this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Are psychopaths normalized? (lemmings.world)
submitted 5 hours ago by PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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In you're daily life do people praise psychotic people or behavior? Most of the time I feel like I'm a psycho that has to work with general public. It's not like I'm aggressive, I just decide that how a stranger feels doesn't matter as much as whatever I need.

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[–] stopdropandprole@lemmy.world 18 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

meh. you're not a psycho.

compassion is a muscle. if you've never spent much time, dedication, or effort working on empathizing with other people you won't be good at it (or even think about it).

we just so happen to live in society where those skills are not as rewarded compared to being self centered, independent, and ruthless. conditions maketh the man. hang out with someone who's got a lot of compassion and concern for the feelings of others and you'll quickly realize what you thought was your personality is actually a learned maladaptive response to living in a cruel and apathetic world.

[–] RustyShackleford 8 points 4 hours ago

Couldn't have been better said. I work in an industry full of narcissists, the OP just needs to regularly start flexing the part of the mind that allows us all to sincerely conceptualize the situation of another party. It's strangely fun once you get good at doing it.

[–] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Perfectly normalised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film)

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Bingo.

Psycopathy/Sociopathy (They've been merged together into ASPD as of the DSM 5) is 100% normalized, actually idealized, often literally worshipped, promoted as the mode of behavior of a successful, powerful person.

... So long as you don't directly go around murdering and robbing and defrauding people yourself, one at a time, if you can do all that indirectly via commanding or directing a complex, layered, system, then congrats, your psycopathy produces concentrated profits and socialized misery, and tens of millions of idiots will believe you are a role model.

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 3 points 3 hours ago

I think the notion that certain traits are normalized or even praised is spot on.

I just finished rings of power and the picture of sauron as the great deceiver who even deceives himself at times is harrowing. I have been very successful in business and met people just like him. The higher i got the more obvious.

People who lie without any change in tone or rhythm, who are incredibly fast and enthusiastic explaining away your absolutely spot on criticisms and fears without as much as breaking a sweat.

These people also have been incredibly unreliable, never due to their own fault of course. They just swish away any competition by any means necessary. And they are impulsive as hell. They just lose it if you dont comply.

On one hand, I really sympathize with people who suffer from the condition i just described traits of. It is impossible for me to say how to act on this without massive discrimination against people with this condition although I see dire need to exclude these traits from any positions of power.

Because if they run unrestrained and even praised, this is how you get genocidal maniacs as rulers of countries. Its these people at the root of every major downfall of our society.

Massive fraud and banking collapse: these traits. Building software to supercharge rents to efficiently drain the public: these traits, it is everywhere.

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

i'm sorry, are you asking about psychopathy or psychosis? very different subjects. either way, i don't think they're considered generally praiseworthy.

[–] PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Sometimes I wonder if people do live a separate reality

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I think parts of the so called dark triad are more common than one thinks. Not vetting what others think might just be NPD

[–] PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world 4 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

What is the dark triad? I think I saw it referenced before but I thought it was a comic book villain

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. They sometimes come together labeled as the dark triad. I see Narcissism in a lot of people I know and it can be somewhat ignored. It’s really bad when it mixes with the other two.

[–] PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

My mind wants to break down the concepts into smaller ideas of lack of empathy, not considering morality. I keep thinking machiavellianism is more a descriptor of the politics that Machiavelli lived in. It's more of a communication thing, it helps to use simpler concepts to convey ideas better.

But psychopathy is definitely a spectrum and it does feel like trying to get another person to like you can be psychotic since it's manipulation

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That feels like more narcissism in my mind

[–] PixelPilgrim@lemmings.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I wouldn't know the difference. Seems like they overlap so that's why I would go with description of behavior