PAUSE
A MOMENT
WOLVES IN
SHEEP'S CLOTHING
[Peter
and the Wolf: The Story Begins – Jay Lagai'ia & TSO ]
Here's
a random word association test for you to start with. Are you ready?
One word = "psychopath". I'll bet Adelaide to a housebrick
that the grim words "serial killer" dropped somewhere near
the top of your list. But many of the characteristics of psychopaths
are shared by politicians, MBA's and heroes. Yes, the psychopath who
could burn down your house without batting an eyelid is in many ways
similar to the hero who would rescue you and your loved ones from the
same burning house. Even volunteer organisations are not immune from
infiltration by people with psychopathic baggage and behaviours.
Beware, they walk among us, perhaps a lot closer than you think.
For
the inspiration behind tonight's Pause a Moment, I want to
acknowledge Dr. Karl S.
Kruszelnicki in an interview he did with Jane Hutcheon on the ABC's
“One On One” programme.
[People
Will Turn On You – Mia Dyson (A) – 4:33]
One
of the earliest appraisals of psychopathy was by the ancient Greek
philosopher Theophrastus, about 2400 years ago. In his book “The
Characters” he
carefully lists some 30 moral temperaments. One of these he calls
"The Unscrupulous Man" who will, according to Theophrastus:
"go and borrow more money from a creditor he has yet to pay
back". Wow. 2,400 years? The more things change, the more they
stay the same?
There
are many different characteristics associated with psychopathy. On
the negative hand, they include having virtually no conscience, no
impulse control, no guilt, no empathy, no scruples and no remorse. On
the other hand psychopaths are quite fearlesss (both mentally and
physically), can focus really well, are strong-minded, and are disarmingly charming. As a result, they are very
persuasive and are very skilled at manipulation of others. For
example, psychopaths have an awesome proficiency in persuading
committees and parole boards to forgive them their blatant sins and
release them into the community to do what they do all over again.
Psychopaths
are also very egocentric, very dishonest, as well as being both
callous and ruthless, particularly to those who call them on their
dishonesty. And they seem to be virtually immune to either anxiety or
remorse. They are very happy to indulge in risk-taking behaviour, and
tend to have a shamelessly grandiose sense of their own self-worth.
[On
the Inside – Lynne Hamilton]
Only around 1 per cent of all of us are out-and-out psychopaths, with women being
represented only half as often as men. But when you do strike a
female psychopath, she'll leave her male counterparts in the shade.
She will break a man's balls, remove his spine from the inside, and
pull the strings from then on. Movies like “Caged” and the
popular Aussie TV series “Prisoner” portrayed very much where
female psychopaths in some cases first learn their craft, and
certainly get more effective at what they do. Prison is a perfect
training ground for a would-be psychopath.
Another
10 to 15 per cent of us, including me, I think, are in the "almost
psychopathic" category. The rest of you are partly so. My point is that degrees of psychopathy slide along a fluid scale; the condition is not an On/Off thing.
Now
the existence of psychopathy in someone is not completely intangible. No,
the underlying emotional deficit of psychopathy seems to be
linked to some physical attributes. For example, psychopathy
is linked to a poor sense of smell. One study of 79 people (who had
been diagnosed to be non-criminal psychopaths and who were living in
the community) tested their sense of smell. They were offered 16 pens
that carried 16 different odours such as leather, orange and coffee.
Even though they could register that an odour was present, they could
not easily tell the difference between one scent and another.
This
poor-sense-of-smell seems to indicate that a part of the brain called
the orbito-frontal complex may be affected. Not only does that area process
smells, it is also involved in controlling impulses, and in planning.
Psychopaths have no control over whatever they're addicted to, and
they make lousy organisers, which they make up for by hiding behind
henchmen. They leave messes for others to clean up, but will always
find ways to make sure they get all the accolades. And because
they're dishonest, any organisation employing a psychopath is asking
for trouble. But once they're inside, you'll have a hell of a time pinning them down because they hide their tracks well and others will be blamed.
Even when the real culprit is found and called, he/she will play a
deft version of the Right/Wrong Game that I call The Superior
Intelligence version – You can't prove I'm guilty, so I'm
innocent. And they'll righteously bleat "Harassment" if you try.
Now
- what if you, like me, have some degree of some
characteristics of a psychopath?
