All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 4, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
29:52
2273 The Fascists That Surround You - Part 4: Society
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
So this is part four of the fascists among you.
Thank you for your patience as we grind through this challenging topic.
I really appreciate everybody's feedback and enthusiasm, such as it is, about this topic.
It's really very important.
So the advice of the experts from what I've read seems to be that you simply cannot win with a sociopath.
He or she is going to use you for their own ends, they're going to bleed you dry, they're going to crush you emotionally, exploit you financially, use you sexually for their own ego-gratification, and they will only flatter you as long as you are of use to them.
It also appears to be incurable.
Now, somewhat like borderline, sociopaths do tend to mellow out a little bit around the age of 40 or so, and this sometimes is mistaken for an improvement, but I personally, I no more expect an evil person to become good than I expect someone's arm to regrow if it's been bitten off by a shark.
Some stuff the body can heal...
You get a cut.
It'll hopefully seal up.
But it ain't going to grow you a new kidney or a new leg if those are missing.
And my view is that if the conscience is missing then the very aspect of the mind that would be necessary to grow the conscience is missing.
If empathy is missing, if self-empathy is missing then the very part of the brain That would need to grow empathy is empathy.
So it's already missing, so it can't regrow.
There do not seem to be, at least as far as my reading has led me, any successful treatment programs for psychopathy or sociopathy.
There have been a few massive interventions in teenagers that have improved to a reasonably small degree behavior for a little bit of time, but this all lapses back in adulthood.
It lapses back to an untreated state.
Now, this is really fundamental to understand.
If you're dealing with somebody who has no empathy, then they're not going to grow it.
It's anti-empirical, it's irrational, and it's self-destructive to imagine that someone is going to change at that fundamental level.
I mean, people change, don't get me wrong, they do change, absolutely.
But to grow a conscience, I think it's...
It's sort of like expecting someone to become fluent in English if they're raised by wolves and not exposed to human language for the first sort of half dozen years of their life.
They may mimic it a little bit, but they won't actually achieve fluency.
That's a pretty important thing to process and to understand.
Even if we throw aside the statism and sociopathy thesis of Part 3, we're still left with a basic reality that That 4% of the population or so is kind of evil.
Exploitive, shallow, with no conscience, unpredictable, sometimes violent, manipulative, fraudulent.
And that's scary enough, but if we take the Milgram experiment, Even at its most conservative, and we say, yes, and 60% of people are willing to be led into murder by a sociopath, then we have a significant problem as virtuous people in society.
We have a significant problem as virtuous people in society when 4% of people are outright evil, And 60-odd percent of people will be led into evil by a white coat and a calm demeanor.
Which means that sociopaths are kind of in charge, because the majority of people will go along with that.
So sociopaths are kind of in charge.
And this is something which we really want to understand about the world.
And do you remember I said 99% of people will reject the against me argument?
Well, I just read that Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate, got 1% of the vote.
And that's been pretty constant since the 1970s.
People get about 1% of the vote.
So isn't that interesting?
Status of missociopathy, 99% of people are status sociopaths, and 1% of people vote libertarian.
I just wanted to point that out as something which is a minor shore up to the highly speculative thesis.
So...
So what does this mean?
Well, the experts all say, do not have anything to do with a sociopath.
You know, walk, don't run.
Walk away.
Refuse all contact.
Get legal, police, whatever help you need.
But just completely and totally detach from a sociopath.
Well, that's often a little easier said than done.
So if you're dating a sociopath, you can break up with good luck, right?
I mean, really, good luck, because it's a challenging thing to do.
But what if they're in your family?
What if one is in your family?
And if you have an extended family of 25 people, odds are...
Well, there's going to be a lot of state of sociopaths there, but odds are that the sort of clinical sociopath is going to be in there.
And the problem with family is it ain't a buffet, right?
That's the big challenge with family.
It's not a buffet.
Let's say Uncle John And you understand, again, I really want to be clear on this.
I can't diagnose anyone.
I mean, it takes an expert, it takes lots of interviews, it takes a checklist, and lots of things, right?
So I'm just using these terms as an idiot amateur, as usual.
I just want to be really clear on that.
But let's say you think that Uncle John is a sociopath.
