Kevin Dutton’s “The Wisdom of Psychopaths” is a strange, ultimately disconcerting book. Dutton is erudite and obviously fascinated with his subject—psychopaths. He references some cutting edge research and had access to many heavy hitters in the field of psychopathy experts.
Yet in the end, I find his book very troubling. His thesis is basically what the book’s subversive title suggests—that psychopaths have qualities of “wisdom.” That is, psychopaths, he asserts, have certain admirable, enviable and distinguishing qualities in greater volumes than non-psychopaths, qualities the non-psychopath could benefit from in greater quantity so long as (unlike psychopaths) the non-psychopath can regulate and express these “psychopathic qualities” appropriately, in the appropriate contexts.
Dutton seems to be suggesting that psychopaths (or many of them) are, by virtue of possessing these “psychopathic qualities,” in some respects advanced in their psychological, temperamental and even spiritual evolution. Audaciously, he draws analogies between psychopaths and the most evolved monks and Buddhist masters.
Dutton finally specifies what he regards as enviable, advantageous psychopathic qualities, the only caveat being that they should be expressed in good, balanced measure. They are ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness, and the propensity to action/decisiveness.
When he describes psychopaths as being endowed with high levels of “mindfulness,” he is referring to what he alleges is their capacity to be present in the moment of whatever they are endeavoring. He asserts that psychopaths possess a distinct capacity to tune-out all sorts of inconvenient distractions such as depression, anxiety, fear, guilt, and anticipated remorse to achieve their ends with unique focus.
Even if this is the case, what Dutton fails spectacularly to appreciate, it seems to me, is the extent to which psychopaths deploy this alleged quality, and several of the other qualities he gushes over, in the service of exploiting, not enhancing, others. This is what, in essence, makes them psychopathic.
The psychopath is, at bottom, an exploitive, transgressive personality, a remorseless violator of others’ rights, boundaries and dignity. If you are not this, then you are not a psychopath.
But Dutton seems to be arguing that the key to being optimally adapted to our world is to master the capacity to be what he calls a “method psychopath,” meaning to develop and channel all the psychopathic qualities necessary to succeed in the particular contexts requiring them.
He then confuses, continually, the examples he gives of “method psychopaths” by basically referring to them as “psychopaths.” But they are not necessarily psychopaths at all—many of the men he describes may merely be endowed with certain of the “psychopathic qualities” he outlines, and deploy them in the service of performing jobs that require, for instance, fearlessness (or the successful suppression of fear), perhaps ruthlessness, certainly unblinking, sustained concentration under duress, and possibly a suspension of guilt.
He may be right that psychopaths are better suited for these jobs than non-psychopaths, but this doesn’t implicate all those who do these jobs well or even brilliantly as psychopaths. Yet this implication permeates the book, corrupting its discourse.
Dutton describes a brain surgeon who describes his work with chilling detachment and compartmentalization; thereby, on this apparent basis alone, he dubs him a psychopath. He describes men in the British Special Forces who undertake daring, violent work from which most of us would cringe or break, yet these men embrace their work with a rare coolness, and, apparently by virtue of their capacity to handle the intense risks and stresses involved in their missions without reflecting signs of disabling anxiety, agitation or guilt, Dutton regards them as “functional” or “method” psychopaths.
But a glaring question is left unexamined: Are these same men, in their personal lives, the cold, calculating clinicians, surgeons, rescuers or assassins that their jobs require them to be? (And incidentally, none of them are committing crimes: the surgeon is saving lives as, arguably, are the warriors he profusely admires.)
If the answer to the above question is “no,” as may be the case, then these men are not psychopaths. They are non-psychopaths with nerves of steel. But this basic question isn’t even addressed, superficially.
Dutton references research suggesting that psychopaths might be more likely to act heroically than non-psychopaths in certain dangerous situations. But even if this is the case, so what? So what if, in the event your house is burning down and there are two individuals on the street watching, the psychopath might be more inclined to run in and pull you out of the inferno than the non-psychopath? That may be true, and we can imagine reasons this might be the case.
But again, he’s not a psychopath unless he’s exploiting others audaciously and shamelessly in his life. Otherwise, he’s just a hero with nerves of steel. And if he is a psychopath, then his fearlessness, or lust for risk, in instances like these, confers a small benefit to humanity, which we will take without undo gratefulness given the incalculable suffering he imposes on humanity in the greater arena of life.
