The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success by Kevin Dutton
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

In Praise of Evil

I can imagine a conversation with the author, Kevin Dutton, in the recovery ward after my last surgery: “Did you know that the cool, calculating, calm-under-pressure neurosurgeon who just did your spinal de-compression is a psychopath? Best in the business actually. You’re lucky you snagged him. Most of the medical psychopaths have moved to America” So now I know - psychopaths just have to find their appropriate role in society.

That in brief is Kevin Dutton’s argument. We ought to recognise that psychopaths, those folk characterised by an extreme “grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse, and the manipulation of others,” have been stigmatised by their association with serial killers, sexual abusers, and other violent criminals. Psychopaths, he claims, can also play a productive role in society if we give them a chance.

Dutton employs some curious reasoning to get to this conclusion. For example, he writes that these same psychopathological traits: “… are also shared by politicians and world leaders: individuals running not from the police, but for office,“ as if achieving positions of power and influence demonstrates that psychopathology is a positive genetic adaptation to modern life. Leaders without conscience are simply not problematic for Dutton. Shame and feelings of personal responsibility have no place in his leadership-world.

Dutton then goes on to immediately cite a leading researcher in the field of mental disorders as if confirming his opinion about benign psychopathy. “Such a [psychopathic] profile,… allows those who present with it to do what they like when they like, completely unfazed by the social, moral, or legal consequences of their actions.” This Dutton believes is situationally virtuous, that it is the kind of ruthless, focussed, remorseless service we expect from people in charge - especially the robocop police and the best politicians money can buy!

The underlying assumption from which Dutton elaborates his view is that we’re all psychopaths to some degree, and further that this is a good thing. As he says, “… there’s evidence to suggest that psychopathy, in small doses at least, is personality with a tan—and that it can have surprising benefits.” I have no experience of a tanned personality, but I take him to me that such a thing has some aesthetic attractiveness.

And in this aesthetic evaluation of psychopathy Dutton is correct. I accept his judgement at face value. They lie well, and can charm the most wary of victims:

“If there’s one thing that psychopaths have in common, it’s the consummate ability to pass themselves off as normal everyday folk, while behind the facade—the brutal, brilliant disguise—beats the refrigerated heart of a ruthless, glacial predator.”

And this is what we all possess? Deep down we are all ice-cold predators? Hardly. Even the most pessimistic Gnostic never made such a claim. Even Augustine and Calvin left some wiggle room. Dutton is projecting a personal fantasy. The diagnosis of psychopathology is a defined medical condition. It’s not a spectrum. The neuroses prevalent in the population as a whole do not constitute pathological symptoms, tendencies toward psychotic breaks, or predictors of future violence. There is arguably a spectrum of mental health. But to claim that we all share the psychopath’s condition is absurd.

Dutton’s intention is clear. He wants us to empathise with the psychopath. Do they not bleed? Dutton provides everything from a mythical history of human evolution (predatory violence put food on the table) to descriptions of a wide variety of jobs in current society which can be filled by psychopaths (CEO, astronaut, entrepreneur, bomb disposal experts etc.). We need to promote a caring/sharing attitude towards these people who are wrongly categorised as a social menace. They should be welcomed not subjected to discrimination.

This to me is some king of faux tolerance gone mad. Psychopaths are domestic terrorists. Not all are violent criminals but a significant number are. And those who are not violent nevertheless destroy the lives of those over whom they have control. They start families, seek leadership roles, and run for public office precisely in order to dominate. From those positions they are able to inflict psychological and physical damage on whole populations. Having admitted that they succeed so well, Dutton still can’t understand that this is a social problem. As far as he’s concerned, the inmates are the most capable folk around to run the asylum.

Dutton portrays psychopathology as a sort of malevolent skill that we should recognise as such. But he also says that “…by being a psychopath, you in fact have an advantage over other people.” This sounds like a rallying call for the successful but still scorned psychopaths among us, not unlike the various pedophile groups which promote an ‘understanding’ of the naturalness of adult attraction to children. Dutton’s offers an equally creepy message.

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