It borrows money, never repays it, gets drunk a lot, is aggressive, remorseless, never really seems to have a steady job, is all full of wild schemes, talks a mile a minute.
Okay, well, not that last one.
No, that is this sort of verbal diarrhea.
Unfocused, random, contradictory speech is a sort of superficial glibness without any particular depth or content.
That is one of the marks.
You know, in conjunction with a whole bunch of other things, that is one of the marks.
Of sociopathic tendencies, particularly more on the psychopathic side, but particularly if the speaker contradicts himself from sentence to sentence and doesn't even seem to notice.
Mitt Romney, that's really, really an important aspect, right?
So one psychopath was asked, have you ever done anything violent?
He said, no, I've never done anything violent.
I mean, I did kill one guy, but never anything violent.
I mean, it's that level of contradiction that's...
So let's say that you've got some bad brain mojo coming off your Uncle John, and he is sociopathic to you.
Are you concerned that he's just evil?
What are you going to do?
Well, what does the family as a whole think of this?
Is the family enabling?
Is the family covering up?
Is the family pretending that nothing is awry, nothing is amiss?
Well, if that's the case, you have a problem.
Let's say Uncle John is your dad's brother.
So you sit down and you say, Dad, I kind of noticed this, this, this, and this about Uncle John.
He gives me the creeps.
He grabs my junk in the swimming pool.
He never seems to have a job.
He sponges off a whole bunch of women.
He's got a whole bunch of kids he doesn't really care about.
Like, this is some bad stuff.
Well, what happens?
Well, your parents are kind of in a bind.
It's tough, right?
Because if they say, oh yes, he is a bad seed.
Well, could you have mentioned that to me when I was a kid and vulnerable?
Did he ever babysit?
Was he around a lot?
I mean, you're always told, don't hang with the bad crowd as a kid, right?
So, they have a problem.
If he is a bad seed, they've never talked about it, but he's been around a lot.
That's a problem.
Now, the other problem, of course, is that if you say, well, listen, I don't want to see Uncle John anymore.
I don't want to have anything.
I don't want to be in the same house as the guy.
What happens?
Oh my, oh my, oh my.
Some very challenging things begin to occur.
And that is going to be tough to negotiate, tough to navigate.
So Thanksgiving dinner.
Is Uncle John going to be there?
Yes.
Then I don't want to be there.
Oh, come on, it's Thanksgiving.
Come on, let it go.
We'll just seat you at opposite ends of the table.
you don't have to do and have anything to do with him you don't have to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah right well that puts you in kind of a bind right To say the least.
Also, if you decide to take a stand to exclude a sociopath in your family...
How sure are you that your stand is going to not make it back to the sociopath?
Right, so, if you talk to your dad about Uncle John, are you sure that your dad isn't going to, the next time he's thrown back a few cold ones with Uncle John, isn't going to say, hey, you know who thinks you're really a creepy sociopath?
So-and-so.
You!
Oh, shit!
Well, that's not good.
Then battle lines are drawn, right?
The whole point is to not engage with these people and if you draw a line in the sand, are you sure that it's not going to make it back to this person?
It's tough to know.
It's tough to say.
You really have to have a lot of trust in people to announce your plans to exclude someone from your life.
Now, What you do know about your dad, if Uncle John has been around the whole time, what you do know about your dad is that your dad is not willing to exclude Uncle John.
In other words, your dad is not willing to take the moral stand that you're willing to take, and that you taking this moral stand, or self-protection stand, if you want to put it that way, is a problem for your dad.
But you know that he's not going to take that moral stand.
He's going to cover up.
He's going to excuse.
Most likely.
Maybe he will.
Maybe he'll say, yeah, I've always thought this this whole time.
Yes, let's make an effort to ditch him out, right?
Well, what if...
I mean, what if Uncle John is currently married?
Well, then what if he has kids, right?
What happens?
Can you exclude a sociopath in your family from your life?
Well...
You either are going to be pretty scarce at family gatherings, and you're always going to have the anxiety of, what if this crazy lunatic with the temper and no conscience finds out that I'm gunning for him, or that I've taken a stand against him, or I see him for who he is?
What the hell happens then?
That's a bit scary, right?
