Psychopath's Christmas message

In the wake of yet another terror attack on European soil, and the end of a rather crummy year for anyone framing themselves as any way liberal, progressive (or indeed as a decent human being), it’s easy to feel disheartened about the future, as though there is no hope. Well there is something you can do, and it’s easy.

The Syrian civil war, which has so far claimed almost half a million lives has, after five years of brutal fighting, near enough come full circle this week, with President Assad’s forces retaking the rest of Aleppo that had been in rebel hands. What a tragic waste of life, and what a scandal that this has been allowed (made) to happen under our noses. That NATO and Russia have backed opposing sides and are at this stage fighting a proxy war against each other is no secret. The age of relative peace and prosperity some of us have enjoyed for the last few decades seems to be heading in a bloody change of direction.

Certainly, soon-to-be President Trump’s tweets about bringing back nuclear weapons in a big way is enough to send even a fearless psychopath running to his duvet, as this is surely very bad news indeed for those of us who value peace.

And then there’s ISIS. They, and terrorism in general, seem to sum up this era we’re living in rather well. They’re international, they appeal to the young and disenfranchised, they use social media as a powerful tool of propaganda, and they’re populist.

The stereotypical westerner’s reaction, one of fear, a sense of helplessness and an increasingly paranoid and vicious popular feeling against Islam and Muslims, plays into ISIS hands very well. We also do those illiberal, authoritarian control freaks in governments a huge favour. In our fear, and our clamour for security at any cost, we risk handing over all the reins of power to maniacs who will bring nothing but misery. Oh wait, that should have been last year’s Christmas warning, because in America at least, that horse has already bolted…

But let’s focus on terrorism. The thing about terrorism, what makes it such an effective method of war and why it will probably never be beaten by force, is an individual terrorist only has to ‘get it right’ once. Security forces have to get it right every single time. If they slip up, like they did in Berlin this week, people die.

Against those odds, it is clear that successful terror attacks are inevitable. Even with the very best security personnel, and the very worst draconian anti-liberal laws, an attack will always occur sooner or later.

So if fighting is useless, what else can be done? Well, there’s always good old fashioned fear. But no! We can’t respond to such horror with kneejerk reactions and a fearful outlook on the world beyond our front rooms. We shouldn’t build walls and spurn those who are different from us. We should not react with hostility to refugees, Muslims, or foreigners with suspicion or hatred. All of that plays into the hands of terrorists. Terrorists – and nefarious politicians – don’t want peace and goodwill to all men, they want us to be at each other’s throats – christians, muslims, jews, atheists, rich, poor, right, left, you name it.

The real solution is deceptively simple, but in practise so very complicated.

The only hope of putting a stop to terrorism and, more widely *all* conflict, forever is to embrace peace.

This is the most difficult thing in the world, something which will take generations and centuries to achieve and which has every chance of failing. Why? Because it involves talking to, empathising with and building friendships alongside enemies. As a species, we’re not very good at that, but it emphatically is within our skillset. To use just one example, the Troubles in Northern Ireland didn’t cease because one side knocked the other out with superior firepower. No, the IRA and the British government sat down, around a table, and talked to each other – one adversary to another. They talked, they negotiated and they showed willingness to compromise. The solution they came up with (the Good Friday Agreement) isn’t perfect and doesn’t satisfy everyone’s wishes, but it is good enough that the fighting has more or less finished.

It sounds sanctimonious, and it is. Nonetheless, we have to come together as a species, to love one another, to treat each other with kindness and forgiveness even when we really don’t want to. All of us have to agree that violence, fighting and killing just is wrong, and everyone has to agree not to engage in it, because if everyone (and I do mean everyone) refused to fight, there would be no war.

You see what I mean? It’s so simple, yet it’s going to be practically impossible to achieve. In the short to medium term, the strong likelihood is that we’re going to carry on making the wrong decisions. The way current affairs are going, things could get a whole lot worse before they get better. But that doesn’t stop you or I from individually making the decision to spurn conflict and embrace peace. Every great movement has to start small, so why not you? Why not us? Why not now?

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy solstice, yuletide greetings, enjoy the season – to all and any with the patience to read this post to the end.

Be kind, and love one another.

Psychopath meet psychopath

I am writing this in response to a comment from my favourite self-identified Human. If you want to suggest an article, you can! I’m super receptive, and shit. 

