Quote:
Originally Posted by PennBF
I think it is unfortunate that in a number of cases Sociopaths or Borderline Personalities are excused as being something less than what they are. Based on some experts it is not uncommon to have this as an assumptions. In addition to the "Sociopath Next Door" another good book on the subject is "Without Conscience". The Sociopath Next Door was written by a Harvard Psychiatrist who pretty much spent her life studying the subect. Both agree that not all sociopaths kill. They do agree that about 1 in 25 are Sociopaths. I am a loss to understand how someone kills innocent people (e.g. 9/11, Boston, etc) and have a conscience. To allow them to "skate" and be identified as some form of normal resistence is to misunderstand the sickness of these people.  |
I see mass murderers like those involved in the 9/11 and the Boston bombing as motivated mainly by anger, religious fervor, and often TOO MUCH empathy for a group of people these mass murderers identify with in some form. It also often involves dehumanizing whomever these terrorists are targeting. These seem like a far different set of motivators than those of a sociopath.
Profile of the Sociopath
The dehumanization of the terrorists' targets is the big problem. This is usually part of institutionalized dehumanization of a group of people. I had a close Iraqi friend Mahmood while I was getting a MA in Librarianship and Information Management at the University of Denver. He was from Mosul and had a brother whom I believe was some kind of higher up in the army of Saddam Hussein. My friend was often making very crude jokes about Kurds which bothered me quite a bit. This was in 1983-1984 as the Iran-Iraq war waged
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War and saw horrible atrocities on both sides. I wrote my friend letters for a short time but his anger took over his thinking as he seemed to be buying into an institutional hatred of the West fueled by the war. He was a good man when I knew him but I never found out what happened to him after 1986 or so. The University of Mosul Library also fared quite badly during the wars in Iraq with staff hiding books in their homes.