re: #49 iceweasel

Oh yeah. BTW, the central characteristics of sociopaths are, basically, lack of empathy and narcissism.
It’s easy to see how they tie in. Consuming self-interest prohibits the development of empathy. Sociopaths laugh at (and manipulate) the emotions of others— pity, empathy, sympathy, compassion. For the sociopath those are weaknesses to exploit and a source of contempt.

They have some other features as well, like need for excitement, compulsive rule breaking, hatred of authority (when applied to them) and simultaneously worshipping power—
The DSM IV is in revision now; the APA just proposed changes. They’re making changes to the diagnostic criteria for sociopathy and eliminating narcissism as a separate personality disorder. Link here— they’re soliciting comment.

But there’s no doubt that America and ‘American values’ encourage sociopathy and narcissism— I scare quote ‘american values’ there because it isn’t american, per se, but a kind of mindset.
And as for physical violence— yeah. We worship that. Some of it is Old West stuff, some of it is about ideas of masculinity.

Right, I saw that the DSM IV is about to be revised and was soliciting comments from professionals. Was going to mention it last week. In simple terms when narcissism is so strong and combined with sociopathy there is no regard for the victim. Narcissism also does not correlate with a higher intellect and has varying degrees. Found alone many people that could be called narcissists well adjusted in society.

It’s natural that we say “American values” because we live in the USA. Our concerns are with those aspects of life found within our borders. While there are other similar examples or far more worse examples found around the world that doesn’t change the fact that we have our own set of problems that must be dealt with. Otherwise we would find ourselves thinking “things are much worse in country-x” That would lead to apathy and inaction. My interests lie within this nation and not so much other countries of which I have zero influence or control.