I posted earlier this month about a new television show exploiting criminals by giving them the best day ever right before arresting them. The TV executive responsible for the show rationalized the exploitation: “If it were a regular person you’d feel bad for them, but they are all wanted by the law.” This sort of rationale is used frequently to justify persecuting sociopaths or other unpopular sub-populations. Take for instance the justifications for the horrible medical experiments practiced by the Nazis on their Jewish captives:
Does the term subhuman sound familiar?
What underpinned this behaviour was a widespread belief that some people were less than human, relegated to a lower plane of existence by their inherited degeneracy - or their race. For German doctors, a camp inmate was either a racially inferior subhuman, a vicious criminal, a traitor to the German cause, or more than one of the above. Such beings had no right to life or wellbeing - indeed, it was logical that they should be sacrificed in the interests of the survival and triumph of the German race, just as that race had to be strengthened by the elimination of the inferior, degenerate elements within it. After all, German medical science had uncovered the causes of several major diseases and contributed massively to improving the health of the population over the previous decades. Surely, therefore, it was justified in eliminating negative influences as well?
These days, it is obvious that racial hygiene is pseudoscience, but in the 1920s and 1930s it was considered a perfectly reputable science, and indeed many universities had academic departments devoted to it, not just in Germany. Against this backdrop, with their nation engaged in total war and steeped in propaganda and ideology that proclaimed the Jews to be a "cancer" or an "infection" threatening the health of the volk, physicians and scientists really did come to believe that the enemies of the Nazi state were subhuman.
I'm sorry but..
ReplyDeleteeradication and extermination of people viewed of as lowly is something a sociopath would do.
Sit down. You're just trying to create hysteria that isn't there.
Yes the term "Subhuman" sounds familiar - it was used twice in the example you posted.
ReplyDelete1st Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI don't think he's trying to create hysteria - he's just showing how socoipaths are seen as less than human by "normal" society, thus are treated in unfair ways like giving them the best day of their life and then arresting them. This exploitation is actually illegal, entrapment is anyway, and I don't see how these guys are getting away with it on national TV. Thus, the Nazi doctor comparison - no one is going to care what is done to a group of people seen to be less than human.
Think about this - sociopaths take so much heat for objectifying people because they can't identify with them. Aren't empaths essentially doing the samething by allowing TV shows like this to exist? The ignorance and duality of empaths baffles me - at least we're not hypocratic. We see everyone the same, not just a select few people.
So tell me, who should really be running the world?
A vegan.
DeleteWhen I first read of that TV show I felt uneasy, I thought you were writing in the sense of 'what good fun!' And I thought 'Man, he/she is sociopathic and so does not see this as morally prickly' and clear exploitation and identifies/supports the (sociopathic) tv exec. In my mind I thought aha, this is a good sociopath identifying test.Then I read the line at the end and also saw the heading. Havent you hit the nail on the head-but JadisLucien might want to look at that heading again-because M.E. suggests the execs are sociopathic and J's question, 'so who should rule the world?' may have a different answer. I think cold rationality has its strengths and a sociopath who exercises his sense of right and wrong (a high-functioning reflective sociopath if you will) and chooses to be what he is rather than give into biology (and evil) can be a very very powerful and effective leader.
ReplyDeleteI think most forms of mass entertainment are exploitative:books and movies too are drawn from reality; reality shows are especially reprehensible I suppose but on that scale, this show isnt any more wrong than any other reality show. No?
-mk
Socios are unpredictable.
DeleteYeah, this show is about dumb white trash, not "sociopaths." It's like an elaborate Jerry Springer episode, or one of those
ReplyDelete"Intervention" shows, only the scuzzy people get punk'd at the end.
Really, what other purpose do these people have for existing? Does anyone doubt that these people will save copies of this show as the biggest moment of their lives, because they got on TV!?
And by the way, yes, Eugenics is considered a pseudoscience politically, but it is alive and well under the auspices of "wiping out birth defects."
The more politically correct pseudoscience of the day is "global warming."
-Vigilius
Anonymous 3,
ReplyDeleteMy question was meant literally. As you pointed out, the headline in the pervious blog said "Sociopath TV execs exploit their sociopath criminal brothers", the one posted today is referencing it - so obviously we know theres an assumption that it is sociopaths run the TV show. Could be true or not, who cares?
My question was directed at the blog talking about the German doctors. No, Nazi's shouldn't run the world - but like you said, highly functional sociopaths are far more capable of being fair and just leaders and any empath. When you factor out empathy, or even emotion entirely, you are left with a leader who could look at the facts and only the facts and would, in theory, make all the right decisions.
In short, you misinterpreted my question, we were on the same page.
V - I agree. These people signed a waiver. Their one phonecall will be "The good news first: I'm gonna be on TV!"
ReplyDeleteOkay, either you're fucking with me, or politicians and judges are an entirely different species. I thought you fuckers were the ones that created government.
ReplyDeleteentrapment is an impossibility. we all know the basic standards of responsibility, were obligated to each other to do those things not only when we are being observed by multiples of other people but when we are not. therefore if we have not the propensities of a sociopath, nothing evil can be noted in a so called entrapment. Ona another note, the compationate method of handling sociopaths would be rathar than waiting till a murder or other horrendous crime occurs is to diagnose early on and have exile cities much like military compounds for basic training where the cannot leave into larger society. they can deal with each other on the basis as they choose. If their life style has any grandiose benefit to them let them work that out amongst themselves, not prey on innocent persons who are otherwise decent
ReplyDeleteupon close observation you will discover that most soldier who volunteer for infantry, policemen, lawyers, bankers, judges and lawyers are sociopaths in some degree. the more prominent are generally quite dangerous. watch real tv murder programs and notice cases where mates are murdered, its not as often to be the mechanic down the street
ReplyDeleteMost Nazis were not sociopaths, contrary to what many may like to think, normal people are perfectly capable of such crimes against humanity and commit similar crimes to this day on a semi-regular basis.
ReplyDeleteSam Harris has noted the doublethink and cognitive disconnect that the normal person is capable of quite well when pointing out that the average soldier can feel profound love for his wife and kids, be close friends with his neighbors, and then set in front of a desk sipping coffee while piloting remote drones that are killing people on the other side of the world.
Normal people commit crimes on a regular basis, and normal people stand by and choose to do nothing on a regular basis, and normal people can justify almost anything to themselves.
Oh god, if only the Nazis had picked on sociopaths instead of Jews.
ReplyDeleteAs an "aspergian" (aspergers) who stumbled across this, I find sociopaths to be an frustrating moral conundrum.
ReplyDeleteA lot of our society, including our moral code, is built on feeling empathy for others. Yet what if someone is born unable to "connect" with empathy. He may understand it on an intellectual level, but (as an aspie, I know what this is like) it is not much use if you can't connect it on a gut level. Is this your fault? Yes, unfortunately, many sociopaths (and increasingly so us aspies) are finding themselves on the wrong side of the law and CERTAINLY of public opinion, but.....
As a utilitarian, I think the ultimate question is that can sociopaths (and my fellow aspergians) find a way to contribute to the greater good of all people? Then again, many "normal" people don't contribute to that either.....
sigh...
you are not human, you are flawed, and thus must be executed. It's the only humane thing to do.
ReplyDeleteOh please, like a lone sociopath would care about what happens to other sociopaths. They're in it for themselves. The only reason this issue was brought up was so that attention could be brought to it and stopped, and solely for the sake of this individual sociopath. I find it cute when you talk to each other about empaths and criticize them. Joke's on you.
ReplyDelete