OF THE
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pic.twitter.com/4jEnFbQgAT— Dronestream (@dronestream) September 27, 2015
The conclusion is that the American way of life has optimized the survival of psychopaths with the consequence that it is an adaptive "life strategy" that is extremely successful in American society, and thus has increased in the population in strictly genetic terms. What is more, as a consequence of a society that is adaptive for psychopathy, many individuals who are NOT genetic psychopaths have similarly adapted, becoming "effective" psychopaths, or "secondary sociopaths."
(Many experts differentiate between primary and secondary sociopaths. The first is a sociopath because they have the "genes" and the second is more or less "created" by their environment of victimization. Other experts refer to these two categories as "psychopaths" for the genetic variety and "sociopaths" for the reactive variety. We prefer this latter distinction.)Of course, because they are not intellectually handicapped, these individuals [psychopaths] will progress normally in terms of cognitive development and will acquire a theory of mind.� Their theories, however, will be formulated purely in instrumental terms [what can claiming this or that GET for me?], without access to the empathic understanding that most of us rely on so much of the time.In other words, in a world of psychopaths, those who are not genetic psychopaths, are induced to behave like psychopaths simply to survive. When the rules are set up to make a society "adaptive" to psychopathy, it makes psychopaths of everyone.
They may become excellent predictors of others' behavior, unhandicapped by the "intrusiveness" of emotion, acting, as do professional gamblers, solely on nomothetic laws and actuarial data rather than on hunches and feelings.
In determining how to "play" in the social encounters of everyday life, they will use a pure cost-benefit approach based on immediate personal outcomes, with no "accounting" for the emotional reactions of the others with whom they are dealing.
Without any real love to "commit" them to cooperation, without any anxiety to prevent fear of "defection," without guilt to inspire repentance, they are free to continually play for the short-term benefit.
At the same time, because changes in gene frequencies in the population would not be able to keep pace with the fast-changing parameters of social interactions, an additional fluctuating proportion of sociopathy should result because, in a society of [psychopathy], the environmental circumstances make an antisocial strategy of life more profitable than a pro-social one. [Mealey]
Official Culture in America: A Natural State of Psychopathy?
Comment: Sadly, cases like this are far more common than most think. The culture of blaming the victim and protecting rapists is alive and well in the U.S., a male-dominated society where sexism and misogynism are allowed to thrive and even flourish. What does it say about our society when our authorities refuse to protect our women, those who most need protection? See also: