The author of the blog Sociopath World, M.E., posted today an entry about an article from Scientific American about the overall level of empathy in the population estimated to having drastically declined over the last three decades according to the result of a research project that has been running during the same period.
…In the last sentence of his article M.E. writes:
“Hopefully this new generation forces empathy out of style finally”
I disagree.
Normal people (empaths) can no more become like us and learn to not feel empathy, than we can become like them and learn to feel empathy. They can fake it, mimic us, like we mimic them, but they will never thrive that way like we thrive when acting different roles, mimicking various kinds of personalities.
It is not for them, it is not in their nature to do these things. They are not like us, and they shouldn’t be, or try to be, like us. Human variety is about different types of character and personality with different kinds of preferences and different things making different kinds of people happy.
People like M.E., myself and others of our kind, should of all know this, for we have gone through centuries with being attempted forced into being like the empathic majority.
What would make us think they can become like us? … Even more: Why would we want them to become like us?
I think that M.E., while writing that last line, perhaps habitually were thinking along the same lines that normal people do when they believe everybody must, should, and can be like them, that everybody shall be the same.
We know today that genetics and neurology plays a fundamental part in determining whether someone becomes a psychopath or a normal, empathic person. In the latest few years normal people have also begun to realize that we (the psychopaths, sociopaths and, to some extent, antisocials) can’t be treated into becoming normal, like the empathic people are, no therapy works, and all research indicates that no kind of upbringing – however perfect – can make a psychopath develop empathy or fearfulness, i.e. (though a good upbringing can make us have a less negative influence upon our surroundings when we grow up, but it can’t change the character traits we were born with).
Furthermore, we also know that it is variety that makes the human species strong and capable of surviving and adapting to the most extreme variations of circumstances throughout our presence on the planet. The fact that a few individuals are different in ways that allow them to think outside the box, allow them to explore what otherwise fear would keep them away from, allow them to fight for freedom and new knowledge and understanding where otherwise distaste for violence would keep them from that too, are what makes our species so successful.
And it is the same variations in uncommon or rare traits which allow some of us to do these ‘unspeakable’ things that we hear about … it is they alone which at certain times can, and did, ensure humanity’s continued existence and freedom to pursue progress and happiness.
If we want everybody to be the same those special and rare qualities will be gone forever, and with them our ability to survive.
A world of psychopaths or people living like psychopaths will not be able to function or survive, anymore than a world where everybody are empathic and fearful, peace loving, and dislikes blood and violence, etc., will be able to survive. The human race depends to a large extent upon the general happiness within a society. A depressed, frustrated and stressed, fearful population who spends their daily living on trying to cultivate personality traits they don’t really have, are not apt to survive when circumstances become extreme …And believe me, circumstances WILL become extreme, perhaps sooner than we realize.
The simple truth in my opinion is: Psychopaths and normal empaths need each other!
…and no, I’m not talking about harmful people who’s whole character, life and thinking has become a broken mishmash of malfunctioning and destructiveness. I’m talking about a personality type that fits the description of what we call Psychopaths or Sociopaths, and Antisocial Personalities.(1*)
M.E.’s statement express the same mentality that has led to sociopaths and psychopaths being labeled as bad, disordered, evil, and even demonic. It is the same mentality that schemes our undoing by chemical and – in the future – genetic means. And it will be the undoing not only of us – psychopaths and sociopaths – but of all of humanity.
I am writing this especially for those of my kind, for I know the normal, empathic masses, the majority, will not listen.
(1*) = And there is scientific evidence that backs up my thesis. I will write about that in a later article.
