfairly stigmatized who otherwise, based only on rational self interest, might have led lives no worse than average.
Robert Hare (who devised the test for official classification of psychopaths) wrote two books on the topic for the general reader (Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits) which are informative and more than a little scary.
The best way to get a handle on this may be through the workforce, as managers get an idea of what it means to "bully" and how much damage it does to things even a short-sighted corporate culture values: like profits. Someone who enjoys making people jump, just for the temporarya power thrill, costs the company a little money every time that happens.
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