As long as we are indulging in "radical wrongthink" on this topic, I have another thermonuclear "truth bomb" to drop on everyone.
As you noted, the big factor in the increase of crime is FATHERLESSNESS. It isn't just children out of wedlock, either.
Why are so many fathers (many of them decent men) excluded from their childrens' lives? NO FAULT DIVORCE - that's why!
Since the introduction of "no fault divorce" the divorce rate has skyrocketed, with the overwhelming majority of divorces initiated by wives, not husbands, for reason which, generations ago, would have been considered shockingly frivolous.
Men's rights activists have pointed out the corruption of family law, which demonizes men for being men, and which incentivizes women to perjure themselves with false accusations of "abuse" and "rape" against their husbands. This has downstream effects upon the children as well.
Any part of a solution to this problem must involve REPEAL of "no fault divorce", and a return to the previous legal standards for divorce - namely, that you must get up in front of a judge, in an open court hearing, and "show cause."
Furthermore, I am going to be blatantly sexist, and advocate that any wife who accuses her husband of "marital rape" or "paedophilia" or "abuse" must either produce forensically valid evidence to that effect (no more "he said, she said") or be ordered, by a judge, to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
It well known that half or more allegations of "rape" are completely bogus. Let us face facts. What men do with their fists, knives and firearms, women do with their tongues. The one should suffer as much opprobrium as the other.
When I was a baby (ages ago) marriage was easy (because families were encouraged) and divorce was hard (because we didn't want broken homes). This needs to happen again.
This is a fair point I think, and well made. However, I don’t think divorce is the primary cause of single parenting in the US. Note that statistic of 70% of black children being born out of wedlock. Their parents were almost certainly never married. Note further what demographics commit the majority of crimes.
The reference to the Irish in the pre 20th century was appropriate, as Thomas Sowell noted the bad culture of those immigrants was adopted by many blacks and has had the same results.
"As you noted, the big factor in the increase of crime is FATHERLESSNESS. It isn't just children out of wedlock, either".
That seems, on the face of it, to make sense. Problem is, there doesn't seem to be a strong worldwide correlation between crime and murder rates and single parenthood.
And whilst I think a return to a more familial-based culture in the West is a good idea, it has to be said there are countries that have very strong family cultures and very high crime rates
Some speculation: the reason Lykken focuses on fatherlessness (aside from American stats) is its effect on socialization. Not all fatherless kids become sociopaths, so there are mitigating factors. Looking at Denmark would be good to see if those can be identified. At the same time, a family in and of itself isn't a guarantee against producing sociopaths. Having one or both parents be sociopaths will also have negative effects (for the most part - some kids are immune).
Well let's face it, crime families have always been a thing, be it Rothschildes, Bushes, Gambinos or Genoveses. Obviously it's better for kids to be brought up within a secure Mummy and Daddy situation, but for objectivity's sake you'd also have to factor in the effects on socialisation of the zillions of kids who are the products of bad marriages. These are quite complex issues. Family culture, how much is too much? Sicily, where it's so all encompassing, there is no concept of 'personal space'. How much is not enough? England probably, where it's all about the personal space. I thought Oswald Spengler had a lot right about that....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiZvgUHdED0
Looks like essential reading for all of us. The more we know anything related to psychopaths - and that includes knowing how people get ensnared, etc - the better.
OMG, you hit this out of the park in my perspective, especially the last couple of paragraphs... i light-heartedly refer to myself as one of those little wolf-kids, some orphaned child that was raised by animal-like creatures (single mom prone to x-type of traits identified in previous essay)... i've felt like a kid trying to make sense of a world inhabited by sophisticated folks that didn't share the same concerns or priorities... great essay Harrison, keep doing what you do.
I don't think you could enforce a parental licensure without some pretty ruthless and heavy handed measures. You're talking mass forced sterilization or forced abortions. The mechanisms of the past were social ostracization, and the fear of it. We aren't remotely close to having such a mechanism now, so it would require the heavy hand of the state.
Good points. Lykken doesn't think forced abortion would be necessary (that's where parental guidance and alternative rearing environments come into play), but is open to sterilization for repeat offenders who show no capacity for self-control.
I was responding to commenters above discussion of children growing up with single parents(mothers) and how that might impact children’s lives & everyone else. If people share a value system based on some faith and connected to community there can be more internal self monitoring of behavior and intent and more community/social norms that provide feedback. In its absence, the state steps in (where church synagogue & related spiritual beliefs used to exist)and issues a license. Based on what belief system?
Religious faith is an old fashioned idea, I know. But then, I am old and remember when it wasn’t all so politicized.
This reminds me of experiences I have with these blind trusting types. They invite horrible people into their lives which ruin their lives, but also those around them. Generally, because the conscientious part of them is still there, they try to minimize damage caused by their mentally ill/psychopathic partners, but it is never perfect.
