Isn’t it strange how the mind works? I read with approval Dr Leedom’s latest post. In it she manages to be at once hard-nosed, realistic, and still keep positve. There are very real differences in the brains of those with psychopathic traits, she writes, but the brain is plastic and therein lies just a sliver of hope.
For some reason the opening lines of Martin Amis‘ novel House of Meetings came back to me. It is set in the Soviet Union:
Dear Venus
If what they say is true, and my country is dying, then I think I may be able to tell them why. You see, kid, the conscience is a vital organ, and not an extra like the tonsils or the adenoids.
Amis has also written a stunning nonfiction book about Stalinism, Koba the Dread, which has its own staggering opening:
Here is the second sentence in Robert Conquest‘s The Harvest of Sorrow: Collectivization and the Terror-Famine:
We may perhaps put this in perspective in the present case by saying that in the actions here recorded about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter of this book.
That sentence represents 3,020 lives. The book is 411 pages long.
And then I remembered that Amis’ cousin Lucy Partington was murdered by the infamous serial killer Fred West! How could I have forgotten? Amis wrote wrenchingly about it in Experience:
My family cannot understand the extraordinary collision that allowed him to touch our lives, and I have no wish to prolong that contact. But he is here now, in my head; I want him excised. And Frederick West is uncontrollable: he is uncontrollable. For now he will get from me a one-sentence verdict…. West was a sordid inadequate who was trained by his childhood to addict himself to the moment when impotence became prepotence.
Amis clearly knows a thing or two about psychopathy. Consider his compact ‘verdict’:
a sordid inadequate
-
- – this suggests ignoble actions and motives arousing moral distaste and contempt combined with a biological lack
trained by his childhood – dysfunctional modelling and upbringing by his family and surroundings
addict himself – this both highlights the central, pleasurable place wickedness played in his life and emphasises the crucial place of will (he didn’t become addicted he addicted himself)
to the moment when impotence became prepotence – here is the defining characteristic of the psychopath: he lives for the moments when his power or influence over others occur. Deep beneath this is a secret fear/knowledge of his utter unimportance/worthlessness.
Amis, through the imaginative power of the artist, has captured remarkably well the heart of the matter.
He is not an easy read, but it now occurs to me that in a way our theme has been one of his central themes. For example, Lovefraud readers have recently written worried letters about the perpetuation of psychopathy among the young via antisocial social environments and psychopathic genes. Time magazine’s recent cover story is about the phenomenon of youth delinquency in Britain. Amis was ahead of the curve when he wrote about it in his novel Yellow Dog.
His forthcoming book is a collection of essays on 9/11 called The Second Plane. (You can read one essay, ‘The Age of Horrorism’ , here.) The collection has received a lot of negative comment: Amis is a racist, etc. Well I’ve read a lot of Amis’ work and and can’t square with that judgement. (What he says is that Islamofascism produces awful racist feelings in him and he doesn’t know what to do with them.) I wonder whether some of the objections to his book are due to what we at Lovefraud encounter all the time: regular folks’ refusal to believe in human evil. These are the fortunate people who have not fully encountered evil – hope their luck holds out.
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Back to Dr. Leedom’s article – she makes it clear that the small candle of hope she holds out is not for the full-blown psychopaths Amis writes about, but for those with psychopathic traits.
It occurred to me (while I was on the subway), why N/P/S are evil.
Given that they naturally have this nature
1) they have no conscience
2) They are controlling
3) they are envious and jealous
4) they must win
If you (the victim) are reasonably happy . . They are jealous of your happiness, and they must WIN, i.e., BE HAPPIER.
They only way they can insure WINNING, i.e., being HAPPIER, is to make you UNHAPPIER.
They do this by any means available to them . . ie., put-downs, bullying, lying, gas-lighting, cheating. And since they have no conscience this doesn’t bother them at all.
All it means is THEY WIN because now they are happier than you (and controlling you). . because they have made sure that YOU ARE MISERABLE!
Sarah-
EGG-ZACK-LEEE!!!!
However, I do not believe they are every truly “happy” or “happier”.
What they perceive as happiness is 180 degrees from the norm.
I believe they are (to themselves unacknowledged) miserable, and the “Win” which makes their Target “More Miserable” makes them “Less Miserable”…. thus HAPPIER in their own mind…but only temporarily.
That is why they keep striking. They are just plain evil.
I agree with this need to ‘win’ but they are not so intelligent as they will cut off their noses to spite their faces – the ‘win’ can be something that totally sabotages their lives as well as the lives of others around them and makes them look like a failure to the rest of society, but they still count it as a ‘win’ if they have got one over the other person or made their life a misery in some way.
The need to put others down in order to feel some semblance of happiness is totally sick and evil to me. Normal people magnify their happiness by sharing it with others and making others happy – that is the important altruistic urge that makes for successful communities and societies. The psychopath is just that sick – in their quest for control over others, the making them miserable is just proof of their ultimate control.
