Psychopaths use words about emotions the same way people who are color blind use words about colors they cannot perceive. Psychopaths not only learn to use the words more or less appropriately, they learn to pantomime the feeling. But they never HAVE the feeling.
This quality of the mind of the Psychopath has been extensively tested with word association tests while the subjects are hooked up to an EEG. Words that have emotional content evoke larger brain responses than do neutral words which is apparently a reflection of the large amount of information that can be packed into a word. For most of us, the word cancer can instantly bring to mind not only the description of the disease, but also fear, pain, concern, or whatever, depending upon our experiences with cancer - whether we or someone we love has had it, or if it had some impact on our lives, and so on. The same is true with many words in our collective and individual vocabularies. And, unless we had a traumatic experience with it, a word such as box or paper will be neutral. Psychopaths respond to all emotional words as if they were neutral. It is as if they are permanently condemned to operate with a Juvenile Dictionary. Hare writes: Earlier I discussed the role of "inner Speech" in the development and operation of conscience. It is the emotionally charged thoughts, images, and internal dialogue that give the "bite" to conscience, account for its powerful control over behavior, and generate guilt and remorse for transgressions. This is something that psychopaths cannot understand. For them, conscience is little more than an intellectual awareness of rules others make up - empty words. The feelings needed to give clout to these rules are missing. What is more, just as the color blind individual may never know he is color blind unless he is given a test to determine it, the psychopath is unable to even be aware of his own emotional poverty. They assume that their own perceptions are the same as everyone else's. They assume that their own lack of feeling is the same for everyone else. And make no mistake about it: you can NOT hurt their feelings because they don't have any! They will pretend to have feelings if it suits their purposes or gets them what they want. They will verbalize remorse, but their actions will contradict their words. They know that "remorse" is important, and "apologies" are useful, and they will give them freely, though generally in words that amount to blaming the victim for needing to be apologized to. And this is why they are so good at using Game Theory. And unless we learn the rules of how they think, they will continue to use it on us with devastating results. Normal people HURT when treated cruelly and insensitively. Psychopaths only feign being hurt because they perceive hurt as not getting what they wanted, and tried to get by manipulation! In the book Violent Attachments, women and men have noted the particular stare of the psychopath - it is an intense, relentless gaze that seems to preclude his destruction of his victim or target. Women, in particular, have reported this stare, which is related to the "predatory" (reptilian) gaze; it is as if the psychopath is directing all of his intensity toward you through his eyes, a sensation that one woman reported as a feeling of "being eaten." They tend to invade peoples' space either by their sudden intrusions or intimidating look-overs (which some woman confuse for sexuality.) Another extremely interesting study had to do with the way psychopaths move their hands when they speak. Hand movement can tell researchers a lot about what are called "thought units." The studies indicate that psychopaths' thoughts and ideas are organized into small mental packages. This is handy for lying, but makes dealing with an overall, coherent, integrated complex of deep thoughts virtually impossible. Most people are able to combine ideas that have consistent thought themes, but psychopaths have great difficulty doing this. Again, this suggests a genetic restriction to what we have called the Juvenile Dictionary. Not only are they using extremely restricted definitions, they cannot, by virtue of the way their brains work, do otherwise. Virtually all of the research on psychopaths reveals an inner world that is banal, sophomoric, and devoid of the color and detail that generally exists in the inner world of normal people. This goes a long way to explain the inconsistencies and contradictions in their speech. The situation is analogous to a movie in which one scene is shot under cloudy conditions and the next scene - which supposedly takes place a few minutes later - is shot in brilliant sunshine. [...] Some moviegoers - the victims of psychopaths - might not notice the discrepancy, particularly if they are engrossed in the action. Psychopaths are notorious for not answering the questions asked of them. They will answer something else, or in such a way that the direct question is never addressed. They also phrase things so that some parts of their narratives are difficult to understand. This is not careless speech, of which everyone is guilty at times, but an ongoing indication of the underlying condition is which the organization of mental activity suggests something is wrong. It's not what they say, but how they say it that gives insight into their true nature. But this raises, again, the question: if their speech is so odd, how come smart people get taken in by them? Why do we fail to pick up the inconsistencies? Part of the answer is that the oddities are subtle so that our general listening mode will not normally pick them up. But my own experience is that some of the "skipped" or oddly arranged words, or misused words are automatically reinterpreted by OUR brains in the same way we automatically "fill in the blanks" space on a neon sign when one of the letters has gone out. We can be driving down the road at night, and ahead we see M_tel, and we mentally put the "o" in place and read "Motel." Something like this happens between the psychopath and the victim. We fill in the "missing humanness" by filling in the blanks with our own assumptions, based on what WE think and feel and mean. And, in this way, because there are these "blank" spots, we fill them in with what is inside us, and thus we are easily convinced that the psychopath is a great guy - because he is just like us! We have been conditioned to operate on trust, and we always try to give the "benefit of the doubt." So, if there are blanks, we "give the benefit of the doubt," and we are thereby hoisted on our own petard. Psychopaths view any social exchange as a "feeding opportunity," a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only ONE winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse. [Hare] One psychopath interviewed by Hare's team said quite frankly: "The first thing I do is size you up. I look for an angle, an edge, figure out what you need and give it to you. Then it's pay-back time, with interest. I tighten the screws." Another psychopath admitted that he never targeted attractive woman - he was only interested in those who were insecure and lonely. He claimed he could smell a needy person "the way a pig smells truffles." The callous use of the old, the lonely, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, is a trademark of the psychopath. And when any of them wake up to what is happening, they are generally too embarrassed to complain. One of the chief ways psychopaths prey on others is to make use of the normal person's need to find meaning or purpose in life. They will pose as grief counselors, or "experts" or various sorts that attract followings of people who are looking for answers. They are masters of recognizing "hang-ups" and self-doubts that most people have, and they will brazenly pander to them to gain a follower to use later. Hare tells of a staff psychologist is a mental hospital whose life was destroyed by a psychopathic patient. He cleaned out her bank account, maxed out her credit cards, and then disappeared. How did he get to her? She said that her life had been "empty" and she had just simply succumbed to his sweet words and verbal caresses. As we already know, such words are cheap legal tender to the psychopath. They can say "I'll pray for you," or "I love you" just to create an impression. It really, really doesn't mean a thing. But some people are so lonely and so desperate that even imitations are better than nothing. To be continued ..... IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776 -- "POWER TO THE PEOPLE"
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in the operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolution's, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws of establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the Worlds: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever: He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us: He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people: He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of a civilized nation: He has constrained our fellow Citizens on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands: He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppression's we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. |
Katie KidmanAn American, an Artist, a Mother, A Grandmother, a Sister, an Aunt, a daughter, a friend, a Humanitarian and a Woman of Integrity a.k.a. Gypsy Runner ...... Archives
November 2017
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We live happily indeed, not hating those who hate us! among men and woman who hate us - we dwell free from hatred! We live happily indeed, free from ailments among the ailing! among men and woman who are ailing we dwell free from ailments! We live happily indeed, free from greed among the greedy! among men and woman who are greedy let us dwell free from greed! We live happily indeed, though we call nothing our own!
One ought to follow the wise, the intelligent, the learned, the much-enduring, the dutiful, the elect; one ought to follow such a good and wise Soul, as the moon follows the path of the stars.