Dutton cites research suggesting psychopaths can feel empathy, maybe even more empathy than non-psychopaths. But the very concept of empathy is confusing and, to my mind, muddles the issue of psychopathy. What psychopaths really lack is “compassion” for their victims. Forget about empathy and how we define it. They lack compassion–real, true compassion. Compassion should be the benchmark measure here, not empathy. (My next article on Lovefraud will address “compassion” as the far more telling, missing deficit in sociopaths than “empathy.”)
And “victim” needs to be stressed in a book where it is woefully, incredibly under-stressed in Dutton’s need to virtually idealize psychopaths. Psychopath=Victims (that is my formula!). Psychopaths victimize people unconscionably. Psychopaths are victimizing, exploitive personalities. If you are dealing with an individual who is not remorselessly exploitive, you are not dealing with a true psychopath (or sociopath).
And Dutton pays scant attention to qualities like emotional shallowness and deep loyalty. The psychopath is a disturbingly shallow, disloyal individual. This surely doesn’t equate with spiritual advancement, yet Dutton absurdly seeks to find commonalities between Tibetan monks and psychopaths. He aims to recast psychopaths as misunderstood rebels, perhaps overly adapted to the exigencies of modern society.
Dutton writes, “”¦the problem with psychopaths isn’t that they’re too chock-full of evil. Ironically, it’s precisely the opposite: they have too much of a good thing”¦The car is to die for. It’s just too fast for the road.” (p. 186).
This gives you the flavor of the need Dutton has throughout his book to reframe psychopathy as a virtually enviable condition that is “too much of a good thing.” The chasmic inattention given, as noted above, to the immeasurable suffering psychopaths inflict on their victims is itself almost glib and callous.
One senses that Dutton is just a bit too enamored of the psychopath and too desperate to rehabilitate the psychopath’s well-earned reputation as an exploitative, emotional cipher to do real justice to his subject.
Which is to say that psychopaths, in the end, really have no wisdom to impart to us. As entertaining as his book is, neither, I’m afraid, does Dutton.
Steve,
I’m so glad you wrote a review on the book, “The Wisdom of Psychopaths”. I read some of the book last week on Amazon and I just felt defeated and sad. Dutton seems so removed and he has no idea what it means to be victimized by a psychopath. Nada, none.
The part about the neuro surgeon, yep, it’s great that he can focus and is brilliant at what he does, but I wouldn’t want to be married to him. And if he is a psychopath, maybe he hasn’t been outed yet and he secretly beats his wife and kids at home.
My ex was and is brilliant, was very focused and became a senior vice president at a national and international company. He was also a pathalogical liar. He also tried his best to convince me I was crazy (your sick Hope, it’s all in your imagination, I’ll take care of you) when I started to find out about his secrets.
Then my daughter came forward and said she didn’t like the way dad was touching her.
Oh yeah, I’m seeing the wisdom of flipping psychopaths. I don’t want to learn anything from them. He tried to tell the psychologists that I was crazy and needed help, thank goodness for the MMPI and for therapists that couldn’t be manipulated by him.
His parting wisdom was to stalk me, with my kids home, and to tell all his family lies about me and his daughter. She knew he was a sociopath at 16 and told me that’s what her dad is.
This literature is harmful for people in a relationship with a psychopath because “even though he beats me, he’s a brilliant surgeon so he can’t be that bad.”
We have to endure so much already because people don’t get it, Dutton obviously does not get it.
Steve, you validated me and my feelings with this review, thank you!
Steve,
Years ago My MD supervisor of my unit at Baylor hospital and I used to “argue” whether becoming a neurosurgeon made you an arsehole or if only arseholes became neurosurgeons. My MD supervisor BTW was head of the ethics committee at Baylor then and he saved my bacon many a time when I would go head to head with an unethical (I thought) neurosurgeon. Of course this was all in good humor, but I can testify that in my career I have seen more surgeons that I would classify as HIGH ON THE PSYCHOPATHIC TRAIT LIST than surgeons who were “Mr./Ms Nice guy” Yet, at the same time, those are the very people I would call to cut my belly open.
While I think (and BTW I have just finished reading but not yet finished “digesting” the book) that there are LEVELS OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS in people and while a “full blown” psychopath such as my son, who thought he is quite bright (99th percentile) just isn’t going to focus enough to become a great neurosurgeon because his P traits over shadow all other ones.
