ple: A Nomological Net Approach,” (op cit.) Salekin, Trobst, and Krioukova,
write: “Psychopathy, as originally conceived by Cleckley (1941), is not
limited to engagement in illegal activities, but rather encompasses such per-
sonality characteristics as manipulativeness, insincerity, egocentricity, and
lack of guilt - characteristics clearly present in criminals but also in spouses,
parents, bosses, attorneys, politicians, and CEOs, to name but a few.
(Bursten, 1973; Stewart, 1991).... As such, psychopathy may be characterized
130
PONEROLOGY
A neurotic patient is generally taciturn and has trouble ex-
plaining what hurts him most. A psychologist must know how
to overcome these obstacles with the help of non-painful inter-
actions. Neurotics are also prone to excessive guilt about ac-
tions which are easily forgiven. Such patients are capable of
decent and enduring love, although they have difficulty ex-
pressing it or achieving their dreams. A psychopath’s behavior
constitutes the antipode of such phenomena and difficulties.
Our first contact with the psychopath is characterized by a
talkative stream which flows with ease and avoids truly impor-
tant matters with equal ease if they are uncomfortable for the
speaker. His train of thought also avoids those abstract matters
of human feelings and values whose representation is absent in
the psychopathic world view unless, of course, he is being de-
liberately deceptive, in which case he will use many “feeling”
words which careful scrutiny will reveal that he does not un-
derstand those words the same way normal people do. We then
also feel we are dealing with an imitation of the thought pat-
terns of normal people, in which something else is, in fact,
“normal”. From the logical point of view, the flow of thought is
ostensibly correct, albeit perhaps removed from commonly
accepted criteria. A more detailed formal analysis, however,
evidences the use of many suggestive paralogisms.56
Individuals with the psychopathy referred to herein are vir-
tually unfamiliar with the enduring emotions of love for an-
... as involving a tendency towards both dominance and coldness. Wiggins
(1995) in summarizing numerous previous findings... indicates that such
individuals are prone to anger and irritation and are willing to exploit others.
They are arrogant, manipulative, cynical, exhibitionistic, sensation-seeking,
Machiavellian, vindictive, and out for their own gain. With respect to their
patterns of social exchange (Foa & Foa, 1974), they attribute love and status
to themselves, seeing themselves as highly worthy and important, but pre-
scribe neither love nor status to others, seeing them as unworthy and insig-
nificant. This characterization is clearly consistent with the essence of psy-
chopathy as commonly described. ... What is clear from our findings is that
(a) psychopathy measures have converged on a prototype of psychopathy that
involves a combination of dominant and cold interpersonal characteristics;
(b) psychopathy does occur in the community and at what might be a higher
than expected rate; and (c) psychopathy appears to have little overlap with
personality disorders aside from Antisocial Personality Disorder.” [Editor’s
note.]
56 An unintentionally invalid argument. [Editor’s note.]
POLITICAL PONEROLOGY
131
other person, particularly the marriage partner; it constitutes a
fairytale from that “other” human world. Love, for the psycho-
path, is an ephemeral phenomenon aimed at sexual adventure.
Many psychopathic Don Juans are able to play the lover’s role
well enough for their partners to accept it in good faith. After
the wedding, feelings which really never existed are replaced
by egoism, egotism, and hedonism. Religion, which teaches
love for one’s neighbor, also strikes them as a similar fairytale
good only for children and those different “others”.
One would expect them to feel guilty as a consequence of
their many antisocial acts, however their lack of guilt is the
result of all their deficits, which we have been discussing
here.57 The world of normal people whom they hurt is incom-
prehensible and hostile to them, and life for the psychopath is
the pursuit of its immediate attractions, moments of pleasure,
and temporary feelings of power. They often meet with failure
along this road, along with force and moral condemnation from
the society of those other incomprehensible people.
In their book Psychopathy and Delinquency, W. and J.
McCord say the following about them:
57 Robert Hare says, “What I thought was most interesting was that for the
first time ever, as far as I know, we found that there was no activation of the
appropriate areas for emotional arousal, but there was over-activation in other
parts of the brain, including parts of the brain that are ordinarily devoted to
language. Those parts were active, as if they were saying, ‘Hey, isn’t that
interesting.’ So they seem to be analyzing emotional material in terms of its
linguistic or dictionary meaning. There are anomalies in the way psychopaths
process information. It may be more general than just emotional information.
In another functional MRI study, we looked at the parts of the brain that are
used to process concrete and abstract words. Non-psychopathic individuals
showed increased activation of the right anterior/superior temporal cortex.
For the psychopaths, that didn't happen.”
Hare and his colleagues then conducted an fMRI study using pictures of
neutral scenes and unpleasant homicide scenes. “Non-psychopathic offenders
show lots of activation in the amygdala [to unpleasant scenes], compared
with neutral pictures,” he points out. “In the psychopath, there was nothing.
No difference. But there was overactivation in the same regions of the brain
that were overactive during the presentation of emotional words. It’s like
they're analyzing emotional material in extra-limbic regions.” ( Psychopathy
vs. Antisocial Personality Disorder and Sociopathy: A Discussion by Robert
Hare; crimelibrary.com)
132
PONEROLOGY
The psychopath feels little, if any, guilt. He can commit
the most appalling acts, yet view them without remorse. The
Psychopath has a warped capacity for love. His emotional re-
lationships, when they exist, are meager, fleeting, and de-
signed to satisfy his own desires. These last two traits, guilt-
lessness and lovelessness, conspicuously mark the psychopath
as different from other men. 58
The problem of a psychopath’s moral and legal responsibil-
ity thus remains open and subject to various solutions, fre-
quently summary or emotional, in various countries and cir-
cumstances. It remains a subject of discussion whose solution
does not appear possible within the framework of the presently
accepted principles of legal thought.
~~~
Other psychopathies: The cases of essential psychopathy
seem similar enough to each other to permit them to be classi-
fied as qualitatively homogenous. However, we can also in-
clude within psychopathic categories a somewhat indetermi-
nate number of anomalies with a hereditary substratum, whose