Arlo and y'all: Yes, I learned a few things looking up these terms too. From what I've gathered, anti-social personality disorders exist on a continuum and the lines are drawn partly on the basis of what psychologists observe and partly on the basis of what's observed by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Most people in prison - 80 to 85% - have anti-social personalities and so the line between sociopaths and psychopaths is the line between bad guys and very bad guys.
I was surprised to learn that narcissistic personality disorder is basically an exaggerated from of normal. It's something anyone can relate to because it's just a whole lot more of what you have too, even if you're totally healthy. AND I was surprised to learn that narcissism is like the milder form of an anti-personality disorder, not quite a sociopath but they share some traits or symptoms. And then the psychopath is like a sociopath, only more so. There must be countless variations along this spectrum, but I think the categories are basically drawn to identify clusters or groups that have to be handled by our institutions. The labels serve to help manage the prison population, predict criminal behavior and the like. The lines are basically drawn to distinguish between the various levels of danger they pose, the way hurricanes are categorized according to wind speed and the coherence of their eyes. > Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:24:07 -0400 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MD] Morality and Prudence > > [DMB] > Right. Sociopaths and psychopaths are both forms of anti-social > personality disorder but the latter is more severe. > > [Arlo] > I am surprised there is no distinction, I've always used the terms > (erroneously now, I see) in the sense that a "psychopath" understands > that what he is doing is wrong, but he "gets off" on doing those things, > while a "sociopath" lacks empathy to understand that what he is doing is > wrong. Take the (fictional) case of Dexter, he only "knows" that what he > does is wrong in the sense that he understands that other people tell > him it is, but he himself is unable to understand his actions as "wrong" > (sociopath), while the Ice Cream Truck killer (won't spoil the plot for > those who didn't watch) definitely is portrayed as understanding that > his actions are "evil" but getting off on hurting people (psychopath). > That is, Dexter completely lacks empathy while the ICTK has enough > empathy to enjoy seeing other people hurt. > > Now that these terms are pretty much conflated, I'm not sure how to draw > this distinction, or maybe its an unimportant distinction after all. Is > there a critical difference between someone who is unable to comprehend > others as themselves, and someone who has this comprehension and uses it > to seek pleasure out of others' pain? Between "I don't understand that > you are hurting" and "I enjoy hurting you"? > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
