Health & Wellness
Recently, I acquired a computer virus that reduced my system into a useless pile of junk. After four days in the shop, I had to start all over once again, restoring what I could and reconstructing some of the things I lost.
It makes one wonder what sort of sadistic creep would do such a thing to a complete stranger.
Some people believe that the struggle between good and evil is nothing more than a struggle between knowledge and ignorance, and that good will always prevail because everyone is basically decent and all it takes to overcome the wickedness within them is to somehow educate them about the wrongness of their ways.
While we assume everyone has a conscience restraining them from evil, studies by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout, Ph.D., reveal that about four percent of the population has a sociopathic personality disorder.
In other words, one out of every 25 people is a psychopath -- a person with no sense of concern for the well-being of others and no feelings of remorse, regardless of what sort of harmful or immoral action they undertake.
A psychopath is able to lie, steal, cheat and kill with no feelings of sorrow or regret. Sometimes their only motive is the thrill of inflicting pain. This gives the psychopath a competitive advantage over a normal person.
The high incidence of psychopath dysfunction has a profound disturbing effect on the rest of human society.
Violent psychopaths (batterers, animal abusers, child predators, rapists, murderers, serial killers, etc.) are easy to identify. Prisons are overpopulated with them. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, the BTK Killer, the Green River Killer, the Boston Strangler, etc. were all serial killers who had no personal moral qualms about their actions.
However, there are also many psychopaths who are outwardly acceptable, intelligent and skillful at blending into ordinary society. These are the dangerous ones who are able to deceive and negatively influence others.
Political Ponerology, a term introduced by psychologist Andrew M Lobaczewski, Ph.D., is the science of the nature of evil for political purposes. This occurs when socially accepted psychopaths attain political leverage.
The only difference between an ordinary psychopath (a violent, impulsive bully with no conscience) and a socially accepted psychopath is social status, intellect, ambition and being in the right place at the right time.
Basically, successful (socially accepted) psychopathic individuals move into positions of power (in politics, business, military, etc.) and link up with others of similar ilk to form cohesive internal structures that have the ability to take over entire movements. They often rise to the top through cunning, deception and ruthlessness.
Psychopathic leaders spin their version of the truth (especially when they control the media) while distorting reality. Eager to please, people tend to be blindly loyal to their leaders and go along with the crowd. This leads to a "my country right or wrong" attitude where decent people perpetuate the evil of their psychopathic masters.
Hitler and the Nazis were a prime example of Political Ponerology. They introduced a scientific methodology (psychological propaganda) in Germany to rally the populace into a mass hypnotic frenzy of hate. France and England watched in horror as the Nazis marched across Europe -- hesitating too long, then making concessions with Germany. The subsequent agreements with Hitler (a psychopath) were worthless, costing millions of lives.
Stalin (a psychopath) killed millions, Saddam Hussein (a psychopath) killed hundreds of thousands, etc.
Clearly, negotiating with a psychopath legitimizes the psychopath and furthers his stronghold over his people.
Appeasement doesn't work on a person without a conscience. All the energy spent by naive peace protestors is for naught. You can love your enemy all you want but if your enemy is incapable of love he will destroy you.
An appeaser is one who feeds a wild beast hoping it will eat him last.
The world is a cruel, violent place. Studies have determined the origin of evil is genetic. A small percentage of people are born without a conscience (psychopathic) and have a predisposition to commit evil acts on others.
This notion is difficult to accept. Ordinary people prefer to believe everyone on this planet would act as they would act. But ordinary people must contend with pure evil somewhere on this planet every day. It won't go away.
Evil people dwell among us. They enjoy inflicting pain on the rest of the world and are incapable of change.
Some of them rise to the top and gain control. It's our duty to recognize them and deal with them properly.
Life is simple. You just need to think for yourself, be kind to others, bathe regularly and oppose evil.