You look over your shoulder for a while.
Now, if the whole family sort of sits down and says, yes, you know what?
You've brought up an excellent point.
We're really going to have to start to get this person out of our lives.
He's dangerous.
He's predatory.
He's scary.
He's, whatever, unreliable.
Well, then you have an interesting chance at this.
I don't know what Uncle John's going to do.
It's going to be something.
It's going to be something.
Like, if you're...
What is that line from Risky Business?
In a recession, don't ever fuck with another man's livelihood, right?
And if he's a kind of parasitical sociopath and you're messing with his gravy train, well, that's not...
He's not going to give up without a fight.
And that fight can be incomprehensibly ugly for people who have a conscience.
Because you'll be bounded by that conscience and he won't be.
So, you know, be prepared for lies, for slander, for...
Unbelievable things to occur, for people to be turned against you, for your kids to be turned against you, whatever, right?
I mean, this will be a battle, a grim battle.
And it only takes one person, right?
If you sit down with the whole family, it only takes one person.
And this won't be that person's choice in particular.
What will happen is, you know, the sociopath, Uncle John, will know something's going on.
They have a, I sense it, right?
They have a sense for these things.
Like the box boy in B-movie.
He is here.
I sense it.
The sociopath is going to get that something's going down.
And so he's going to start to work his mojo.
And remember, his mojo, if he's an adult, while you were a kid, his mojo has been around a hell of a lot more than you have.
And if there's a sociopath in the family and you begin to pull at that thread, I'm telling you, a whole other thread is going to start to come on by, come on down, come on through.
There's a whole lot of family history and dysfunction that's bound up in an unexamined, an uncontained sociopath in the family structure.
So, Uncle John is going to start to work his magic.
He's going to find whoever his confidant has been, whoever he has something on, whoever he can threaten, whoever he can scare, and he's going to get the information.
That information is going to be gotten quite quickly, that you are at the source of this, that you're at the root of this, and you are You're planning on cutting him out of the only community that, quote, has to see him.
You're going to cast him adrift to see what friendships and allegiance he can earn through his own smiley-hearted virtues.
Well, he's not going to take that.
It will fight to the death, probably, of some kind or another.
And you know that 60% of people will side with him.
At least.
At least!
At the very least.
And particularly, since the best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior, people who've been covering up for him and pretending that he isn't what he is, they're almost certainly going to side with him against you.
So this idea of like, well, don't...
Don't hang with the sociopath.
Well, that's pretty tough.
And even if we say there's not...
I don't know.
Let's just say it's 100% genetic and there's no fundamental family dysfunction and all that kind of stuff.
Well, nonetheless.
I mean, most people do it in the absence of UPB, right?
And you understand that sociopathy is fundamentally a UPB violation syndrome, right?
Because one person's needs matters and everyone else's doesn't, right?
It's a UPB violation.
All win-lose negotiations are UPB violations.
Anyway, we'll get back to that another time.
So how are you going to extricate yourself?
Or how are you going to have a family life?
It's going to be incredibly risky.
It's going to be touch and go.
And you're going to expose yourself to a whole lot of danger and slander.
And the sociopath is going to do everything he can to discredit you within the family.
To the point where he will...
Call up your boss and pretend that you have screwed him over in business.
He'll launch lawsuits.
If you're part of any professional organization, he'll complain to that.
He'll do whatever he can to discredit you.
And I tell you, it's going to be a grim fucking battle.
And a dispiriting one at that point.
Which is why people tend to just say, well, just sit you at opposite ends of the table and you can pretend that he's not there.
Because they don't want to get involved in that stuff.
Sociopaths are vampires, and remember what it is about vampires?
You have to invite them in.
But once they're in, they're in.
So it's a big challenge if you identify vampires The sociopath, if there's one around, then you also have to, I think, identify, at least be careful and cautious about the 60% of people.
For strangers, with no history of covering up for this person, 60% of people will be willing to commit murder if a sociopath calmly tells them to.
I would imagine that in a family that has covered up and enabled a sociopath for many decades, that it's going to be way higher than that.
So, you really are asking a family that has enabled and supported a sociopath To draw the line and to take on an enormous amount of personal risk.
And who knows what the sociopath has on these people?