Yet, I have seen many SUCCESSFUL politicians that I think are full blown Psychopaths that would score right up there at or near or even above 30 on the PCL-R and I think these people became as successful as they are BECAUSE of their P traits, the ability to stab people in the back, to walk on others, to cheat and lie without a bit of remorse.
So in a way, I do think that there is some “benefit” to society for psychopaths or they would not have made it this far. Without some benefit they would have been “selected out” of the gene pool. The psychopath who is sexually more active with many women than a man who bonds to his spouse leaves his seed spread far and wide and is thus more likely to leave offspring.
In business the cut throat businessperson who is willing to do “whatever it takes” to succeed is more likely to get rich than the nice guy. Maybe the guy isn’t a full blown P but he has more traits than Mr. Nice guy…and so on.
So while I don’t agree with everything in this book, or take it as “gospel” I do see some advantages for the people high in psychopathic traits for both themselves and for society as a whole.
Steve,
I haven’t read the book yet, but I think your review pretty much sums up what I thought about the oxymoron “Wisdom of Psychopaths”.
If it takes age and experience to attain wisdom, how the heck does someone who is emotionally infantile have wisdom? A baby has “wisdom” in being a baby. It knows how to do that and it serves his purposes as a baby. When an adult continues to behave like an infant, that’s no longer wisdom.
You nailed it when you said, “He aims to recast psychopaths as misunderstood rebels, perhaps overly adapted to the exigencies of modern society.” Yes, the problem is that society has adapted to the existence of spaths by becoming more like them, by admiring them, by putting them on pedestals. So now they seem like someone to aspire to be like, when in fact, spaths are an example of how not to be.
Dutton reminds me of my spath-sister who said, “Skylar, it’s okay to be evil.” WTF? I sure hope that this book gets the reviews it deserves, reviews like the one you wrote.
Sky, I think the Term “wisdom” of the psychopaths in the title etc is more a “play on words” than the way WE think of “wisdom”
Knowledge is what you learn.
Wisdom is learning HOW to use it.
So maybe in a way what they do IS ‘wisdom”—
I think a person who is a sniper for example…who sits and waits to kill people (however justifiable the reason for killing them) has to have some form of way to either not have or to control his empathy or they would never be able to pull the trigger in “cold blood.” Yet, we As a society must have snipers in our military or be like the islanders onn the small island near New Zealand who were wiped out by the warrior tribes from near by islands. They had no warriors, no snipers, no spears…they tried to make peace and live together, but the warrior groups killed without a thought “because that’s what we do.” So I think the more aggressive islanders had more P traits than the passive Islanders….and they were wiped out to a man.
There are things that require the quashing of empathy in order to do them. Being an army sniper is only one of them…being a general who sends men out, knowing that many or most of them won’t come back is another, but Patton did it…Eisenhower did it…and Hitler did it. Were the Generals on our side less Ps than Hitler? Or was Hitler more a P than our generals?
War is horrific….most people couldn’t squash down their empathy enough to send thousands of men to their deaths, but someone high in P traits who can do that….I think they are necessary to our society as a whole. If that makes any sense.
Having the confidence and arrogance to cut into a living body is another thing that Ii think requires someone high in P traits. Not necessarily a full fledged psychopath, but those traits. To get anywhere in politics and the military the person must also have superficial charm and arrogance and be willing to step on other’s backs to climb the ladder of success.
Oxy,
I think wisdom is what you gain from experience, whereas knowledge is gained from books or instruction. The difference is that experience makes us internalize the knowledge because it is embedded with emotions. Later, the wisdom feels like it came from our guts, because the emotion was associated with it.
I read, “People of the Lie” and absorbed the knowledge but it did me no good because I had no experience of pure evil. 25 years later, when the man in the sushi bar said, “there’s a book you need to read.” I replied, “I know the book. People of the Lie.” Suddenly I knew what the book meant.
Spaths can teach themselves all kinds of things, but without experiencing emotions, they can’t ever learn wisdom. The 2 things go together.
When you say, that wisdom is knowing how to use knowledge, I think that you are right because that comes from our emotional response to experiences.
i appreciate the feedback very much.
