Thousands of children die every day from hunger while we sit in front of our computers playing video games, chatting and throwing away food.
But hey, everybody does it.
Thousands are trying to sell you health supplements or medication that they don't believe they are good or have no idea how they work long term. They do it for the money. Most of the time it might be even harmful to your health but they still do it since the law is rather gray.
But hey, everybody does it.
We all wait for the elections so we can vote for the things we want to see in society but entirely neglect how at the same time we are sponsoring the biggest suffering machine in the world. The state army.
But hey, everybody does it.
Psychopathy is a word that is being thrown a lot and for different situations. Wikipedia defines it as a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits.
Under all the examples I mentioned all of us are psychopaths at least to some degree. Notice though how the term specifies "disorder". Dis+order is like the word implies something that is not flowing with the current order or trend. In other words, if most people are doing X and a few do Y then the ones doing Y are the disorderly. This is how all disorders are defined in psychology.
This is also how everything can be a disorder and how basically everyone is in the gray zone for just about everything — whether that is psychopathy, ADHD, depression, OCD, autism or anything else in between. If you believe you have a disorder you read about and some person with a scientific authority( order) confirms that you do, then you accept that you suffer from it.
In our world the psychopath might be the "evil" businessman who only pursuits his own happiness forgetting that his employers exist. We call him a psychopath because we agreed that he doesn't care for us enough. I wonder though, how do 5 billion people see the privileged westerners that earn 10000 times more income and couldn't care less about the suffering of most of the people on the planet? In other words, our terminology about psychopathy has to do with geographical proximity and status rather than a medical evaluation. Exactly like the"evil" businessman one.
Person A can kill people so he can benefit emotionally and financially, feeling no remorse in the process. He doesn't care about the life of that person, his family, his problems and what impact his action have. Person B walks into a shop and buys a really cheap t-shirt that was made in some underground hole in India under child labour. Many got ill making those shirts and many more have died. Ofcourse Person B does not process the steps that t-shirt took in order to reach the store, he doesn't care. All he cares is for him to have a good deal on the item. And he will be proud about it.
What people call psychopathy is nothing but our perception about our current social circle of interest. Someone that puts cheap gas in their car, not caring about the Nigerians under slave labour pumping it, would change their mind if they are to go to Nigeria and see how the process goes. If that person would come back to the western world in a few years time, most people would resume putting cheap has in their car, forgetting all about the Nigerians. In other words, our psychopathy is defined by what benefits us directly. The term monkeysphere, applies here perfectly.
Killing for satisfaction qualifies as psychopathy as much as killing for one's country or defending one's child. In all the instances we are trying to defend some kind of pre-existing perception, an emotional connection we have with something. We kill for our country and feel good about it because our physiology along our social indoctrination offers that kind of reward. Some of us even kill for the sake of killing since certain physiological and cultural processes allowed that kind of satisfaction. Calling a soldier a hero because he kills defending imaginary borders and calling a killer psychopath because he did it without the permission of the state is just another way to spell hypocrisy.
On my book, if something is applies everywhere then it is poorly explained. If everyone in other words, in some subjective degree qualifies as a psychopath then we have no idea what we are talking about. Psychopathy today is just another way to say to someone "you are mean, i am better than you are". It is pedantic and pointless.
I disagree with this post so much I want to flag it.
If I were you, I would take this post down.
Because the information here is so bad, that it is dangerous.
A psychopath is someone who doesn't have the ability to feel warm empathy.
You and I would feel bad for killing a person, even if it was in self defense, even it was sanctioned by the govern-cement.
Psychopaths do not feel anything for killing a person. They can kill a person and then get the best nights sleep. There is no twinge of guilt. There is no sadness that they are gone. There is no sense of remorse.
You may ask, if this is so, why don't psychopaths kill more?
Well, to them, there is the hassle of cleaning up the body, and why kill someone when you can get them to kill themselves. It is much more fun to torture someone. To drive them insane. And the best, is that the did it all to themselves. They accepted all the lies willingly.
That is the world of a psychopath.
They are out there. Some place them as 5% of the population.
And they have no moral reserve about destroying your life.
They get all of their joy from duping other people.
Talking about psychopathy is not talking about someone who does questionable things, or even hurtful things because that is the current paradigm we live in. A psychopath, to us normal feeling people, has no warm emotions. They have ice running through their veins. And they leave a path of broken people in their wake.
Very true @builderofcastles; there is an oft repeated test whereby people are shown provocative words on screen, "normal" people react to seeing words like, 'murder', 'rape' and 'incest'. Psychopaths don't even register a flicker of emotion, proving their is a clear and definable distinction.
Cg
I don't disagree, but his conclusion isn't that people aren't genuine psychopaths. It's that the term has been conflated with so many non-psychopathic behaviors that it's starting to lose its meaning. In the same way classifying pick up lines or not agreeing to sleep with someone you don't find attractive as rape diminishes actual rape, misusing and overusing "psychopath" as a descriptor diminishes the horror of actual psychopaths.
Could have been worded better, but I get the point he's making.
thats so true psychopaths are hidden inside us all... we used to talk on big issues and act as a very good human being.. but i must say that a really kind person is not the one who talks about kindness but do perform the kindess actually.. we all need to come out of psycopathy and leave the words - everybody does that..
It is not true. If you hurt someone do you feel bad, or do you feel glee?
If you feel glee, and no tinge of remorse, than you are indeed a psychopath.
Having narcissistic tendencies, acting like a narcissist, is not being a narcissist / psychopath.
Psychopaths cannot stop being a psychopath.
Couldn't agree more. The mark of a psychopath isn't not being kind to others. It's being antisocial and remorseless. A psychopath doesn't believe that people around him have feelings; they're not really people, which is why a psychopath feels no remorse in using them or manipulating them.
