Essay:In Defense of Psychopathy

This essay is not satire, but nor am I condoning the actions of rapists, serial killers, villainous politicians and the like. This is a defense of those with antisocial personality disorder and an assessment of the benefits and drawbacks that the disorder carries, and so I'm excluding narcissists from this because 1) narcissists are more accountable and 2) narcissism is not the same as psychopathy. Furthermore, I'm aware that there's a difference between psychopaths and sociopaths (psychopathy owing to nature; sociopathy owing to nurture), but I will use psychopathy as the general term for both.

So, just why do you want God to hate you even more by writing this essay?
I think that it is important to see issues like psychopathy as they really are, rather than the typical media portrayal. This has been on my mind for some time, and so I wanted to write a fair assessment without the moralizing and shrieking hysteria. Psychopaths comprise 1% of the population, so that's a lot of people.

However, I also think that that even if psychopathy has some benefits, it also carries unsavory implications which outweigh its benefits, and, to be honest, I think the world (and myself, to be honest) would be the better for it if psychopathy simply didn't exist. But that's not the case, we don't live in some Cloud Cuckoo Land where we can hold our breath and wish our problems away. I intend to get to the heart of the matter and explain the benefits of psychopathy, but also the problems.

Honestly, I kind of regret the title now. Any editors with sufficient permissions, feel free to rename it to "An Assessment of Psychopathy" or something like that.

Benefits

 * Freedom from guilt: Psychopathy affords one immunity from any guilt caused by harm to others. While obviously this tends to jar most people (as it should), this is also helpful such fields as business, where the successful have to push others off the rungs of the corporate ladder, or in military service, where one must be prepared to kill at any time.


 * A level head: Again, in a tense environment, be it the battlefield or the courthouse, a psychopath would be able to calmly navigate their way.


 * No fear: Scientists hypothesize that psychopathy has something to do with the human brain's amygdala (that's Latin for almond, lol), the part that deals with emotional regulation and emotions such as rage and fear. Whatever the reason, psychopaths display inhibited fear. M. E. Thomas describes in her book how when she was eight years old, she almost drowned at the beach, and the first sound that she made when they rescucitated her was laughter.

Drawbacks
I think the main problem with having psychopathy is the effect it has on everyone around the person. As skeptical as I am about the need for empathy (and there's a good case to be made that empathy is inferior to sympathy), it's still integral to any fruitful relationship. The psychopath, not recognizing the uniqueness of every human being, tends to strain or outright destroy relationships via their own apathy or selfishness, unless he develops a well-established sense of others.

A psychopath's lifestyle tends to be parasitic, which retards self-independence. The lack of any long-term goals or the motivation for such can lead to serious financial/fiscal problems in the future, and without a sense of the future, the psychopath also tends toward a hedonistic lifestyle.

My personal experiences
From what I have gathered, via personal experience and extensive research and test after test, I am a mild sociopath. I experience no guilt and remorse for wrongs done, and if I do, it's only intense shame for me making a fool of myself, which only exacerbates my anxiety problems. I have little to no empathy for others, but for some people, I genuinely sympathize and try to extend any help or counsel, though I still don't truly understand how they feel. By nature, I'm an introvert (except when I'm around people or friends who make me feel at ease, and then I have no social filter), and I hate having to share my feelings with other people in real life, so I bottle up all my emotions, which has lead to increasingly frequent bouts of pure, incoherent rage and despair. I've been considering suicide for the past month, but have decided against it because 1) I'm worried I might end up having beer cans thrown at me in Hell instead of going of to the great old country club in the sky, and 2) suicide is never painless.

I think that my religious devotion has been helpful to me in trying to see the humanity in people. You might think the opposite, but my faith has helped me at least understand that people aren't simply unnecessary, unreasonable simulacra, but creatures of God, regardless of race, faith, sexual orientation, or stuff like that. Even so, I often find myself angry at God that I cannot feel something that everyone else does.

I don't know if this essay was a cry for help or what. I think I just needed to get this off my chest.

Haha, nevermind. My emotional problems are GONE and I am now carefree. It turns out that I'm actually slightly on the autism spectrum.