Oxy, I don’t disagree with what you say; believe me I recognize that many politicians and other “successful” individuals, especially in cut-throat competitive professions, can possess significant psychopathic traits. I did an hour-long radio program on psychopathic tendencies of many politicians. You make an excellent point; also, I appreciate Dutton’s thesis that certain “psychopathic traits” can certainly propel individuals ahead, often at others’ expense, in certain professions, and so have their “adaptive” purpose.
Still, I feel the tone of the book, despite Dutton’s early mea culpa, does in fact border on a gross glorification of psychopathic traits; and I believe he fails utterly to capture the essential essence of the true psychopath (versus the “functional” or “method” psychopaths he describes), which is that he (or she) will possess a pathological emotional shallowness (not merely the capacity to “selectively detach” and “go fearless” in legal, or even treacherous, circumstances); and, he or she will have a “pattern” of perpetrating egregious harm against others with pathologically missing remorse. These are not the “traits” of individuals with any sort of “wisdom” to impart.
I don’t believe he is not using the term “wisdom” in a playful, non-literal sense. I find through the book an almost blatant admiration for, bordering on envy of, psychopathic traits that he clearly assigns to higher level human specimens.
He is essentially suggesting that all of us could benefit from becoming what he calls “method psychopaths” or, in other words, behave like psychopaths in selective situations, so long as we retain the capacity to revert to non-psychopathic behavior outside those parameters. This implies ridiculously the concept of a “flexible psychopath,” which I think is patently absurd.
You are psychopathic, or you aren’t. Yes, you may fall on a continuum, but that’s not to say that you can flexibly bounce around the continuum and, when it’s suitable, act extremely psychopath, somewhat psychopathic, mildly psychopathic, and when unnecessary, non-psychopathic. The concept is absurd.
I believe Dutton is confused on some level. Honestly. I believe he is intoxicated by some interesting intellectual concepts that are fool’s gold, with the effect, ultimately, of insultingly minimizing the psychopathology at the heart of true, serious psychopathic personalities.
Sure, go in with a cyber-knife and obliterate the areas of our brains that support our “ego” and “superego” and leave us with just our “ids” intact, and watch our fearlessness increase, our decisiveness and confidence leap off the charts, our charisma explode as our sense of grandiosity and entitlement to gratification mushroom????
I’m not sure I’d call what would ensue “wisdom,” although it might certainly be fun to care not a lick about risks, consequences of immense decisions that may adversely affect others, and others’ feelings. Sure, that might be a pretty intoxicating, relaxing state of mind, to be THAT uninhibited, self-centered and disinterested in others’ needs.
But “wise?” I don’t think so?
i meant to say “I don’t think he is using the term ‘wisdom’ playfully, non-literally…”
I saw this post pass by on the face book Love Fraud page and could not resist reading. I’d not heard of this book prior to reading Steve’s article, which might be a good thing (?) given the cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing just knowing that this book exists.
I went to Amazon and read the “look inside” portion of the book and the reviews. I did a Google search and read more reviews on the book. Obviously, I have not read it all and I will not be able to articulate much with regards to its content..
But there is something SO disturbing about the reviews and what appears to be a glorification of psychopaths and their “positive” traits. It is incredibly invalidating to a survivor’s experiences. It feels as if a slap in the face to the victims of psychopaths who have been destroyed or nearly destroyed by them. What is MORE disturbing to me is that the perspectives of the reviewers of the book were COMPLETELY SHALLOW and missed critical elements in the devastating consequences of those who have been involved with psychopaths. The implication that we would do better to be MORE like them is insanity.
The idea of “mindfulness” as a positive psychopathic trait were LUDICROUS. I believe this spiritual state of being was contextually molested by twisting what is merely SHALLOW AFFECT into something positive when a psychopaths precision like focus in being able to “live in the moment” also makes it possible for him to gaslight, brainwash and exploit any victim that walks onto his path. We’ve all experienced what it is when the psychopath conveniently pushes the “reset” switch in his ability to rewrite history or rather, “live in the moment”. It felt offensive to me to align a genuine spiritual state of being and a psychopath as being mutually exclusive or in any way comparable to a Buddhist teaching. Incredible.
Given that the author’s father was a psychopath, I’m sure that many a psychologist would have a field day with this guy with his insatiable quest for knowledge about psychopaths. Perhaps he is purging his own painful consequences of a father incapable of love for his son. It also calls into question, for me, whether or not this guy is a spath too. If we truly know what spaths are, why glorify them? I don’t see Robert Hare doing so. Red flag much?
