Les psychopathes

Dommage, c'est en anglais ...

I ought to say at this point that the idea that the Psychopath will always "win" by playing his or her dominant strategy holds true only under certain circumstances. As the reader might guess, a person who has no fear of consequences because they cannot imagine them, or even if they do have the intellect to do so, has no emotion associated with those consequences which would tend to enforce them as behavioral choices, is the ideal vehicle for the violation of the Free Will and rights of others.

The [psychopath] is unfamiliar with the primary facts or data of what might be called personal values and is altogether incapable of understanding such matters. It is impossible for him to take even a slight interest in the tragedy or joy or the striving of humanity as presented in serious literature or art. He is also indifferent to all these matters in life itself. Beauty and ugliness, except in a very superficial sense, goodness, evil, love, horror, and humour have no actual meaning, no power to move him. He is, furthermore, lacking in the ability to see that others are moved. It is as though he were colour-blind, despite his sharp intelligence, to this aspect of human existence. It cannot be explained to him because there is nothing in his orbit of awareness that can bridge the gap with comparison. He can repeat the words and say glibly that he understands, and there is no way for him to realize that he does not understand. [Cleckley, H.M. (1941). The mask of sanity: An attempt to reinterpret the so-called psychopathic personality. St. Louis: The C. V. Mosby Company]

It also means that such a person is free to choose to do things that are potentially self-destructive without giving a single indication to another "player" that his or her choice is based entirely on a delusion. Very often, they "win" because of the sheer boldness of their actions which is unrestricted by conscience which is a construct of emotions. But, interestingly, this also has the potential to leave the psychopath open to total destruction.

It's like a poker player who has absolutely nothing in his hand, but because he is so intent on winning, and is so unmoved by the possibility of losing because lying produces absolutely no internal, emotional reaction of fear of being discovered or the potential shame or disaster inherent in such an event, is able to bluff so convincingly that the other players - any of whom might have a winning hand, fold and walk away because they are convinced by the psychopath's confidence that he must have the winning hand of all time. Only he doesn't. And this means that the psychopath's strength is also his Achilles heel. Once he has been spotted, identified, understood, he no longer has the power to bluff. Once knowledge enters the game, the psychopath is exposed, and has no more ability to "con" the other players. The sad part is: he also has no ability to learn from this experience anything other than how to make his bluff better and more convincing next time. The psychopath never gets mad because he is caught in a lie; he is only concerned with "damage control" in terms of his ability to continue to con others.

Such was the case with Ira Einhorn when he boldly and arrogantly decided to keep Holly's body in the trunk in his closet. It wasn't an act of stupidity; it was the act of a psychopath. And the plain fact of the matter is, if Holly's family hadn't had enough money to pay a private investigator to keep digging, Ira would have gotten away with it forever.

And so it is in our world: economics very often provides major payoffs to psychopaths and penalizes those who are not. Suite et source

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