One trait possessed by psychopaths that is very useful for political games is called "fearless dominance". It
involves a total lack of apprehension or concern or worry about
possible social, physical or emotional consequences that would scare
the pants off most of us. They can bullshit their way out of
anything.....almost. Do the names Obeid or Thomson ring any bells for
you Aussies?
Now,
here's a surprise!
"Twigs from the same branch".
Back in 1982, the psychologist, D T Lykken, said
that both psychopaths and heroes are "twigs from the same
branch". "Hero populations" are those who work in the
military, law enforcement, rescue services and so on. On one hand,
these "heroes" have some of the characteristics of
psychopaths - apparent immunity from stress, ability to focus, social
dominance and fearlessness. But on the other hand, they do not carry
other psychopathic tendencies such as lack of conscience, antisocial
behaviour, impulsivity and narcissism. Quite the opposite actually –
except for the odd one.
Suppose
that a person does have one or two psychopathic factors in their
character. To understand them more deeply, you have to also factor in
other characteristics such as "intelligence" and a
"tendency to violence" before you start attaching a label
of “psychopath” and deleting them from your Christmas Card List.
Considering
twin scales of "Intelligence" and "Propensity to Violence", think of a
graph that is square. The four corners are:
Low
Intelligence/Low Violence quotient
Low
Intelligence/High Possibility of Violence
High
Intelligence/High Possibility of Violence
High
Intelligence/Low Possibility of Violence.
Let's
quickly alight upon each extreme at a time --
If
you are psychopathic and not particularly smart, and you're
non-violent, you'll probably end up as some kind of petty criminal —
maybe a burglar.
The
second option is that you are not particularly intelligent and
violent. In this scenario, you could end up as an enforcer, a debt
collector, or a low-level hoodlum.
Things
change when you add Intelligence to the mix.
In
the third scenario, if you are both intelligent and violent on top of
your psychopathic tendencies, you could end up as a criminal
mastermind, or working in the police or military special forces. (Let
me hasten to add, people in those occupations are not, as in "Dr.Strangelove",
psychopaths – outside of the War Room, the figure of 1% holds – OK?)
But
if you're psychopathic, intelligent and non-violent, you could be a
"hero", or a surgeon, a high-profile lawyer or head of a
big corporation. In 2006, P Babbiak and Robert D Hare referred to
psychopaths in business settings as "snakes in suits".
Let
me reiterate very strongly, psychopathy is not an on/off thing. There
is a continuum of certain characteristics and behaviours that vary
from hour to hour in frequency and intensity in every one of us. A
condition of clinical Psychopathy only comes into play when one or
more of the following characteristics come into play in the course of
normal, frequent social interaction ----
[The
Godfather: Waltz – Roger Woodward (A)]
An
overriding sense of Entitlement over the rights and sensibilities of
others;
A
lack of ability to genuinely empathise;
No
accountability or responsibility taken for their actions;
A
firm belief that they can control circumstances and manipulate the
consequences of their activities;
No
evident moral compass in their actions, although they rigidly hold
others to strict moral standards whenever it suits them to do so,
and also appear to do so themselves – they are masters of
psychological camouflage;
Their
hierarchy of values is entirely self-centred;
An
ability to totally obscure the effects of cognitive dissonance from
their self-awareness. They are utterly unable to see the hypocrisy
of their own contradictory behaviours towards others;
An
awesome ability to obscure the light of awareness and avoid scrutiny
by deflecting critical attention away from themselves onto others;
A
crippling inability to see how they effectively project their motives and
methods of sabotage onto others; (if you want to know how a psychopath operates, listen to how he/she talks about what others think and do).
An
awesome capacity to dominate, garner support and manipulate
compliance from others. They are deft at dominating a situation or
relationship by playing the sacrificer and the Victim.
Pretend
to like and support those they manipulate, but secretly despise and
resent them. They pretend diplomacy to those who oppose them, but will go
to any lengths, with amazing patience, to destroy them utterly.
So
now that you've finally found out a bit more about the too-much
bandied term “psychopath”, you may consider yourself at least
warned what to look out for to recognise symptoms of a wolf in
sheep's clothing. For the highly intelligent/low anger person, you
have to go one step further to find the “snake in a suit”. But at
least you'll know that the snake in a suit will be up high, not low
to the ground …
People
who put themselves up on pedestals, though, eventually end up
getting pulled down.
Don't say you weren't warned. Don't be underneath when they come crashing down
[Sittin'
On Top of the World – Al Jolson]