Who knows what he's going to be willing to go public about?
Remember, no conscience, no limits on his behavior.
Which is why people tend to put up with them rather than take them on or attempt to exclude them.
And of course, this is another reason why, you know, family is considered a value independent of behavior.
This is why the elevation of family ties, blood is thicker than water and all that sort of stuff, As I argued earlier on, two podcasts ago in this series, this is something that entirely serves sociopaths.
Family is everything, but he's family, but he's your mother, but he's your father, he's your uncle.
This all just serves sociopaths because that means they can be judged by a category or they can take advantage of a category rather than an actual virtuous action.
Now, the other thing that will happen, of course, as well, is that if you attempt to oust a sociopath and he can't get what he wants through aggression, remember, one of the most favored states for a sociopath to elicit from other people is pity.
So, he's going to get sick, he's going to need help, there's going to be tragedies, probably all be lies, but, you know, there's going to be all this stuff that's going to make you look like the bad guy, and he's going to be in need of people's help, and everyone's going to rush to him because they know the alternative is the blind rage and the character attacks and the public...
Libel, whatever, right?
But it's going to be, you know, it's not like poking a wasp's nest.
I mean, it's jumping in the ring with Mike Tyson when he's drunk and on steroids and SSRIs and releasing a wasp up his nose.
So the idea of dissociate from sociopathical psychics is easier said than done in a family situation, in a family environment.
So I really wanted to point that out, that this is a significant difficulty.
I certainly know that when I began taking stands in my life against people who I had ample reason to believe were immoral, that I mean, it's high noon, right?
I mean, you're just running around looking for anyone to help you fight the bad guys, and everyone has a great excuse as to why they can't come.
Mostly around, you're paranoid, there aren't bad guys.
It's a lonely road to hoe, being the only sheriff in town, when the bad guy is the actual sheriff and you just have a make-believe star on your chest.
So, I just really want to point, I mean, this is one of the reasons why this character trait tends to replicate and be successful, is that families are all intricately bound together, and if you attempt to pull one thread, however black and acidic that thread may be, it tends to be extremely problematic to keep the whole thing together.
So, of course, if one of your parents is a sociopath, I mean, the advice from the expert seems to be to get out.
But what does that mean?
Well, what does that mean to your extended family?
If your mom is a sociopath, then your dad married a sociopath.
And what the hell does that say about him?
And his capacity to be safe and trustworthy.
It's a great scene in my guilty pleasure.
Burn notice.
Well, one of my guilty pleasures.
It's a great scene in season one, episode 11.
This guy, he had an abusive childhood and he became a spy and this and that.
I'm not giving anything away.
His mom's in danger.
He tries to get her some protection.
His mom demands to know what happens, and he says,''What do you think I do, Mom?'' She won't answer.
He says,''Do you think I'm playing games here?'' She says,''No, but Micah, we're family.
You have to learn how to trust us.'' And he says, gives you goosebumps.
You've got to watch it.
It's on Netflix.
She says,''You've got to trust us.'' And he says,''And how would I have learned to do that, Mother?'' Brilliant.
That whole scene, I've watched it ten times.
It's a fantastic scene.
The acting is great.
I mean, Jeffrey Donovan is a master.
I'd love to have seen his Hamlet.
Anyway, here or there.
But the other issue that I think is worth talking about is...
There is this belief, this idea.
It comes from Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communications and other things.
And look, I'm a big fan of if you change something, the other person has to change this, that, and the other, right?
So if you're very aggressive in your style of communication or debating and then you change that, the other person will change.
I mean, you can't change the other person, but you can at least, right?
I mean, if somebody else holds their hands out for you to shake and you refuse to shake it, they're not just going to leave their hands sitting there in midair, you know, like a blimp for a day, right?
They will take their hand back.
So, you will change their behavior.
You're not changing the person.
You're changing their response.
You're not changing his fundamental personality.
So, I'm a big fan for it.
You know, if you're not close to your family or you're playing your cards close to your chest with your family that you need to...
You know, if it's safe, open up with your family and so on.
Be honest and vulnerable.
Again, assuming it's safe.
And if you can approach things more peacefully and positively, then I think that's great.
That's great.
