Why are we facing a world financial crisis? Perhaps because psychopaths are running the show. In a post on the website Reality Sandwich, author Jonathan Zap writes:
Most psychopaths are not violent criminals; they may be more likely to pursue white-collar crime, where the payoff is so much higher and the odds of detection so much lower.
Psychopaths are perfectly designed for success in many fields, especially business, law and politics. They have higher IQs on average than the general population; they are charming, charismatic and manipulative; they can be decisive and take risks without anxiety, and they are ruthless, cunning and coldly rational. Psychopaths often personify many of the traits that the human resource departments of many corporations look for in job candidates:Â confidence, charisma, decisiveness, emotional detachment, coolness under fire and relentless drive.
In Part One of the article, the author gives a pretty good description of the psychopathic personality. In Part Two, he discusses examples of psychopathic behavior in business, referring to cases such as Enron and Bernie Madoff. He makes many valid points.
Read Foxes and Reptiles: Psychopathy and the financial meltdown, on RealitySandwich.com.
Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader.
The author makes a statement that is often presumed but has been proven by research to be FALSE and that is that psychopaths are “higher than average IQ” which is NOT the case, actually they are just like everyone else…they are low IQ, average IQ and High IQ in the SAME proportions that the rest of the human race is. It may be, however, that people who are actually LABELED “psychopath” tend to be the “smarter ones” than the average or below average because the average to below average IQ psychopaths wouldn’t probably be ABLE to climb the “high finance” or “high politics” ladder like the smarter psychopaths would be able to do….example Bernie Madoff, John Edwards, etc. thus giving the idea that “most” psychopaths are the smarter kind.
Other wise, I think this article is quite good. Excellent in fact. It pleases me no end to have more published about psychopaths in the news, literature, etc. but I DO wish they would get their FACTS straight before they state them AS FACT.
I agree, Oxy. I stumbled across the exact same “fact” stated, while it’s a myth
Wow, long article and pretty good – except for the end.
He proposes that we hire spaths to monitor the other spaths. RED FLAG.
We have to watch for spaths who pretend to be “spath watchers” already. These are usually in the role of therapists and psychologists. They will have a lot of good information but not anything new. It will all be re-hashed. Furthermore, that information will tend to partly glorify spaths, making them seem larger than life. It will NEVER mention that they are infantile and emotionally arrested.
We don’t need to add more spaths to a spathy culture at the SEC. That’s like hiring a fox to watch the henhouse.
REDFLAG.
Edit:
also, at some point he mentioned that spaths propagate by primarily targeting women in their fertile years. But not same sex or pre-pubescent children. WRONG.
They target everyone equally and are often covert pedophiles.
Skylar,
Yeah – I thought that suggestion was ridiculous. It sounds like the author has researched psychopaths, but has not experienced them.
Donna,
the author says he HAS experienced a spath who was playing head games with him and that he was subsequently conned out of some money. He mentions some other encounters as well. But you’re right, he doesn’t express the moral outrage that we do, so it’s as if he really hasn’t encountered any spaths.
I actually believe he is a spath. I’ve encountered a few who speak and WRITE as if they are outraged by spaths, but in real life they behave like spaths themselves, and not in a “situational psychopathy” kinda way. So I’m kind of waffling on what to think about this guy.
Another thing is that I don’t believe he has read, “The Mask of Sanity” though he references it. If he had, he would have read page 235 (or page 251 in the PDF), in which Cleckley addresses this topic and is disgusted by the very idea of asking if, “…the psychopath’s time has come, if there may be a worldwide need for him.” and if the spath is the remedy to the deterioration of the world (paraphrased).
My spathdar is equally alerted by what appears to be a “tell” by the author: He has entitled the article, foxes and reptiles AND he refers to Bud Fox as Gecko’s protoge who saves the day at the end of the movie, Wallstreet. Then he makes a suggestion very much akin to hiring the fox to watch the hen house. And we all know that this is an old saying because IT NEVER WORKS!! So why would he suggest it? It’s like there is a lack of depth in his understanding of the subject as well as the saying. Spaths always lack depth in understanding of everything.
just sayin’…
I just re-read the book WOMEN WHO LOVE PSYCHOPATHS. I remember I thought it needed some editing when it came out, but still was an enlightening read. In that book, they reference how the spaths love to f*ck anything, they don’t differentiate, and I believe that’s true. Skylar, I believe you are right. They don’t differentiate.
Donna did an article here about them being neither straight or gay, they are just perverts and will fark anything male, female, animal, mineral or vegetable!
My ex is a spath pedophile and I am convinced he would have sex with anyone 8-80. He is completely depraved! The age doesn’t matter because the person doesn’t matter! He sees people as objects to be used and discarded when they have outlived their usefulness.
Donna:
I’m going to take the opposite side of this bet from you and say that he author is on to something when he advocates appointing sociopaths to government positions – and history supports me. When President Roosevelt created the Securities Exchange Commission, he appointed Joseph Kennedy the first chairman of the SEC. The appointment outraged everybody, since Kennedy was involved in some of the most notorious stock schemes of the 1920s, including one which was investigted by the Pecora commission. When asked why he appointed Kennedy, FDR reportedly said “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”
Joseph Kennedy’s behavior — financial chicanery, infidelity, highly manipulative — is well documented. Quite frankly, I am sure he would score very high on the PCL-R sociopathy test. But, FDR was right. Kennedy actually proved surprisingly good at what he did with respect to enforcing the SEC’s laws and regualtions. It wasn’t money that drove him. A few years later FDR named him Ambassador to Britain. Clearly Kennedy knew something about playing the long con – but FDR also understood what drove Kennedy — it wasn’t money, it was power and publicity.
Matt, I think your take has a lot going for it. Thanks for your insight into this discussion.
I agree that Old Joe Kennedy was probably very high in psychopathic traits, and I think that most of his sons were as well. What amazed me, especially about Ted, was how he was OBVIOUSLY a piece of carp, without any moral scruples, and yet he kept getting elected year after year, term after term.
It is amazing to me that SOME politicians get booted for their lack of moral compasses, and others ride out the storm like “nothing happened.” Why crucify one guy for cheating, (John Edwards for example) and another one skates even when the woman drowns in a car wreck and he didn’t even try to save her, but instead tried to phony up an alibi (Ted Kennedy for example)? That part doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course there is an old saying that “people get the kind of government they DESERVE.” So maybe we deserve the government we have now.
Glad to see you back on LF! ((hugs)) to my favorite attorney!