Justin writes:
How would you distinguish between someone with a massive chip on the shoulder and an annoying obsession with one idea, it can be any idea, as opposed to some sociopathic, or is it the same thing?
For instance, I told you all about the smart homophobic racist college graduate Trump supporter who, when being around him, you get the impression somebody molested him at some point, lol.
Psychopathy or sociopathy is one of the hardest conditions of all to diagnose, and I work in mental health. Even Hare says he has met sociopaths who he saw every day and it took him up to 6 months-1 year to figure out that they were psychopaths, and Hare is the world’s leading expert on the subject.
I asked my last therapist whether a good psychopath could fool him, and he said no. But then he thought a bit and said, “Some of them are pretty slick, let’s put it that way.” He then said then he often could not spot the right away, but given enough time, he could spot one for sure. He also said that he had dealt with many sociopaths in his career and that they were completely hopeless and incurable. He was a Clinical Psychologist with a 160 IQ, and he was one of the smartest men I have ever met. He was also a superb clinician.
I have been studying psychopaths for decades, and I still do not understand them. If you want to understand psychopaths, study the condition. Study it as much as you wish – the more the better. After a while, you may well meet a few people in real life who resemble the folks you have been studying.
In response to the question, the terms insufferable asshole, scumbag, piece of crap, lowlife, dirtbag, lousy person, amoral prick and even criminal are not the synonyms for the word psychopath. Sure ,sociopaths are usually very lousy human beings who can typically be characterized as above, but not all lousy people and POS’s are sociopaths! A sociopath is a particular sort of scumbag, and they are a lot different than your ordinary dickwad.
There is also a difference between sociopathic behavior and being an actual sociopath. Many high positions in business and politics nearly require you to behave like a sociopath. However, the people forced to behave that way may or may not be sociopaths. I do not think Obama is a sociopath because, while of course he acts like one (you have to act like a psychopath to be President of the US), I get the feeling that he resents being forced to act like a dick, and he also feels guilty about it.
He also seems to be rebelling against a lot of the more sociopathic policies that his aides and agencies are always pushing him into. I feel the same way about Joe Biden. Biden actaully feels bad at being forced to act like a monster.
But John Kerry and Hillary Clinton really scare me. I have long thought that Kerry is sociopathic and I started thinking that about Hillary as well. Many of the new neoconservatives seem sociopathic and in fact, one can argue that neoconservatism in and of itself is a sociopathic philosophy.
