[MD] Morality and Prudence

[david buchanan]

dmb quoted Wiki:
According to Hare, many psychopaths are superficially charming, and can excellently mimic normal human emotion;some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments."


MRB replied:
Oh, without doubt. Business offers a place to *channel* a lot of our evolutionary stuff. Just like athletics, popular music, BDSM and D/s - and politics. Especially politics!


dmb says:
A place to channel EVOLUTIONARY stuff? Well, it might be a kind of adaptation in some sense of the word but let's not forget that we are talking about a serious form of mental illness that just so happens to produce extremely dangerous monsters. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems that your aim is to soften and undermine the ugly implications of this line from Wiki. I wasn't trying to make a political point but I certainly noticed it and so did you, eh? 

If ruthless predators who are incapable of feeling guilt or remorse can just blend right into a corporate environment, what does that tell you about the corporate environment? And then what does that tell you about the political ideologies that equate freedom with unregulated corporations? I think it is not just a coincidence that free-market advocates also tend to oppose welfare programs and government aid or anything that smells like the New Deal. So it's not exactly crazy to criticize such positions for their lack of empathy. I'm not saying Ayn Rand was a psychopath, although I guess that could be true, but I think a whole lot of the people who disagree with that sort of view do disagree for exactly that reason. I think a lot of liberals object to conservatism because it lacks empathy. It seems to guard the interests of the economy in general and corporations in particular at the expense of human suffering for the little guy. "War is good for the economy." That's a pretty psychopathic thing to say, no? My old roommate at Hillsdale was rather fond of that one. 


MRB said:
Anyone here ever hear of The Michael Teachings? (No relation.) Very interesting New Age system ... It's fun looking at things from a Michael point of view. According to them, I'm a "6th Level Old-soul Priest in Passion with Goal of Growth and Chief Feature (i.e., issue to work on) of Stubbornness."  ...There was quite the discomfort when a Michael-channel (who's a political liberal) said that Palin is older soul'd than Obama. ; )



dmb says:

Are you sure they didn't say "6th level old sole"? The difference might be important. In any case, I'm a Capricorn and if you know anything about Capricorns, then you know we don't believe in astrology or any of that new-age stuff. 

Last weekend I met a six-year old boy. He seemed to have an old soul. He said, "You shouldn't be too awesome. Awesome hurts other people's feelings." Is that brilliant, or what? I think maybe he was being a bit too awesome when he said that.