I am unsure as to whether conscience is innate or is brought about through education and environment. I have seen people who have the best and most nurturing homes turn out to be monsters. Similarly I have seen those who have grown up in homes I wouldn’t consign a dog to turn their situations around and vow to lead a different life. I have to think that some part of it is genetic – the capacity to feel guilt, shame and to think ahead and consider the consequences for others. To me a lot of conscience is tied up in our ability to think – to think – what does this mean for the other person? How are they likely to feel about this? Is there a better way for me to do this so less harm ensues? I don’t know whether the psychopath just can’t or won’t think things through or whether lack of empathy means he just doesn’t because other people don’t matter. We know they have problems with impulse control – so they act without thinking. At the e nd of the day anything we posit about them is merely theoretical – we don’t truly know what causes it, why they act like they do and why they hurt other people.
Conscience certainly is a vital organ though – without mass conscience how would society look after those who need protecting? There would be no charities, no social welfare systems, no do gooders in the neighbourhood. It deeply concerns me that the altruism that used to be part of everyday life in generations gone by is rapidly disappearing today – how many people now tithe ten percent of their income to the church they belong to? Everyone is feeling entitled to be selfish these days because we deal with massive inflation – “Well it’s hard enough for ME to make ends meet – so I can just give them nothing – they will get by and I have to look after myself”
It is precisely this selfishness that allows people to overlook the very real injustices that happen all around them – domestic violence and psychological abuse – if it’s not happening to them then they close their eyes to it. This selfishness allows people to be hoodwinked by the psychopaths – they don’t take the time to delve into the story of the other person and tend to believe the lies they are presented with at face value. Society is enabling these people to do their evil work.
Heartmoonstar and Sarah – you correctly point out that what the psychopath displays as ‘happiness’ is nothing even remotely near the truth. The psychopath is a lone wolf who requires the lifeblood of vibrant people to keep his decaying tissues alive. His ‘happiness’ is just an injection of someone else’s vital essence. Anyone remember the movie The Dark Crystal? The little beings were being drained of their lifeblood or essence after being hypnotised – this is exactly a metaphor for the psychopath. There are many ways to drain lifeblood too – through put downs, lying about the person and getting others on side believing the lies, through lying to the victim and pulling the wool over her eyes, through psychological abuse and gaslighting, through any manner of sport where he deems he has ‘won’. Perhaps it is as simple as getting a new victim to groom and rubbing that person in front of the discarded victim – that makes him look good of course – how could he be disordered if someone else wants him for relationship??? Meanwhile the victim struggles to clean out the wounds inflicted by him and looks like the aggressor because she can’t engage in relationship being too damaged from the psychopath’s blows. They walk off without a backward glance – no remorse, no guilt, no conscience.
Midlifecrisis,
Thank you for your detailed analysis, there is so much to learn and understand about evil beings. I especially like your comparisons in the last paragraph.
There really are Vampires.
They are decaying and need your vital essence to feel alive.
They drain your lifeblood.
Their inflicted wounds are toxic.
Alone without a victim they would die.
But they always seem to find some other unsuspecting Target to feed upon.
Happy…hmmmmm that’s a thought…..
They aren’t happy….they fake it all…..so they appear to be happy……and live in their own fantasies….
if they would just put the same effort into doing good…..theyd be very successful……
But a con is easier!
Fuckers!
Yes Erin – we are always the bad ones – this creates a good sob story for the next victim – they can project all the hatred and blame onto us and get the next target to soothe and clean out the wounds – little do they know.
The lies are unbelievable – the sad part is most people do believe them!
Heartmoonstar – so right – they can’t survive alone. This time as he knew it was forever and I wouldn’t change my mind, he found a new target in weeks – someone younger for the naive factor. Someone his own age wouldn’t put up with his antics!
I heard recently an expert say that what N/P/S wanted was to DOMINATE the victim. Somehow the word dominate seemed much more powerful & accurate then CONTROL.
It is interesting that when you first meet one of the evil preditors, they seem to be very interested in you (your likes and dislikes etc). I believe they are gathering information so they can dominate you . . i.e., give you something that will makes you happy . . then take it away. After awhile, it is much easier for them to keeping taking thinks away (by put-down, rages, gaslighting etc.) than giving you things, inorder to exert their dominance. It’s like they have you on a string, THEY ARE PULLING IT, & WE’RE REACTING!
That is DOMINANCE!
OU Sarah – BINGO BINGO BINGO!
I dont’ know if you know the story of my spath but she actually creates a whole cast of characters and dupes whole online communities. and she made a boy i wanted so bad that i was willing to give many of my own needs up…and then SHE TOOK HIM AWAY; fake killed him, then reusrrected him and tried to have the other characters devalue me as someone not worthy of his time and love.
so this, this dominance this is truly it. truly.
ty my girl. who is the expert? can i read more someplace?
The expert is Dr. Reid Meloy. He’s written a few books on psychopathy.