I know it’s bad to dehumanize people, but sometimes I can’t help myself when we’re talking about a person who completely lacks empathy. It’s like they walk and talk exactly like a person does, but they’re missing something essential.
Perfectly said. My ex was a legit psychopath and they are not like us.
We were adopting a cat. On the form it says “reasons you would get rid of the cat” shit you not this dude starts writing biting, clawing, yelling like genuinely asnwering what he would do.
Had to stop him and say but not say “act like a human”.
they do genuinely seem to have a pretty bad time, but the reactions to ‘bad’ are all different and very frequently not okay.
it turns out suffering is not a virtue, and only an excuse when it’s topical.
edit: I feel like, psychopaths tend to have some common stuff. it’s usually unpleasant. it sounds like a remarkably unpleasant way to be. I have had a few in my life, at various levels of opposition. You can’t really do anything about their suffering. if you have a dark enough sense of humor, you can have fun with them. I think that’s probably good. but it’s a developmental thing; I don’t think they can ‘get better’. you can’t fix it. you can just amuse them where they’re at.
that said: you should generally not put up with their bullshit if it’s not convenient. that is not helping. you are not mitigating anything by letting them exploit or abuse you.
if you’re in a position where you have some responsibility to help them, and they’re being assholes, you may have to decide whether to deal with it. some of the more impulsive ones may not be able to not be assholes, and it’s up to your tolerances whether you try to help them despite that. they probably deserve it; they’re still people in most of the ways that matter, but that doesn’t mean it has to come from you.
I vote we take away the power of the word psychopath by using it to refer to ALL mental illnesses and disorders. And if someone says psychopath when they mean ASPD, we tell them to speak English.
“Welcome to my house, here everybody is welcomed and respected, but if you choose to make somebody’s life difficult because they’re different from you your ass will be on the curb before you can raise your palm over your head.”
Classing anyone as inhuman is dangerous. A widespread inability to see the most barbaric Nazis as regular human beings like ourselves is one of the reasons Nazism has been able to sneak back up on us. It’s important to recognize that the potential for empathy, and the potential for empathy to wither away, are both human potentials. As humans we have the capacity for great compassion or great cruelty. It won’t help us if we say, “Oh, that cruelty is not us. We’re humans; they’re not.”
I know it’s bad to dehumanize people, but sometimes I can’t help myself when we’re talking about a person who completely lacks empathy. It’s like they walk and talk exactly like a person does, but they’re missing something essential.
Perfectly said. My ex was a legit psychopath and they are not like us.
We were adopting a cat. On the form it says “reasons you would get rid of the cat” shit you not this dude starts writing biting, clawing, yelling like genuinely asnwering what he would do.
Had to stop him and say but not say “act like a human”.
The word psychopath comes from the Greek words psyche, meaning soul, and pathos, meaning suffering. So in Greek, psychopath means suffering soul.
What a shit name.
Fortunately, English speaking doctors invented a better name. Antisocial personality disorder.
Damn that fits him even better.
Dude was assaulted multiple times by a professor causing him to drop out and forever associate his passion with SA.
Truly a tragic existence for a piece of garbage.
they do genuinely seem to have a pretty bad time, but the reactions to ‘bad’ are all different and very frequently not okay.
it turns out suffering is not a virtue, and only an excuse when it’s topical.
edit: I feel like, psychopaths tend to have some common stuff. it’s usually unpleasant. it sounds like a remarkably unpleasant way to be. I have had a few in my life, at various levels of opposition. You can’t really do anything about their suffering. if you have a dark enough sense of humor, you can have fun with them. I think that’s probably good. but it’s a developmental thing; I don’t think they can ‘get better’. you can’t fix it. you can just amuse them where they’re at.
that said: you should generally not put up with their bullshit if it’s not convenient. that is not helping. you are not mitigating anything by letting them exploit or abuse you.
if you’re in a position where you have some responsibility to help them, and they’re being assholes, you may have to decide whether to deal with it. some of the more impulsive ones may not be able to not be assholes, and it’s up to your tolerances whether you try to help them despite that. they probably deserve it; they’re still people in most of the ways that matter, but that doesn’t mean it has to come from you.
I vote we take away the power of the word psychopath by using it to refer to ALL mental illnesses and disorders. And if someone says psychopath when they mean ASPD, we tell them to speak English.
But psychopath has a very negative connotation, as it should.
No it shouldn’t, it’s a shit name. It means suffering soul. If we mean people with ASPD, let’s speak English.
It means that in Latin but we aren’t speaking Latin.
Psychopath doesn’t mean anything in Latin.
It could be dispathos, “lacking soul”.
I’d only give up my dog over my dead body.
Tolerance of intolerance is contradictory.
There is no defense for intolerance.
Unless it’s intolerance of intolerance.
“Welcome to my house, here everybody is welcomed and respected, but if you choose to make somebody’s life difficult because they’re different from you your ass will be on the curb before you can raise your palm over your head.”
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You aren’t arguably human if you have no empathy.
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That is just a cartoonishly evil thing to say. That is why it is difficult to not dehumanize. It feels so unreal.
Empathy needs to be the definition of humanity, such that those who don’t feel it are classed as inhuman.
Classing anyone as inhuman is dangerous. A widespread inability to see the most barbaric Nazis as regular human beings like ourselves is one of the reasons Nazism has been able to sneak back up on us. It’s important to recognize that the potential for empathy, and the potential for empathy to wither away, are both human potentials. As humans we have the capacity for great compassion or great cruelty. It won’t help us if we say, “Oh, that cruelty is not us. We’re humans; they’re not.”
Dehumanization is always the first step to eradication.