The Sociopath Next Door...

I'm reading an extremely interesting and almost horrifying book right now called The Sociopath Next Door. Did you know that 1 in every 25 americans is a sociopath? Now, at first, I was extremely surprised at this, however, as I read on and reevaluated people in the world today it made perfect sense to me that 1 in every 25 of us don't have a conscience. It would make sense that the person that almost ran you over with their car would feel no remorse or guilt at the fact they almost killed someone or bumped someone in a crowd or jumped in line or stole something from a store or robbed a bank. However, one of the most interesting points in this book is that those people are the only sociopaths we truly recognize, the ones that commit crimes and get caught. What about all the people that get away with it or the sociopaths that aren't violent or openly commit crimes? There are many reasons why we don't recognize such sociopaths and it is simply because those of us who do have a conscience constantly make excuses for those of us who don't or we choose to ingore them or we are so manipulated by them we can't even tell that something isn't quite right about Bob.

There are several types of sociopaths. There are the psychopath sociopaths, which are the people that commit serious crimes and/or kill other people, a lot of these people are in jail, or at least I hope so. However, there are also the sociopaths that often go unrecognized. These include (to name only a few because I haven't finished reading the book yet) the covetous sociopaths, which are the people that have an "inordinate desire" for the possessions of others and will therefore do anything to somehow sabotage people they are most often jealous of or in fact strip that person of what they have that the sociopath desires. This isn't necessarily a possession but can also be a personality trait or beauty or accomplishments etc. There is also the intellectual sociopath, which are most often your business men or lawyers etc. These are the power hungry sociopaths, the people that will do anything for their own personal gain, and I mean anything (because they don't have a conscience), in order to obtain a feeling of power over other people. Then, there is the average sociopath, the sociopaths that don't equal the intellectual sociopaths in intelligence, good looks, or charm but obtain their sense of power by more mediocre tasks. An example she gives in the book of the average sociopath was a man, who they reffered to as "Stamp Man", because he would break into local postal offices, steal all of their stamps, and then sit somewhere close by to watch as the early morning workers panicked and called the police. He was almost always caught for this, however, he didn't care, the pleasure he got out of this was enough for him to not care about the consequences or even think about them.

I am just completely side swiped by this information. It's extremely hard for me to imagine not having a conscience, to inflict pain on someone or be the cause of putting someone in danger or manipulating someone enough to cause them anguish or sabotaging someones life, just for the hell of it, for the pleasure, and not feeling any remorse or guilt because of it. Just amazing...1 of every 25 of us was born without a conscience, without a jiminy cricket, scary.

So, how many sociopaths do you know?