As much as I have love for these women (and sometimes men), and the amount of love they give everyone else, they can also cause a lot of problems. And for people like me, and others who are conscientiousness and agreeable, but not as blindly, it is painful because we become the enemies for trying to separate them for their parasitic relationships. I also can't really respect these types too much, despite their conscientiousness, because they are not making the hard choice of actually cutting themselves off. They are not doing the hard work of thinking through the situation.
I'd recommend reading Sandra's book. I think there's a lot more to it than just not doing the hard work. Once you've engaged with a psychopath, they have a kind of hold and mental control over you that can be very difficult to escape, not to mention the damage they do to one's common sense and thinking capacity.
Great interview. I specified Sandra Brown’s advocacy of neuroscience. It’s still distressing to me that psychopathy is talked about as some made-up or imaginary condition and that, among those who accept that psychopathy is real, psychopaths are not born that way.
Oh well. Ponerology is a new science. It’s going to meet plethora obstacles.
The underdog how vulnerable we all can be to the intolerable serial abuse by psychopaths is critical. We as an entire world are experiencing this right now. It is far from just being part of bad personal relationships. Please see this post on the subject.
While I do not agree that psychopathy is genetic, you (and those you refer to) make a good point regarding sociopathy (common criminality) and broken (mother-only) families. I have seen the results of this with my own eyes.
Yet in my experience, women hooking up with psychopathic men is not the only problem. Though it is likely the bigger problem, men hooking up with damaged or dysfunctional women is also a problem. And the woman has a stronger argument to retain her partner than the man does. If he leaves, her children will be challenged. She might no longer be able to afford the rent. Etc.
I also note a statistic I read stating that 70-80% of divorces are initiated by women. There is a sort of "selfishness" in women (that may be motivated to the devotion they see to taking care of their children, not shared by men) that seems to result in an increased willingness to reject a mate in hopes they can find a better one or make do by themselves.
So there are a lot of interesting dynamics forcing marriages apart. For reasonably sane parents, this is not good for the kids. There seems to be a decreased caring for the lives and futures of children in society today which is quite disturbing to me.
In re: "I also note a statistic I read stating that 70-80% of divorces are initiated by women. There is a sort of "selfishness" in women (that may be motivated to the devotion they see to taking care of their children, not shared by men) that seems to result in an increased willingness to reject a mate in hopes they can find a better one or make do by themselves."
Josh Slocum just posted something today that I think is relevant here:
He identifies the following emotional triggers among "recovering" leftists:
"Some common emotional hangover triggers in our set:
-Instant emotional identification with the female party in any conflict
-A deeply rooted, still-held belief that we live in a patriarchy and that any expression of male anger or defiance is a danger. And that it’s right and proper to react to it that way without listening to the man or allowing him room to be or to talk without defending himself against this feminist orientation."
As for me, I tend toward the opposite reaction. I have seen so much of the "Face of Medusa" in my lifetime, that I tend to assume that a woman who accuses a man of "abuse" or "harassment" is making things up. The fact that I have been twice the victim of such false accusations does not sweeten my temper in this regard.
I recognise that my own "trigger" is just as suspect as the other.
I see this discussion exists mostly in the realm of the emotions. This in itself I see as a carryover from our "woke" upbringing. I walked away in 1981 and started studying Scientology. Though I highly recommend doing this, these days it is a difficult thing to convince many people to do.
From my point of view, the campaign against rational thought and real science has been going on at least my whole lifetime. It started with Roswell, if not earlier, when certain persons in the military realized that those "crazy stories" about "little green men" were real. Since then we have had a number of prominent groups continuously pushing us away from realizing the truth about who we are, where we have been and what is going on here on Earth.
Today, then, we have "carryover" belief systems that include such basic assumptions as: Humans evolved from Apes; You only live once; Psychopathy is untreatable, to mention just a few. Our most basic emotional triggers may be much more primordial. Almost all of us, both males and females, were raised - often suckled - by a (usually) pretty young woman. That has got to result in an emotional response, especially after experiencing it for many lifetimes.
I believe that Hubbard has managed to unravel most of this. But most people have only recently dipped their toes in these waters. Who knows how long it will take them to just see the information I have seen, much less make up their minds about it?
As for "woke" ideologies and teachings, the major problem I see with them is that there is some truth in them. Beyond that, one of the oldest con games of this universe is to make someone feel bad about themselves by convincing them that they have done something wrong. I hate being subjected to this type of manipulation, and it is very common these days.
2. I’ll take low IQ reality and common sense over paper test lunatic sociopaths and their schemes for mandatory abortions or whatever... a woman who falls for a charmer or aggressive charmer or any man fell for that man, end of story.
3. Women like assholes Harrison, that some of them are abusive psychopaths never seems to change their minds. They’ll find another one after calling the cops on the one they’re with now, because they’re mad at him... for something else.
4. Perhaps instead of the next ratchet of the Feminist 4th Reich (which isn’t working either) we can go back to arranged marriages? Fathers defending but also deciding for daughters?
5. Or the Taliban, which works too. Why mandate abortions when you have stones?
You should get out more and see how women operate and what they respond to on a visceral, primordial level in the real world.
Chicks dig jerks and have gone "feral" in western society now that they've been "liberated from the patriarchy" and are free to act upon their primordial instincts.
