I'm really into my summer reading right now. I just love to grab a cool drink, bowl of snacks, and proceed out to my back screen porch, and place them on the side table next to the chair where my latest book is there waiting for me to continue reading it. I then pick it up, have a seat, turn to the page where I left off, and I spend a pleasant hour or two reading and snacking away. A great summer past-time, no?
My most recent read is "The Sociopath Next Door," by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout (published 2005).
In it the author maintains that one in twenty-five people can be reliably classed as sociopathic, that is, completely lacking in conscience and compassion. Not all people classed as such go on to become criminals, such as serial killers. In fact most of them avoid conflict with the law altogether, but they continue on in their narcissistic ways.
A very interesting point she makes about
such people, one that may not readily come to mind, is that they are very easily bored, and that the chief way they relieve their boredom is by manipulating others, in a kind of a game. They are masters of deceit to this end, she says, coming across at first as highly trustworthy (though not), and a special trick they often use is to make themselves seem somehow worthy of pity (while not), in order to gain sympathy from a victim, who then becomes more vulnerable to their manipulation.
Clinically, she says, there is no known cause for this type of behavior, and thus no treatment. How do you create a conscience in someone who has none, she asks.
Here is an interview with the author herself speaking more on this phenomenon:
www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/conscience-lack-of#_A bit of a "heavy read," I suppose, but an informative one about
a certain class of people that we have all dealt with, certainly, if that one-in-twenty-five figure is correct.
So, to continue the summer reading theme, would anyone else like to cite or discuss a particularly good book read lately?