How to be a Psychopath - chapter 7 - empathy

 

***empathy***

 

Emerging psychopaths have a strange relationship with empathy. Reasonably well adjusted people experience pain and often dimensions of this pain are universal. The shared aspect of all suffering allows for empathy. Reasonably well adjusted people believe that psychopaths have no empathy; or in other words lack the capacity to see the suffering of others. It is more accurate to say however, that psychopaths are always in a state of suffering and and because they are constantly projecting them selves onto others to generate a reflection, they also believe that everyone experiences background suffering much like what they endure. In other words, psychopaths look at well-adjusted people as fellow sufferers. The question then becomes why don’t they relate to the suffering of others. To answer this question we must look again at objectification.

                   

Do not read: If you have been a victim of manipulation and you live with regret, or find it hard to resolve the question, how could I be so stupid? Rest assured; you are not a psychopath. This is very good news; but of little consolation. This guide is your chance to learn how to see the manipulation emerge in a timely manner. The first step is to acknowledge that empathy is a double edged sword. Evolution has chosen empathy as a survival imperative because we are necessarily social beings. In this way, it has both selfish and unselfish intentions. To be empathetic is to experience the feelings of another. This experiencing is often enabled by a connection you can make with your own Life circumstances. 

 

Incidentally, if you do feel empathetic towards someone’s suffering never use the phrase, I know how you feel? They are sharing with you, not because they want to know about you. Sharing is the process of accepting the pain for themselves and begin the healing process; you cannot climb the mountain for them. Using the phrase, I know how you feel, is similar to saying, you have overcome massive obstacles to arrive at base camp but you needn’t bother climbing Mount Everest, I was just up there and took some photos and they will be good enough for you. In other words, you are disrespecting the effort they have already made to be brave enough to announce, I wish to share my feelings.  

 

Empathy allows you to be present with someone’s suffering in an intimate way. But it also allows you to reinforce your sense of self-protection; to remind your-Self of the imminent nature of threats and challenges. The psychopath has learnt the self protection mode of empathy but not the part that allows the suffering of others to be reflected in their life. How did this happen? Psychopaths are the winner take all, driven to succeed, elite athletes of the social viability race. But it is not a race; they have learnt that social viability is a competition. From the point of view of a child social viability might be seen as competitive. However, social viability exists to build community. The failure to develop attachment has left the psychopath with no sense of the village.

 

Psychopaths, must objectify. The psychopath is a slave to self; objectification is a natural byproduct of being enslaved. In this way, they endure a background feeling of inadequacy. It is as if, their lack of authenticity causes a feeling similar to withdrawal. There is the possibility then, for psychopaths to relate to the psychopathic tendencies in others towards a communal recognition of this inadequacy. However, this lack of inadequacy that causes a feeling of withdrawal, is overbearing; it overrides any sense of community. Instead, the psychopath lives with an underlying feeling of hollowness that they assume is an unavoidable dimension of existence experienced by everyone. It is as real as the nose on their face; Imagine psychopaths think noses, all noses, are ugly including their own. Feeling any kind of sympathy for others because of this ‘reality’ is then entirely redundant. Therefore, suggesting that having a sense of shared suffering is the same as empathy is a mistake. However, psychopaths must conceive themselves as incomplete objects and make the same generalisation across all members of society. The inquiry that emerges as the psychopath attempts to ‘complete’ the object it is and observes, will lead to the dissection of objects, not their resurrection. In other words, the psychopath’s sense of ‘other’ is like an extremely dumbed-down version of empathy; the kind that Assumes that a confounding suffering is universal. That then excuses the pain they cause others as they attempt to understand why it is confounding. 

 

The skinny: Psychopaths must suffer, and accept that a dimension of that suffering is a shared experience. However, this shared suffering does not align with notions of sympathy. Psychopaths must imagine, they are like a bird who has had its wings removed; they must also accept that the ghostly sensation that replaces the wings is a pain shared by everyone that therefore, attracts no sympathy. This of course, is not true; in terms of empathy however, the truth must not concern the psychopath.

 

How to be a psychopath lesson 7: like fake news the psychopaths version of empathy must exist to excuse the pain they cause others.