In one of my most recent articles, I alluded to being able to spot other psychopaths in a crowd. Let me tell you about a recent time when just that happened. I was going home on the tram (like a true European), and two students got on and sat opposite me. The one on the right was grinning foolishly, his head slightly bowed even though he was by no means too tall for the tram. The one on the left was sitting straight and confident, clearly not listening to the chattering of his friend. His eyes were scanning the carriage like mine had been moments earlier, and they narrowed slightly when they noticed I was watching. He stared coldly for several seconds, until his friend cracked some sort of ‘joke’ and briefly shut up, clearly expecting some sort of reaction. The psychopath smiled at him mechanically and even let his eyes crinkle to show ‘genuine’ pleasure. You could practically see the mental pat on the back he had given his friend and the cheering effect it had on the latter’s confidence. Once again the psychopath made eye contact with me, no longer bothering to keep the contempt from his face. I looked pointedly at the friend then back at him before miming a yawn and in response he smirked. Soon after was their stop and they left, the joker trailing slightly behind.

That what just a brief encounter. A silent, one-off meeting, with no further consequences. It is just one example of many moments of mutual recognition in my life, that are often followed by a mutual decision to keep a distance: “I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine”.

But what happens when two psychopaths actually interact? Well, the internet has no doubt made a huge difference. Being a 90s baby, by the time I was seven or eight we had a home computer, so  I don’t know how things went down before the internet, whether psychopaths would actually meet up to discuss being psychopaths, but since it doesn’t happen much these days I would assume probably not. By contrast, in 2015 there are several active online ‘communities’ of psychopaths that I know of and probably twice as many that I don’t. Psychopaths have websites and blogs that I visit on occasion; likewise other psychopaths sometimes stop by to comment here. This can have many mutual benefits; being able to communicate openly with like-minded people is one. Discussing things that only psychopaths would be interested in is another. Honing verbal sparring skills is one that is more personal to me. And yes, comparing notes on tactics occasionally plays a role too. One thing that is not usually a problem is staying out of each others’ way. We can tolerate each other precisely because we’re not targeting the same prey and do not pose a threat to one another’s existence. It can happen online, but not often enough to comment on.

However, despite the internet’s ubiquity in the modern world, real life still exists and real psychopaths still come into real life, prolonged contact.

Matt

In my second year of university, I shared a house with nine other people (it was a big house in a poor city, so really easy for a bunch of broke students to rent). Apart from me and the six normal neurotypicals, there was an autistic person, a neurotypical with depression, and another psychopath. We’ll call the psychopath “Matt”, because that’s his name. He is from a rich family, he was enlisted in a weird officer version of the army cadets (which, if he ever joins up for real will elevate him straight through the ranks to Second Lieutenant) and there’s not much more I could say. His personality was bland, but that might just be because I could see through the mask.

There was certainly some common ground, and we did team up to pick on the weaker members of the group on occasion, but we were both possessive over what each of us judged to be our house, our toys. To paraphrase a song, the house wasn’t big enough for the both of us.

Psychopath philosopher = my kind of guy.

From the start, I had the advantage. True, it wasn’t completely one-sided as Matt is just as intelligent as, if not more intelligent than, me. And he successfully forged a closer relationship to the autistic girl, Ginny, whom he tormented. But I was better at charming the group as a whole, am much less overtly anti-social (cleaned up after myself, involved myself in household organisation – really just a way of having influence over decision-making) and my nice guy mask was more firmly secured than his. Plus I had one significant advantage, I already knew what a psychopath is, and knew that was who I was, whereas he was either completely ignorant or just waking up. And he did stupid ‘I am obviously a psychopath’ things, like reading Machiavelli’s The Prince in the kitchen, talking openly about manipulating people and not taking much care to keep his ‘relationship’ with Ginny, and all its bizarre abuse, covert. In the end, he was his own undoing. Everyone in the house knew how he’d been treating the girl by the time I acted, orchestrating in a “worried about Ginny” meeting with the two most influential neurotypical housemates. All I had to do was casually mention I’d been reading about psychopaths and thought Matt fit the bill, and the rest clicked into place. Matt was immediately discredited among the entire house, and was forced to leave within days. I had won. The house was mine. Huzzah!

And on that bombshell (RIP), it’s time to end.