America’s Pathology

I have had the opportunity to study only one person in extreme detail that had a sociopathic disorder. The person was actually a highly functioning and dear friend of mine who absolutely had zero empathy for others. After eight years of spending time thoroughly researching this person, I was personally convinced that this type of person exists in reality and must be dealt with from the societal viewpoint.

It is not that sociopaths are necessarily evil, although some are. It is just that they do not see any of their actions as evil, no matter the consequences to others. Their needs transcend all others’. In fact a desire that the normal person might consider trivial, to them can be earth shattering, engulfing the needs of all that come in contact with them.

For a hot cup of coffee, they would not flinch if the person providing it to them had to give their life to prepare the coffee and bring it to them. This sounds extreme, but in the world of the sociopath, it is not. The sound of it is so abhorrent and ridiculous to the normal person that one cannot typically even process its reality. In fact, it took me eight years to believe it to be true, even with all the evidence before me.

Yet these people are real and walk among us. If you have compassion for your fellow man, do not mistakenly believe that all do to your extent, or to any extent at all. If you have a sense of remorse when you do someone else wrong, do not believe for a moment that all possess this character, for they do not. The terror of sociopathy is that these people are highly functioning and tend to concentrate in places of power over the individual for that wields them the authority to act our their pathology without restraint.

Unfortunately, society can be taken in by sociopaths in positions of power. Their rationale, which is so very different from that of normality, becomes the projection of society in early stages of changing environment. We drift in their direction as if it is one that would be chosen by us until it goes beyond our level of comfort. But then it continues past that point for they wield the power. And then we know, something is amiss.

We are then part of a country that tortures, when our country has always held to a higher standard. We are a country that assassinates when we have always been one not to follow that path. We are a country that prepares for civil unrest through domestic drones and laws to kill US citizens on domestic soil without trial.

As our sociopathic leaders take us beyond what we know is ethical, we at first just watch their sociopathy in disbelief. For no rational human being with a sense of right and wrong would go down this path. It took me eight years to understand both intellectually and emotionally, holistically, that very rational, but completely sociopathic human beings will go down this path without flinching and without concern for the welfare of those they are sworn to protect.