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Quote for the Day -- "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." Adolph Hitler
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Bret Burquest is an award-winning columnist and author of four novels. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog named Buddy Lee and bathes regularly. His blogs appear on several websites, including www.myspace.com/bret1111
Reader Comments
Nice try, but way wrong. Once you've read Political Ponerology which you can purchase here [Link]or read a review of here [Link]then read Dr. Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door" [Link]Dr. Robert Hare's "Without Conscience" [Link]and Dr. Harvey Cleckley's "Mask of Sanity", which is available free to download here [Link]you'll understand that a small but statistically constant percentage of the population are genetic psychopaths - BORN EVIL - and that your inclination to reach out and hug them will make you lunch.
Bringing all their work together is this research project [Link]but if you prefer to get straight into the nitty gritty, try reading "Construct Validity of Psychopathy in a Community Sample: A Nomological Net Approach," published in the Journal of Personality Disorders, 2001 [Link]
Why do you think the rate of impersonal homicides has gone up like 200% since the 60s? Per Capita I'm speaking. You can interpret data many ways, I'm also familiar with Hare. But I think we have many more psychos now than ever before.
I see a couple of reasons why. We are approaching an important turning point in our soul development, therefore (I think) the percentage of pure genetic psychopaths rises accordingly. Secondly, due to the increased ponorization of our society (maybe some societies more so than others) the climate is more and more ‘healthy’ for (defective) psychopaths and as a result they think they can act without consequence, thirdly, due to the ponorization the moral barriers for ‘normal’ people are broken down and ponorized behavior is seen as normal behavior and even imitated. Lastly, I read somewhere that heavy neurological damage due to accidents or traumatic life experiences can make (some?) people into a semi psychopath with psychopathic like behavior. So to make a short story long: at the core, pure psychopaths *are* born, but ultimately create an environment where either normal people start to ‘worship’ that behavior (the protective ring of people around that core of psychopaths) or must imitate it to survive in that kind of environment. Try the links Niall provided and contemplate.
Is that psychopathic males are more likely to have more offspring than non-psychopathic males. Whereas normal people will make two children averagely, the psychopath feels he has no obligation to take care of the children he's had and may go move on to next female with ease. I read this from The Wave, and can't find the chapter right now, but I think it is an important realization.
I think that there are created psychopaths (sociopaths/narcissists) and born psychopaths. Both sides of the argument make sense and I've met examples of both in my life. The methods of pathological induction have also been greatly developed in the last decades, the ones with most reach probably being hyperviolent movies and video-games. Not to mention psychopathic TV-shows like the Survivor.
We were once the balance, with our 'choice' and our twixtness entre the ethereal and the physical.
Think of all this as a great demilitarized zone.
One side is cheating.
The one I'm not on.
Hanker down, friends, the barn's about to be cleaned out, and it ain't us that's leaving.
Well, I've been reading about psychopathy for about 8 years now. And to a large extent I've never ever heard anyone claim that it was "proven to be genetic". As far as knowledgeable individuals such as Ressler to Douglas to Keppel, to Hazelwood would ever say it's genetic. It's a process of reinforced negative behaviors and a lack of center in their lives. A lack of attatchments. Whether other people consider themselves there it doesn't matter. Take Jeffrey Dahmer, he had a "loving family" but found himself mostly alone. His major hobby was collecting animal bodies, no one ever sat him down to talk to him. He never had anyone truly involved in his life. Any of us could end up as a psychopath, it's mostly our choices that determine who we are. This genetics as a marker for psychopathic behavior... that's not real life. Maybe more likely to be effected, ya, but dependant on genetics and not human experience? That's not real life. The vast majority of our perceptions have NOTHING to do with genetics, but more of how our behavior has been reinforced or punished in our lives. If we like to do something bad, and no one makes us regret it, ever, then well, it's not bad in their perception. They don't view other people as "real" as them, more like figures in their play. They learn to do this, they are not born like this.