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On sociopathy
Jul. 13th, 2006 04:54 pmWhile browsing through something randomly in the bookstore, I ran into this question today: what would you do if you had no conscience?
Pause for thought. A few years ago, I had the dubious pleasure of dating a sociopath. He terrified me -- I fumbled over the question of a soul, in someone with no conscience, in fact. These days, I think that's actually sort of an irrelevent question (the state of a soul is in God's hands, after all, not mine). The more frightening fact is that a sociopath is awfully close to home.
A sociopath is, essentially, a child. Us with no restraints, as Matt has said. And while there are many joys to being a child (after all, college is essentially reliving childhood, in that it relieves you of almost all meaningful responsibility, and most of us say that our college years are the best years), you don't ever really get to meaningfully appreciate... anything. Connections with people are transitory, because you can't ever really be worthy of their trust. You can abuse others through a combination of seduction and fear, but you can't earn their unselfconscious, freely-given love. You can't meaningfully savor any one thing for a long period of time, because you get bored of it. And you hurt people left and right, because to you, it doesn't matter.
It's an awful state to live in. If I had no conscience, and knew what I'd lost, I'd weep.
(Edit from Neil, who is being snarky-and-correct: yes, if I had no conscience, I couldn't know what I'd lost. Duh. Point is, I wouldn't ever want to be without one. Responsibility is what makes us good.)
Pause for thought. A few years ago, I had the dubious pleasure of dating a sociopath. He terrified me -- I fumbled over the question of a soul, in someone with no conscience, in fact. These days, I think that's actually sort of an irrelevent question (the state of a soul is in God's hands, after all, not mine). The more frightening fact is that a sociopath is awfully close to home.
A sociopath is, essentially, a child. Us with no restraints, as Matt has said. And while there are many joys to being a child (after all, college is essentially reliving childhood, in that it relieves you of almost all meaningful responsibility, and most of us say that our college years are the best years), you don't ever really get to meaningfully appreciate... anything. Connections with people are transitory, because you can't ever really be worthy of their trust. You can abuse others through a combination of seduction and fear, but you can't earn their unselfconscious, freely-given love. You can't meaningfully savor any one thing for a long period of time, because you get bored of it. And you hurt people left and right, because to you, it doesn't matter.
It's an awful state to live in. If I had no conscience, and knew what I'd lost, I'd weep.
(Edit from Neil, who is being snarky-and-correct: yes, if I had no conscience, I couldn't know what I'd lost. Duh. Point is, I wouldn't ever want to be without one. Responsibility is what makes us good.)
