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by
Kevin Dutton
the capacity to decouple “cold” sensory empathy from “hot” emotional empathy has other advantages, too—most notably in arenas where a degree of affective detachment must be preserved between practitioner a...
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Functional Psychopath = Psychopath − Poor Decision Making
“It certainly makes sense that psychopathic traits are normally distributed across the general population,” he told me. “But the difference with those at the high end of the spectrum is that they can’t switch off [the fearlessness] in situations where it might be appropriate. A CEO might be non-risk-averse in certain areas of business, but, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t want to walk around a rough neighborhood at night. A psychopath isn’t able to make that distinction. With a psychopath, it’s all or nothing.”
functional psychopathy is context dependent. That, in the language of personality theory, it is “state” as opposed to “trait.” And that, in the right set of circumstances, it can enhance rather than encumber the speed and quality of decision making.
It was neither high nor low levels of psychopathy that coded for criminal success—it was moderate levels:
The great epochs of our lives are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
“College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of twenty or thirty years ago,”
The psychopath’s capacity for charm is, needless to say, well documented. As is their ability to focus and “get the job done.”
charm, focus, and ruthlessness—three of the psychopath’s most instantly recognizable calling cards—constitute,
the majority of life’s risk takers tend to score higher on tests of general “mental toughness” than those who are risk averse, with scores on the challenge/openness-to-experience subscale being the single biggest predictor of physical risk taking, and scores on the confidence subscale being the biggest predictor of psychological risk taking. Both of which qualities psychopaths have in abundance.
“I think the idea of killing professionally, be it in the market or elsewhere, demands a certain ability to compartmentalize. To focus on the job at hand. And, when that job is finished, to just walk away and forget it ever happened.”
Seven Deadly Wins—seven core principles of psychopathy that, apportioned judiciously and applied with due care and attention, can help us get exactly what we want; can help us respond, rather than react, to the challenges of modern-day living; can transform our outlook from victim to victor, but without turning us into a villain: 1. Ruthlessness 2. Charm 3. Focus 4. Mental toughness 5. Fearlessness 6. Mindfulness 7. Action
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” —HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Is it possible, Harrington asks, that the saint and the psychopath somehow constitute two transcendental sides of the same existentialist coin?
But he was, in addition, almost certainly a psychopath. Ruthless, fearless, driven, and charismatic, in equal measure.
apparent predilection, both on the open road and within seething inner cities, for dangerous, inhospitable areas put him at constant risk of random, violent assault. Add to that the fact that he was shipwrecked a grand total of three times during his travels around the Mediterranean basin, on one occasion spending twenty-four hours adrift in the open sea before being rescued, and a picture begins to emerge of a man with little or no concern for his own safety.
If it really was Jesus on that road to Damascus and he wanted an emissary to help him spread the word, he couldn’t have picked a better man for the job. Nor, among Christians, a more feared or unpopular one. At the time of his conversion Paul, without doubt, was at the height of his persecutory powers. In
Not all psychopaths are saints. And not all saints are psychopaths. But there’s evidence to suggest that deep within the corridors of the brain, psychopathy and sainthood share secret neural office space. And that some psychopathic attributes—stoicism, the ability to regulate emotion, to live in the moment, to enter altered states of awareness, to be heroic, fearless, yes, even empathic—are also inherently spiritual in nature, and not only improve one’s own well-being, but also that of others.
sports psychology as a process goal—a technique by which the athlete is required to focus on something, however minor, to prevent them from thinking about other things:
When the stakes are high and backs are against the wall, it’s a psychopath you want alongside you. But if there’s nothing to play for and you’re on an even keel, forget it.
The greatest worth, wrote the eleventh-century Buddhist teacher Atisha, is self-mastery. The greatest magic, transmuting the passions.
