How To (Not) Live With Sociopaths
We killed Osama Bin Laden. So what? Has the death of Bin Laden dealt a death blow to terrorism? I think not. It makes no difference whether the cause is just or evil. Eliminating a leader kills only the physical man (or woman), not the function.
It’s group process. We are pack animals. The biology of pack animals demands an alpha. Contenders will sort each other out, whether peace-ably or murderously, until one emerges as the leader of the pack.
Nature is not picky. She doesn’t demand the leader be good for the pack. Or even that the alpha be good.
In fact, to become a leader, it helps to be bad. A concern for other people’s feelings and needs gets in the way of ruthless pursuit of power. A lack of conscience is a definite asset.
What do we call people who are missing a conscience? Sociopaths. A lack of conscience is a brain thing, and it’s unchangeable, like eye color. About four percent of us are born that way.
Four in a hundred. That’s a lot of people. There is no escaping them. They head nations, corporations, churches, and schools. They are our co-workers and bosses; relatives and parents and children; husbands and wives and lovers; friends.
We tend to think of sociopaths as criminals, people who end up in jail. But those are only the losers. A lack of conscience combined with intelligence, good looks, talent and social charm can take a person all the way to the top.
The fact is, most sociopaths don’t get caught in their wrongdoing because they blend. The rules of right and wrong behavior are not rocket science. Ninety six percent of us play by these rules. Which makes us— let’s face it— predictable, and easily manipulated by those who don’t.
Sociopathy is at heart an aberration of relatedness. It is an inability to love, and be connected to others in a caring way. Which frees sociopaths to do whatever they want without regard for the rights and feelings of others.
It’s a hard reality to digest.
Yet history, allegory and fable have been trying to teach us about it forever. Remember Hitler? Cain and Abel? Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf?
Here is the corollary reality. Certain things can only be truly grasped by direct experience. Like falling in love or losing a loved one. Or getting ripped off.
Until you’ve tangled with a sociopath directly, it’s impossible to accept that someone who looks, talks and walks like a human is actually a wolf wearing grandma’s clothes.
Denial rules the day. And for good reason. Pervasive fear and mistrust of others drains all the joy out of life. Actually, it will make you sick.
Bin Laden was a sociopathic leader. That’s easy to see, our country having been the target of his malice. But his followers, whose needs he was feeding, or giving the illusion of feeding, saw him as the answer.
And therein lies the rub, and the potential solution.
All most of us want is to be left alone to go to work and love our families. A little time for hobbies, friends and spiritual life is nice too. Simple.
If the leadership is good and these basic needs get met, we thrive. Healthy people (physically, mentally, spiritually) resist bullying, seduction and manipulation. Personally, and publicly.
If the leadership is bad, people’s basic needs go unmet. Which makes us needy (if not frankly ill). Needy people are easy to confuse, seduce and manipulate. Anyone offering to fill basic human needs will get followers, often in huge numbers.
The best resistance to sociopaths, at home and at large, is to get our basic needs met.
Yet that’s just what sociopathic leaders actively prevent. The problem seems like a mobius loop, never ending and impossible to resolve.
What to do? One option is to despair, and give up. The other requires taking the long view.
I buy into the Taoist idea that the universe strives for harmony, a balancing of the complementary forces of light and dark energies. You’ve noticed the seed of white in the dark part of the yin/yang tai chi symbol, right? And the seed of dark in the white part.
When dark predominates, the seed of light within it starts to grow, eventually shifting it out. When light predominates, the seed of darkness in its turn grows and pushes back. The two forces go back and forth, in varying quantities, but always maintaining the balance within the whole.
Terrorism. Catastrophic global warming. Epidemic obesity. Still no ERA, or national health care. I’d say we live in dark times.
And I’m one little cell helping the seed of light grow within it. Even if I don’t see results on the group level in my immediate lifetime, my efforts still help to grow that loving energy by affecting those immediately around me.
Here’s how I contribute (hint hint - you can too):
- By taking care of my own health, on all levels.
- By helping others take care of theirs.
- By resisting the urge to emotional violence, like, being mean when angry. With everyone, but especially Hubby and Son.
- By protesting bullying and injustice immediately around me, instead of colluding with silence.
- By voting.
- By operating from the assumption that most human beings (i.e. ninety-six percent) are basically good, decent, and full of loving-kindness, regardless of creed, color or class.
- By not denying hard evidence of misconduct. Most people are good. That means some are not.
How to identify sociopaths:
- Watch what a person does, not what he/she says. When studied closely, acts and words don’t align. Lies and broken promises litter the landscape.
- He/she refuses to take responsibility. For anything. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
- Crossing a sociopath is frightening. Eye contact chills.
- Look at the overall pattern of behavior. If a quality of heartlessness and lack of remorse emerges, think sociopath, no matter how charming.
- Your needs are irrelevant, and don’t get met. When your needs don’t get met, you feel bad. If you are entangled with a sociopath personally, you will feel bad most of the time. If a country is led by a sociopath, the people will suffer. Look at North Korea.
A tip for dealing with the sociopath in your life:
- Don’t try to negotiate. You’ll lose. There are only two options for resolving conflicts: either you go or they go.
Why is it important to stay healthy? Sociopaths are predators. Predators go after the weak and the ill.
Health— physical, mental and spiritual, decreases vulnerability to microbes, and to the wiles and seductions of human predators. This is a truth that applies to individuals, communities and nations.
So was eliminating Bin Laden a move toward international health? Let me answer the question with another question. Does getting rid of one big grape in the cluster wipe out the plant?
Bottom line: We will only get rid of terrorism by eliminating the conditions that foster it. Is that possible? I don’t know. I do know though, that one by one, we can each add to the mass effect that leads to social change. In either direction.
Required reading: The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout, Ph.D. Test next week.
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