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According to the American Psychological Society, one in twenty-five people you meet is a sociopath:
4 0ut of 100.
A mother killed her daughters to make her husband suffer.
The Taliban has taken to flaying its prisoners alive.
Istanbul is reeling from another tragedy.
An Orlando nightclub became a bloody nightmare.
You read the headlines. I could go on. But it is all too obvious:
The world of our childhoods is no more.
I remember Mother and I leaving for town and not locking the doors to our house.
Our culture has begun to value and exalt the very special talents of the sociopath.
This is an unavoidable transition when people feel unmoored from a larger social family,
and adopt a pathologically individualist “look out for #1” attitude to life
in response to the vague but palpably ominous threat to their desires.
Russia is led by a KGB man who seeks to replace American influence with Russian influence wherever possible.
Our two leading candidates for President I would not believe
if they said it was raining outside unless I stuck out my hand from the window to see for myself.
I believe the world has always been cruel.
History reveals thousands of years of betrayal, slavery, rape, pillaging, and leaders abusing power.
It is technology that has gotten better
and therefore the possibility of nightmarish disasters has increased.
THE LOCUST EFFECT:
I read Alex's comment and yes, the world's technology has improved.
Human nature though has remained the same.
Population has soared to staggering proportions.
Take your average short-horned grasshopper. He is a solitary critter ...
until you cram too many of them into too small a space ...
actual physical differences occur until ...
They become locusts, swarming in clouds of destruction.
With so many humans, aided by improved technology
and driven by greed, hate, drug addiction, and religious/social intolerance ...
they surge through the streets of every city in a cascade effect ... a mild river transforming into a rapids ...
the Locust Effect.
WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?
Perhaps because of technology, we hear about it more.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I just came from a blogger's site and he read a book where they stated that despite how bad it seems, the data says things really aren't getting worse. (Sorry, don't remember the book.)
Technology has indeed increased but so has population. Human nature remains the same but with more humans we are becoming locusts.
DeleteI read The Sociopath Next Door. The author lives here on Cape Ann. The truth is that MOST people are fairly decent and kind and we only hear about the bad ones, but the bad ones are the exception. And, as Mr. Rogers always said, when a disaster--natural or man-made, happens, look for the helpers. Look at how many people rush to help those who have been hurt.
ReplyDeleteTalk to a police officer: he sees judges standing over beaten wives, doctors crumbling under financial and emotional pressures become addicts. No strata of society is immune to the cancer of the emotionally isolated psyche.
DeleteIt is a question of numbers. For every aberrant deed, many good people are needed to clean up the aftermath. But with the number of aberrant people committing them, the good people are being overwhelmed ... ask the Human Services of any city.
We are approaching a point in our society when exhausted people will just pull back out of simple self-preservation. :-(
I think the locust theory is apt. Minds that have been channelled and taught a certain mind-set will believe they are the salvation of society - but evil grows well in a society that ignores the majority to satisfy the few.
ReplyDeleteHistory has shown this many times over.
Yes, me, too. :-(
DeleteI believe that the awful has always been there. We just hear about it more today. That is a good thing. Because before the awful thrived in the darkness, continuing. Now, it's being brought into the light, and is being cleansed by it.
ReplyDeleteNot all sociopaths are evil. They can be trained to do good. It just has to be in their own self interest.
Things are getting better. It may not seem like that. But it's like how sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. Like setting a broken bone. It hurts terribly while it's pushed back into place, but once there, it can heal.
The light is doing nothing for Isis or the Taliban or mothers shooting their daughters in front of the fathers to hurt them.
DeleteI was on the streets of New Orleans right after Katrina when the lights went out and the predators came out to play with few, if any police.
Technology is getting better. Man is staying the same ... just more of them.
Things are getting better. Man is still same old, same old. Ouch! :-)
What is a lie, now becomes truth. There is no devil. There is no God. Politically correct. You're a Nazi if you disagree with what I say. JV team. Change 2nd amendment. Locusts become normal. best way to survive is to accept them. Good is bad, bad is good.
ReplyDeleteDear Lord, Help us.
Long ago there was a Sean Connery movie, WRONG IS RIGHT. Today seems to have brought it to pass. :-(
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