(2) deceitfulness.... use of aliases

hmm, like Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum?

I'm having trouble thinking of literary protagonists who aren't, by that definition, sociopaths. Hester Prynne? Rabbit Angstrom? Gatsby? Thomas Sutpen?

Isn't this the Repulican Party Platform?

I think the Tea Baggers and perhaps A.Rand fall more clearly into the Authoritarian Personality slot:

The elements of the Authoritarian personality type are:

* Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
*Respect for submission to acknowledged authority
* Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different
* A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity
* A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
* A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days.
* Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview.
* A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group
* A preoccupation with violence and sex

Dick Cheney and Shrub certainly possess three or more of those characteristics.

I don't see "Admiring serial killers" on that list. I don't think that makes her a sociopath.

The only one I see is having an alias. Does that count if your an author writing under a pen name (for fucks sake)?

Did Ayn Rand get in fights and get arrested at all?

@7,

Many sociopaths never get in trouble with the law.

Estimates I've read place the occurrence of sociopathy in the general population at roughly 4%, and this figure seems to hold steady over time. What I find interesting is where this intersects with game theory, and the idea that sociopathy as a strategy can work only as long as the vast majority of participants do play by the rules -- it looks like a predatory model that only works with a very small number of predators and a large supply of prey.

Arguments can (and have) been made that a system like ours that emphasizes competition as the sole arbiter of success and virtue would tend to select for antisocial personality types, moreso than a society like, say, China where an individual who consistently placed their own self interest above family, community and nation would be far less likely to be rewarded for this behavior. Sociopaths may not experience empathy but they can respond to incentives.

Looking at the personality types of many of our society's most powerful members, it's not difficult to believe that antisocial personality traits are overrepresented at the top.

@9- Bingo.

Our society also over-rewards extroverts, which is why sociopaths who talk constantly rule the airwaves.

@7, Rand certainly scores under "failure to honor financial obligation", "conning others", and as for aggression, her treatment of people who she thought crossed her, including public shaming and shunning, was extremely aggressive, just not physically violent.

The quote from the DSM-IV sounds like the casting criteria for most of VH1 and MTV's reality shows.

But Fnarf, the DSM specifically says "as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults" for aggressiveness. Seems like they wrote that because they meant physical.

Rand was probably kind of sociopath-y. But literally sociopath?

behavior of a sociopath sounds just like the behavior of an alcoholic...

I don't see how that list sums up the tea party movement when the single bullet points don't even apply.

1. The social norm of what? Dutifully bending over every April 15th without holding government accountable for the spending of the money it takes?

2. No idea what the bolded text regarding "conning" is referring to. My understanding of the libertarian philosophy is that force and fraud are the two primary egregious fouls.

3. Plan ahead for what? A stranger's child's education and healthcare? No, probably not. Their own child's education and health care. Definitely.

4. Grant you that one. They are pissed off.

5. Any proof of this?

6. WTF? This describes the behavior of the government they are upset with. This debt is through the roof.

7. Again, the only people stealing are the powers that be.

@14 -- I don't know any tea party members personally, but they articles and comments they write seem to carry strong traces of the "I don't want other people to get things for free when I have to work for them" meme.

Many also seem to take glee in the misery of people less fortunate than them. These comments come in the form of celebrating the miseries of poverty or dreams of how bad life will be for the really poor once the tea party revolution is won.

Am I wrong? Am I out of line?

@16 --

Are the tea party and libertarians the same?

Bunch of whiny old white dudes, and a few young folk that are sociopaths hanging out with them.

Knowing empathy is just a construct of our evolution that can be turned off always warms my heart when I think of about it.

The world made a lot more sense after I found out that sociopathy is a clinical condition that roughly 4% of the population has. It's a pretty sad condition...you get no satisfaction from human socialization (no real love) and have absolutely no ability to empathize (feel no guilt, no matter what you do). And, it's totally incurable. Anyway, knowing something like that exists allowed me to make sense of some of the crazy effed-up stuff that goes on in this world.

Pair a sociopathic movement leader with a respect-for-authority populace and you have a real life Milgram experiment. It's sad that our society sometimes views sociopathic tendencies as heroic.

If an appreciation of Rand is juvenile, is an over-zealous dismissal of her sophomoric?

@13: I think it's important to note that men and women generally manifest aggression differently. Men, obviously, tend to be more physical, but the examples Fnarf gives of Rand's aggression are pretty powerful ones of feminine aggression.

@13,

There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

A person doesn't have to be aggressive or violent to qualify as a sociopath.

@18 - I sure like to hope so.

@23, having struggled my way through to the end of one of her major books, I can state with some authority that no dismissal of her is over-zealous. The woman was a nutjob and a hack. They should rename the Bullwer-Lytton Prize after her.

@26 - I don't think they are. The tea partiers seem to be anti-tax and anti-entitlement.

Palin -- who spoke at that recent Tea Party shindig - was the Governor of a state and never missed an opportunity to spend the Federal largess. Her state happens to receive more Federal money than it contributes in taxes.

(this cite/site sucks, but tea partiers often link to the Tax Foundation)
http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/…

Tea Partiers also don't seem to have a problem with the Government punishing investors for earning too much money in bonuses.
http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010…

I really can't find anything in the Tea Party platform about individual freedoms or social issues.

They kind of seem like dim-witted Populist Republicans to me. Dim-Witted because they seem to be duped into doing the ground work for people and companies who will profit from their efforts without getting anything in return themselves.

Would you stop assuming that Republicans, Tea Partiers, Libertarians, and Objectivists are all the same? Please?

@4 nailed it:

Eighty years ago the Tea Party would be lining up behind Hitler. He skillfully whipped Germany's sense of anger over reparations to a frenzy as he demonized the government in power.

The Tea Party is just as enraged over taxes, and believes Obama is a demon whose overriding goal is to destroy America. Play to that blind anger and hatred and they will agree to your whole platform.

Well, I definitely fit two of those criteria, though I'm pretty sure I don't fit the others. And now I suddenly feel like an asshole almost-sociopath.

@32 - People have said that about Populist Republicans for as long as I can remember.

The closest I've ever seen to scary Hitler Germany was the police reaction to the WTO riots. No one would compare Paul Shell or Bill Clinton to Hitler.

Tearing a page out of the DSM-IV and pretending to "diagnose" an entire political movement with a specific psychiatric disorder is beyond outrageous. You've made a mockery of the complex and enormously difficult science of psychiatry. Worst of all, this sort of disgraceful hack-work only serves to bolster the credibility of the very people you are attempting to discredit.

@34 - Paul Schell.

ty, Will. You're still a moran.

@37 - Is there a lot of money in articles on what some dead woman thinks about the news today?

Is Martha Washington taken?

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/bea…

Search for the word "pervometer," then judge whether Mark Ames is fit to judge who's a sociopath and who isn't.