PonerologyNews.com

The other day, I was discussing with someone the recent story about George Zimmerman’s girlfriend accusing him of pointing a gun at her. We both agreed that the interesting part of the story wasn’t so much that Zimmerman was in trouble, but that Zimmerman – a man who has quite a lot of very recent baggage, not much seemingly going for him, and, having only been served with divorce papers days ago, is married – even has a girlfriend. We both wondered why a woman would want to be his girlfriend at the moment in the first place.

Apparently, Saturday Night Live did too, as they led off this weekend’s episode with a sketch in which this very question is asked.

Now, I am not claiming that George Zimmerman is a psychopath or has any other specific conscience-reducing disorder. I really have no ability to make a judgment on that. However, the conversation about his romantic situation did lead me to explain to my conversation partner that those that are psychopaths or do have certain related disorders are notorious for their ability to attract many romantic and sexual relationships. I mentioned some of the fascinating research, which I cover in my foundational page about psychopathy, about just how successful some of history’s most ruthless killers have been in spreading their genes.

Well, as so often happens after a deep discussion about an intriguing topic, it wasn’t more than a couple of days before a new, highly relevant story emerged in the news. (more…)

Back in June, I came across a post by Linda Cockburn on her blog, Living the Good Life. Linda studies environmental law and her blog focuses on issues of sustainability. Its tagline is “Our ongoing attempts to live as sustainably as possible.”

The post that I came across is entitled “I am angry!” and, in it, Linda expresses her despair about the state of the world and the futility of placing hope in and comforting ourselves with small daily pro-sustainability lifestyle changes in the face of destructiveness on such a massive scale. Like many who have wrestled with this viewpoint, Linda appears to have been influenced by Derrick Jensen, since the post features an image of the graphic novel he produced along with Stephanie McMillan, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial.

I was moved by what Linda was expressing in that post so I left a comment to share with her the idea that psychopathology may play a key role and to let her know about the field of ponerology, which has shed so much light on issues like this for me.

Linda responded right away with a comment that showed interest in those topics.

Then, a few weeks later, I got an email from Linda. She said my comment had thrown her off on a tangent looking into the ideas I had mentioned in the comment. She also said she was inspired to write an article about ponerology and how screening for psychopaths might improve workplaces, governments, the environment and the world at large. She wanted to interview me for this article.

A couple weeks after that I received a set of interview questions from Linda.

At that time, I was under the impression that Linda was writing an article for her blog that would just consist of the text of her questions and my responses. So I answered the questions at great length, thinking these would make up the bulk of her post. Only later, after I had responded, did I learn that she was actually writing a feature article for an Australian magazine called The Monthly, whose readers share an interest in law, politics and management.

Linda was then kind enough to share the early drafts of her article with me to get my feedback. As her editing process continued, though, it became clear to her that – perhaps because I had answered the questions having misunderstood their purpose or perhaps for other reasons – the information from the interview wasn’t well-suited to this particular article that she was writing, after all. However, since her questions had helped to surface some valuable information, we both agreed that it made sense for me to just post the interview, in its entirety, here on this blog.

As of this writing, Linda’s article is not yet published. If and when it is, I will link to it here.

So, without further adieu, here are Linda’s questions and my responses. (more…)

I’ve long lamented the fact that the public is not nearly aware enough about empathy-reducing conditions such as psychopathy, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While a growing proportion of people have at least heard of these disorders – as well as related ones like sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder – they still too often remain unclear about precisely what they are and how they differ from each other. And in so many cases where these disorders should be considered as factors, they aren’t even mentioned in media reports or public discussions.

One of the reasons this website was started is to document the evidence that this situation may be changing for the better. Awareness about these conditions is starting to spread and people are even starting to talk about them in cases where they should be rightfully suspected.

Perhaps no case has demonstrated this more than that of the Jodi Arias trial. (more…)

When we speak about ponerology and consider, from a scientific perspective, the conditions that underlie acts of commission or omission that some might term “evil,” it’s easy to get caught up in the one that dominates discussion in this area – psychopathy. We might even focus on psychopathy so much that we forget that other conditions and disorders can also be involved in these harmful situations.

In Political Ponerology, Andrew M. Lobaczewski details an entire process, which he calls ponerogenesis, by which “evil” emerges in human systems. While it’s true, in his model, that various kinds of psychopaths play a central role in that process, he also elucidates how others, including those with what he calls characteropathies – which we would refer to as personality disorders – are essential for it to play out to its destructive potential.

Most commonly, when it comes to this process, those with the Cluster B personality disorders, especially Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, all of which profoundly impact the capacity for empathy, would be expected to be involved to some extent.

But as disproportionate an impact as people with these disorders can have on their surroundings, they still make up too small a proportion of the population by themselves to bring about a system dominated by the pathological. Thus, Lobaczewski details how a certain percentage of non-pathological people must also be coopted to participate in ponerogenesis if such a system, which he calls a pathocracy, is ever to come about.

Every now and then, however, we are reminded that there are still other conditions – beyond psychopathy and the personality disorders – that can play a role in unnecessary harmful events. (more…)

One of the benefits of having a website about the “science of evil” is that, in the course of researching for articles, promoting the site and communicating with readers, I get to come in contact with some very interesting people. Some of them are others who are as fascinated by this subject matter as I am, recognize how important it is and do great work educating people about it.

One of the first such people I “met” after starting this website was Jack Pemment who runs the brilliantly titled Blame the Amygdala site. Jack is an eloquent writer and a graduate student at the University of Mississippi who passionately studies, among other things, the neurological basis for moral decision-making. This includes consideration of autism, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. He is also investigating the biology of aggression.

All of these subjects lie right at the heart of ponerology and are talked about often on this site.

I highly recommend you check out Jack’s site.

It only took me a short time reading his site to realize that Jack has a talent for thinking and writing about these crucial matters in novel ways. But that was really confirmed when I discovered that recently he released an actual novel about these matters. (more…)

For years, I’ve lamented the dearth of television spots educating the public about the nature and impact of conscience- and empathy-reducing conditions, such as the Cluster B personality disorders (Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder) and psychopathy.

I frequently see spots focusing on other mental health conditions, such as depression and bipolar disorder. This is partly because these conditions are prime treatment targets for drug companies, who then have an incentive to run advertisements about them. Perhaps it is also partly because awareness about these conditions poses less of a threat to fundamental cultural beliefs and, thus, they are less controversial to discuss on television.

And of course you can barely turn on the television at all without seeing spots focused on lifestyle issues of all kinds ranging from dry skin to erectile dysfunction.

And yet, the conditions that may affect human relations at the deepest level of all – that may even shape whether our species (and many others) can sustainably survive on this planet – are barely mentioned at all.

This background explains why I was so glad to come across this “Healthy Living” news segment from Denise Dador of Los Angeles’ KABC-TV called “Are you dealing with an ‘almost-psychopath’? Are you one?” (more…)