And Now for Some Real Heretics, Part 7

Continued from Part 6:

Are the psychics Adamic or Pre-Adamic, to use Mouravieff’s scheme? Mouravieff would say they are Adamic, but ones who have not passed the threshold. More on that later. Now, however, might be a good time to look more closely at the hylics. Clearly, whoever they are, they are, in Mouravieff’s terms, pre-Adamic. Can we further divide hylics into sub-groups? Where do psychopaths fit in? Where do “organic portals” fit in? What about “exterior men” who just don’t have higher centers, who are mostly mechanical?

We should probably define some terms. Let’s take the most extreme version of hylics first. Most people have heard of psychopaths (or sociopaths). These are people who have absolutely no conscience.

Imagine—if you can—not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition. (Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless versus the Rest of Us, New York: Broadway Books, 2005, p. 1)

The author of that book, the Harvard psychologist Martha Stout estimates that psychopaths (or sociopaths as she calls them) make up four percent of the population: one in twenty-five.

Here is what Kurt Vonnegut (http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=38_0_4_0_C) has to say about them:

I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or “PPs.”To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable medical diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete’s foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. Read it! PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country, and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And so many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick.

What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

If psychopaths make up four percent of the population as a whole, it stands to reason that they make up a much higher percent of the elite business, political and entertainment leaders. Imagine the strain of being CEO of Enron or President of the United States if you actually had a conscience. It would be much, much easier if you didn’t have any conscience at all. Joe Trippi, a political consultant for Howard Dean, said during the last presidential campaign that people who run for president are not like the rest of us. He said, imagine if you were told that there is a suitcase, and in the suitcase is a machine in which you can enter codes and, if you enter the right code, you could destroy all life larger than cockroaches on earth for millennia. Most, people, Trippi said, would run as far as they could from such a suitcase, but each four years eight or twelve people say, “Give me that suitcase!”

Here is Stout again:

One of the more frequently observed of these traits is a glib and superficial charm that allows the true sociopath to seduce other people, figuratively or literally—a kind of glow or charisma that, initially, can make the sociopath seem more charming or more interesting than most of the normal people around him. He or she is more “complex,” or sexier, or more entertaining than everyone else. Sometimes this “sociopathic charisma” is accompanied by a grandiose sense of self-worth that may be compelling at first, but upon closer inspection may seem odd or perhaps laughable. (“Someday the world will realize how special I am,” or “You know that after me, no other lover will do.”)

In addition, sociopaths have a greater than normal need to stimulation, which results in their taking frequent social, physical, financial, or legal risks. Characteristically, they can charm others into attempting dangerous ventures with them, and as a group they are known for their pathological lying and conning, and their parasitic relationships with “friends.” Regardless of how educated or highly placed as adults, they may have a history of early behavior problems, sometimes including drug use or recorded juvenile delinquency, and always including a failure to acknowledge
responsibility for any problems that occurred. (Stout, p. 7)

Sound like any United States presidents we know?

So if pychopaths make up 4 percent of the population and pre-Adamics make up one half, than 8 percent of the pre-Adamics are psychopaths. What about the rest?

To be continued...