Very interesting. Stout defines “conscience” convincingly as attachment to other people, or, basically, the ability to love and be loved. She then offers evidence that 4 per cent of the population are born without the ability to love or be attached, and they are our sociopaths, carrying out agendas that range from the relatively harmless to the unspeakably criminal, all under the impression that everyone is like them. If she is correct, there is no point feeling sorry for serial killers, rapists, child abusers, etc., or trying to rehabilitate or psychoanalyze them -- it’s not that they come from unhappy backgrounds that they are the way they are: they simply think that people with consciences are chumps.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout
-- Alex Colville, Pacific
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