Trying to expose the sociopath casts doubts on our own credibility and maybe even sanity.
These doubts, our own and other people's, are painful and readily convince us to keep our mouths shut.
Why would a person like that do such a horrible thing? By "a person like that" we mean a normal-looking person. We think that way because the conscience-bound mind is qualitatively different from the conscience free mind and what sociopaths want, what motivates them, is completely outside our experience.
Sociopaths, people with no intervening sense of obligation based in attachments to others, typically devote their lives to interpersonal games, to "winning", to domination for the sake of domination. Many people without conscience will behave self-destructively simply for the purposes of the game.
We are not prepared to understand or even believe such behavior. We will doubt our own sense of reality first.
In order to do something about shameless people, we must first identify them.
The best clue is pity play. The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is an appeal to our sympathy.
More than admiration, more than fear - pity from good people is carte blanche. We we pity we are defenseless. Like so many of other positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups - our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience.
These doubts, our own and other people's, are painful and readily convince us to keep our mouths shut.
Why would a person like that do such a horrible thing? By "a person like that" we mean a normal-looking person. We think that way because the conscience-bound mind is qualitatively different from the conscience free mind and what sociopaths want, what motivates them, is completely outside our experience.
Sociopaths, people with no intervening sense of obligation based in attachments to others, typically devote their lives to interpersonal games, to "winning", to domination for the sake of domination. Many people without conscience will behave self-destructively simply for the purposes of the game.
We are not prepared to understand or even believe such behavior. We will doubt our own sense of reality first.
In order to do something about shameless people, we must first identify them.
The best clue is pity play. The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is an appeal to our sympathy.
More than admiration, more than fear - pity from good people is carte blanche. We we pity we are defenseless. Like so many of other positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups - our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience.
From Martha Stout, "Sociopath Next Door"
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