Having said that, all of you make very good points about your perceptions of the book and the psychopath.
I think what matters, though, is the bottom line. I think that psychopaths eventually undo themselves, not because they lack intelligence or education (successful spaths), or success in their careers, but because they lack emotional intelligence that eventually trips them up somewhere else in their lives if not in their careers too, later on.
Politically, I’m noticing a shift in our society despite spaths in power who believe they are invincible. There seems to be a large population of people that are waking up to the destruction psychopaths have created politically, as well as financially in this country. People are becoming fed up. When I hear a politician, a CEO, or otherwise greedy, wealthy, power driven individual speak about Americans as sheeple who are ignorant, deserving of their poverty, low wages and lack of health insurance, I don’t wish they would shut up. In fact, I hope they keep TALKING because more and more, they look as entitled, egocentric and ridiculously out of touch and distorted in their thinking which is a great display of their lack of compassion and, emotional intelligence that is becoming FAR too obvious. People are pissed off. And this is a GOOD sign.
I’m believing it’ll be those who have compassion and empathy that will eventually be the psychopath’s undoing. Maybe that’s too simplistic and too hopeful, but this is why I believe all of us have a stake in educating others about psychopathy and putting it into terms that are REALISTIC. I hope this book loses momentum. It doesn’t appear to have much.
And I sure as hell would not encourage a survivor in recovery to read it.
Thanks for the heads up and the review, Steve. I’ll be passing this on.
LL
Steve I don’t think you and I disagree on this at all really, I think we both pretty much believe that Psychopaths, the pure kind, don’t have much ability to empathize and therefore they will act to harm, or even deliberately harm others, just for the “fun” of it (duping delight as it were)
Baron-Cohen’s ideas on the continuum of empathy….from zero+ (an autistic person) to zero negative (psychopathic) on one end of the bell curve to the utter empath on the other end, with most of us in the middle pretty much for me outlines what “normal” is —being in the middle of the bell curve, but we all must quash our empathy at times or we would never be able to drive down the street past a homeless person without stopping and giving them our bank books, the keys to our cars and the key to our home. Even though we may empathize with this person’s plight, we “control” our response to that empathy and we drive on by, or we stop and give them a few bucks.
Before I read Baron-Cohen’s book I hadn’t really thought about how we can control our response to empathy. Once, when I was asking a person I believe is a psychopath to leave my farm they went into a guilt throwing party, then a pity party, etc. and changed from rage to pity seeking like a top spinning round and round and I found myself watching them like I would watch a bug and I was not buying into either their contention that I had mistreated them, or that I should pity them. Later as I reflected on this event, I got to thinking that must be the way a true psychopath feels when they watch us begging them to stop hurting us….totally without any empathy. I realized that day that I had NO empathy for this person who was truly homeless except for their vehicle and it was a sobering thought for me that I COULD have no empathy for another human being.
So reading about the levels of empathy and the fact that they are not “static” but vary from day to day and situation to situation gave me a lot to think about.
So I think a lot of the people that our society requires to do some pretty “heavy” things must be able to “adjust” their empathy….or have little empathy to begin with in order to accomplish the jobs, but that in most cases the “pure” psychopath can’t hold it together enough to function well in society, but there are exceptions to that rule too…how about that Canadian military guy who was robbing then raping and murdered a couple of women, can’t remember his name (CRS!) He did WELL in his profession. How about the many governors of states, Bloggo is one example….who are obviously very HIGH in P traits? Dictators of countries. Presidents of countries. Lots and lots of psychopaths have risen to high positions just by virtue of having no consciences.
Maybe society would be better without them, but since we DO have them in our society, I think we must have some checks and balances and maybe having a few of them or a few people who are high in the traits off sets the bad apples of the Ted Bundys or the Blaggos.
Thanks Steve. I haven’t read the book, and know only what you have shared, here. I like LL, immediatly sensed that Dutton was a psychopath who felt the need to “romantisize” his pathology, or at least to make it innoculious, and heroic.
And, with a title like that, who will it mostly attract? People like us, the survivors, perhaps, professionals in the feild, yes, but my guess is that the majority of his readers will be psychopaths looking to bolster their already inflated egos and justify their percieved superiority.
This sounds like a psychopath blowing his proverbial horn.