Psychopaths

While wandering down Wikipedia’s tended lanes, without destination, twisting and turning from path to path, your humble blogger happened upon the entry for Psychopathy. The topic is more complex and uncertain than I am going to treat it here, but the description of the garden-variety psychopath is interesting.

A psychopath is a person who lacks the empathy that most human beings have and that allows them to exist as social animals. Capable of evincing emotions they do not feel, they are superficially charming but ultimately deceitful and manipulative. We often think of them as serial killers, and some are, but they need not be. They use people as a means to their ends and they do so without remorse.

Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be an effective treatment for them. Indeed, typical psychiatric treatment just teaches them how to better manipulate. The psychopath has an inflated sense of self-importance and gives little thought to the repurcussions of his actions; he is nearly immune to corrective measures.

A grandiose and superficially charming manipulator who can’t be cured, who uses people for his purposes, feels no remorse, never learns his lesson and has no sense of tomorrow’s consequences for today’s actions? Have I not just given the best general description of a politician ever written? If the good reader will but pause a moment to consider, he will see why this might be so. In our brave Republic, our political class is elected from a group of ordained “serious” candidates that the media selects, but this group of “serious” candidates is culled from a broader group of self-selected aspirants. Would not an office that traffics in control and power, while instilling a sense of grandness in the occupant, not appeal to a psychopath? Would not those first forays into political power, those first attempts to crush opponents and ruin lives, those initial backstabbings of erstwhile allies, serve to dampen the enthusiasm of the normal man but leave the psychopath unaffected, eager for the next campaign?

The evidence of psychopathy in, say, the American politician – certainly in one who has not had his enthusiasm dampened and so has lasted long enough to rise high in American politics – hardly needs to be debated. Their grandiose self-importance is the stuff of legend. Their shallow charm is undeniable. Yet look with what remorselessness they continue to pursue the Iraq War even while they take aim at Iran. Who but a psychopath immune to consequences could foist upon us Social Security, whose doomsday clock is ticking down to zero? What manner of man, the events and outcomes of Prohibition available for his perusal, could so zealously pursue the War on Drugs unless he were incapable of learning a lesson? And how many politicians, driven by impulse and blind to outcome, have thrown their careers away for the brief bliss of sexual infidelity?

With some margin of error, it is estimated that about 1% of the population is psychopathic. Even if this is off by an order of magnitude, that leaves around 300,000 individuals without conscience to fill up our political offices, from State Rep to Commander in Chief. If my hypothesis is anywhere near correct, we would expect the portion of psychopaths among politicians to rise with increases in station, i.e., with increased time spent in the culling process and with increased adeptness at politics. We should also expect to see fewer psychopaths elected to offices where the voters actually know the candidates and are not to be fooled by mere superficial appeal and specious empathy. The mayors of the various Danvilles that dot the Republic may not display an elevated propensity for psychopathy, but what of Detroit, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia? State Representatives might show a moderate increase, while the proportion of consciences to Congressmen in the Capital Building could be appallingly low.

H.L. Mencken estimated that one third of Congressmen, more or less, are scoundrels. Two thirds, more or less, are know-nothings. Three thirds, more or less, are cowards. This explains Congress’ behavior quite well, but what is the actual percentage of scoundrels, and are they indeed psychopaths? Fortunately, there may be a way to find out. Psychopaths, according to some, show a lack of grey matter in certain areas of the brain associated with emotional learning and impulse control. This moves psychopathy out of that nebulous and fantastical realm of mental health and into the realm of an actual physical derangement of the brain.

I therefore propose that any man or woman seeking elected office, and any appointee up for confirmation, undergo a brain scan of these areas. I propose no oversight committee to grant or deny eligibility, because this is too much power to invest in any group of oligarchs. Rather, let them simply have a brain scan made public. It need not even be a law – indeed, it is better that it is not. Let the public simply demand it.

Any man who refuses to have his brain scanned and released to the public shall be considered a potential psychopath and suffer consequent losses at the polls. Any who presents a lack of development in empathetic and decision-making regions of the brain will find himself against an impossible hurdle to overcome. And any man whose brain exhibits markers of psychopathy but who is not actually a psychopath shall find election equally unlikely and thus be spared a lifetime as a parasite.