Can psychopathy be measured in the brain via FMRI, etc?
I think that's the difference. True clinical psychopathy would not change their mind. Their brain functions differently than most people (from what little I understand). Their mirror neurons (if those are a thing) don't fire the same way. All of this is a result of physical structures of the brain due to the nature/nurture inputs leading up to their current existence.
When we start throwing around words and accusations like, "He's crazy" or "What a psychopath" without understanding the professional use of those words, then we start to lose an important aspect of reality.
I'd prefer to talk about this in terms of the expanding circle of empathy. That, to me, is something we all share as part of our humanity, if we have healthy functioning brains.
You totally lost it at the end...
How is defending one's child and killing the attacker in the process in any way related to the other two cases (for satisfaction, which is emotion, or one's country, which is a concept)?
Killing in self-defense is instinct. There isn't even to need to intellectually process it, you react, as if a car is about to hit you and you jump away.
I think you meant employees here?
As for the rest of the post, there's one sentence where you equate killing to defend one's child with psychopathy. Given that defending your child has nothing to do with lacking remorse or antisocial behavior, I don't see how that comparison holds up. I do agree with you that the word psychopath gets thrown around non-chalantly these days, but there are examples of actual psychopathy in our world; defending your family hardly qualifies as one.
I agree that we are all psychopaths to varying degrees, which makes this human civilization so fucked up. And I sometimes think that a fair outcome would be if a cataclysm of some sort wipes us out.
nice post @kyriacos
wonderful post and narrative. Thank you for sharing!
this could be one of the best posts I've read since I've been on this platform... As much as I think you are probably spot on, on your analysis of our current social illness (for lack of a better way to describe it) I would like to think that there is still hope, maybe, just maybe the resurgence of anarchism riding in the vehicle of blockchain could eventually become the answer that rids this world of extreme inequality... I realize that it might sound to idealistic, and I'm not one to believe in unicorns, but the potential is there, and the fact that information keeps on becoming more and more available eventually should mean the awakening of more people to this universal truth.
Unfortunately some people's conscience has been dulled or even turned off at the expense of society. Folks are self- centered and are inspired by greed, money and power. The abandon the values and standards that are normal. They abandon God's standards early. It is about them and what they want in a sick pathetic way. They do not care if folks are starving or going without. As long as they get want they want. They do not care if folks die. It is about what benefits them.. Good read thanks.
What you are describing here are systems. Nature has its own systems that have left humanity in the most vulnerable position; that is to say that everyday life is trying to kill you! I, personally, look to the metaphysics of Gnosticism as an explanation for why that is, but regardless; our existential condition is brutal.
But this natural condition is distinct from economic systems which have been set up worldwide by the mafias of the world; yes, that is exactly what has happened over the past 150 years and 'good' people have bought into the mafia casino system of economics enough so that it very likely cannot be undone and will lead to humanities total enslavement. In other words, corruption has been normalized! Hell, the most violent of crimes now are solved on the Ellen Degenerate show in 10 minutes; which, really, makes a mockery of the ideas of truth and justice--words that no longer have meaning.
I have to interject something that you exclude from the concept. It would be freedom. Most Countries with poor usually have tyrannical governments. It is not the American who buys the t-shirt made by slave labor who owns all guilt for that slave labor. If governments were free democracies rather than Communist/Socialist/Dictatorships, those people would not be starving. Righteous American enviornmentalists & Socialists who act like they care so much more than the rest of us are actually hurting the World's poor even more. By banning DDT with lies & propaganda saying it is harmful & needed banned they have subjected poor to diseases spread by insects that could have been erradicated. By pushing the lie of 'man made' global warming and centralized global authorities to rule how & what we use for energy, they leave many poor in destitude without electricity & cheap oil based energy which would positivly effect their lives. It's time that we see the 'evil' acts on all sides and which does not exclude those such as Hollywood elite who 'say' they care while their actions say otherwise.
It seems that many are missing the point you are trying to make. As I see it, you are saying we are not doing anything to save the victims. Here I disagree with you regardless what name or label you use.
This what I do to help:
I feel bad and angry
I direct my anger to teach my children that when they get to apposition of power, if they do, not to be like a sociopath. Understand and then act. Never follow any order or anybody without understanding.
Donate when I have extra
No waste allowed
Post thing like your post on steemit. Spread wariness. I live in a first world country in a 99th world planet.
That is enough. I am becoming boring.
Great explaanation...thanks
Isn't humanity acting out a reflection of its desires, where the ends justify the means?
The post is using an argument from human nature, to illustrate the evil potential of man. Psychopath may not be the correct term linguistically, this doesn't take away from the perspective.
i don't understand what you are trying to say
Within every human there is a capacity for great destruction, to oneself and other individuals, which can be manifested physically in the horrors you described. No-one morally is spared from blame, it just depends to which degree what we are doing hurts others.
Anyone thinking the evil potential isn't innate biologically and under a correct circumstance wouldn't surface is delusional. This is the literal Jungian shadow.
E.g. your village has been destroyed by invaders as a child, killing your father for example, decades later leading you to lead a brutal dictatorship out of anger; enforcing that anger on untold others. Everything the now old man would enforce would never bring back his father.
NB I also have this perspective.
It's pretty hard for given individuals in any society to feel the pain and suffering in other countries. One reason is that suffering is part of being human condition and we need to take care of the "suffering" of ourselves and our immediate family members first.
I definitely believe that human organized systems for doing things are impersonal and mean. I don't know if they are "psychopathic," but I do believe that they gravitate to such organizations to dominate and possibly hurt others.
people where always starving. no one is really responsible