And that will cause a change in whatever systems, family systems or business systems you're enmeshed in.
Or basking in.
But all of this stuff needs to be an asterisk, right?
Which is, you know, unless you're dealing with a sociopath.
That's kind of fundamental, right?
So, there is no scientific evidence that I'm aware of, not a shred of scientific evidence that I'm aware of, that if you are affectionate enough to people, they get better.
That if you are kind enough to people, they get kinder.
That if you love someone enough, he will become, or she will become, a better person, excuse me.
There's just no evidence for that that I've ever seen.
If you have it, let me know.
I will ruefully correct myself.
But there's no evidence that if you love someone more or treat them better or are more peaceful or more positive or kinder or whatever, there's no evidence that that changes somebody's personality and there certainly is no evidence that it regrows a conscience that ain't there.
No evidence of that whatsoever.
And that's just really, really important to understand.
Because I'm not saying, again, when I say that this stuff serves sociopathy, I don't mean that everybody who talks about it is a sociopath or anyone who invents it is a sociopath.
I'm just saying that it serves sociopathy.
So, the idea that, right, so there was somebody on the board posting about how, you know, if you're more loving towards your parents, even if they're really bad parents, it will improve the relationship.
Well, I don't know of any scientific evidence for that whatsoever.
I do know that that would serve somebody who's abusive by putting the onus for improving the relationship upon you.
I think that's really important.
I mean, I suggest vulnerability and openness with family if you're not close for a variety of reasons, but mostly because if there is a void of empathy or conscience on the part of the other person, then that will be very evident.
If you play your cards close to your chest, other people's coldness becomes muted or hard to see.
You become lukewarm to their coldness.
But if you are open, honest, and vulnerable, then their deficiencies are easier to see, right?
So if you are a good tennis player and someone claims to be a good tennis player and you just gently lob the ball back and forth, you won't know whether they're really good or not.
You play hard to find out if they're good or not.
You raise the game to find out if other people have game.
And so with friends and family who say, I love you, I will do anything for you, then you raise your game.
Well, here's some issues that I have that I would like us to talk about.
I'm going to hit the ball a little harder and see if you can hit it back since you say that you're a great tennis player.
So that's why I just keep raising your game and see who keeps up.
Or at least who's willing to admit that they can't and get some help to improve their game.
But the idea that, say for instance, that the onus of improving a parent-child relationship is upon the adult child to change the parent's I know of no evidence whatsoever that that is achievable or possible.
And it certainly is not safe if your parent is a sociopath.
It is very, very dangerous.
Right?
Sociopaths will not regrow a conscience and they sense vulnerability and need and they will simply use you and manipulate you and exploit you.
But nobody ever talks about the dangerous side of that, right?
It's terrible.
It's terrible.
Sending people into a potential battle unarmed.
You can get positive effects out of things by being more gentle, more honest, more open, more loving.
Yeah, absolutely.
But there are risks in doing that as well.
There are risks in doing that as well.
If you are in a situation with somebody who is conscience-free, sociopathic, psychopathic, if you go in and take the onus of improving that relationship, And you go and get to be extra special loving with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
That person will exploit you.
And they will use whatever tender vulnerabilities you offer up to control and exploit you.
And they will harm you.
They will harm your capacity to trust.
They will harm your capacity for intimacy.
They will harm your capacity for vulnerability.
That is not where you want to be.
That is not where you want to be.
So nobody ever talks about, okay, do all these things, but remember, if this person is a sociopath, this is incredibly self-destructive, so you need to figure that stuff out ahead of time.
So I would strongly urge you to, you know, if you have questions or doubts about this, I mean, obviously don't take anything I'm saying is any kind of gospel, what do I know?
But...
Read up on it.
You know, read up on this stuff.
Try and figure this stuff out.
Super, super important.
These are the biggest and basest human predators.
You know, the gazelle must learn about the lion, and there are a hell of a lot of lions about.
And if there's one in your life, it is tricky, tricky shit to figure out what to do.
But identification of the problem is always the first step.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you've enjoyed this series, if you found it helpful, please, please, please.
It's the place to go to donate.
FDRURL.com forward slash donate.
All massively appreciated.
All very much needed.
▲
Export Selection