Professional foster homes and boarding schools are both fertile ground for abuse or all kinds. They have produced at least as many abuse survivors as they have functional adults in the past century. Take residential schools as an example. Why on earth would anyone believe institutionalized care is any kind of answer to raising well adjusted human beings? That one sentence renders Lykken's work in this area ridiculous.
Our culture has been intentionally, gradually degraded over at least the past century. What we're seeing now is the result of that. There is no one answer because there's no one cause ... other than to take responsibility for our own communities and rid ourselves of the powers that shouldn't be.
Note the caveat, "when done right". In the paper he points out the problem with foster homes, even citing personal communications that children are sometimes knowingly sent to live with convicted criminals. It's not a black and white issue, but unfortunately on the internet everything becomes that. As for boarding schools, he cites Richard McKenzie's works on 1950s era orphanages in North Carolina: "Although most of [the kids] were brought into this world by unfit or unfortunate parents--hence their consignment to "The Home"--he and many of his fellow "orphans" have achieved greater worldly success and better psychological adjustment than many of their more fortunate contemporaries who were reared by their birth parents."
Sadly though, it's rarely done right. History bears this out. In a perfect world type scenarios aren't my thing, I guess. Perhaps I've seen too much reality. But I appreciated reading a well written perspective that's different from mine if slightly terrifying. (As are a lot of the comments. Wow!)
No disagreement from me there. I'll only add that when you read about the home environments of some the kids in question, even a relatively bad boarding school seems like paradise...
Wow, what a complex topic and what a mess we are in (this second part comes to me after reading all the comments above): so much pain and despair, so much hatred and distrust... so little dialogue, so little healing. I get it, all, abuse is so common, pervasive and elusive at once, and the same goes for neglect!
I cannot imagine a path I’d endorse to force licensure. I’d love to see real budgets and incentives for developing awareness of all these issues, for learning dialogue skills, for developing real supportive and healthy communities around each and every child, as well as their parents; for trauma healing and life skills development. I want to see us collectively support one another growing up, maturing, and provide communal holding of children. The nuclear family was a big concrete, lawful step away from strong communities and I don’t believe that it is an end goal worth investing into.
I did not listen to the interview-just quickly reading here. You stated “perceived psychopathy” -perceived by the partner? Just asking? Does anyone recognize that females have psychopathy too? Manifests differently, perhaps, but they do (I’m female so my statement is not a gripe, but is an observation)
Parental license -yikes -not in current US administration. Or ever.
Why is there no recognition of lowered religious belief affiliation & attendance on sociopathy?
Whether psychopathy is inherited or not, I would not rule out mothers. The (lack of) modeling of moral reasoning from mothers could be an influential variable.
I wrote my first comment before hearing the interview...
What is the proper approach in therapy? I am mostly aware of how auditors (Hubbard's spiritual counselors) are trained. They absolutely don't allow long narratives of victimhood (we call it "inflow") in session. As this is what many patients WANT to talk about, one of the first challenges in therapy is getting the person willing to go into session. One approach (which is very effective when it is possible) is to train the person to receive therapy on how therapy works. Though this allows a psychopath to fake it better, it turns most people who really want therapy more cooperative.
Hubbard's approach to "getting the brain working again" is called Objective Processing. For an outside observer, this looks like a drill, where the therapist gives commands and the patient follows them to the best of their ability. The subjective distress of the individual is not addressed, but it may come up as they go along. Of course, we don't consider this "working with the brain." We work with mental machines, which are energetic constructs.
Of course, I can't agree with using neuroscience to train patients. For me, this gives them just a new set of false data. But the concept of the mental machine is analogous, and learning about it probably accomplishes a similar goal as teaching neuroscience, which treats the brain as a mental machine.
Spirituality is often equated with "prayer and religion." For me it is so much more than that! As the personality IS a spiritual (non-physical) being, Spirit is at the core of all human experience.
As long as we are indulging in "radical wrongthink" on this topic, I have another thermonuclear "truth bomb" to drop on everyone.
As you noted, the big factor in the increase of crime is FATHERLESSNESS. It isn't just children out of wedlock, either.
Why are so many fathers (many of them decent men) excluded from their childrens' lives? NO FAULT DIVORCE - that's why!
Since the introduction of "no fault divorce" the divorce rate has skyrocketed, with the overwhelming majority of divorces initiated by wives, not husbands, for reason which, generations ago, would have been considered shockingly frivolous.
Men's rights activists have pointed out the corruption of family law, which demonizes men for being men, and which incentivizes women to perjure themselves with false accusations of "abuse" and "rape" against their husbands. This has downstream effects upon the children as well.
Any part of a solution to this problem must involve REPEAL of "no fault divorce", and a return to the previous legal standards for divorce - namely, that you must get up in front of a judge, in an open court hearing, and "show cause."
Furthermore, I am going to be blatantly sexist, and advocate that any wife who accuses her husband of "marital rape" or "paedophilia" or "abuse" must either produce forensically valid evidence to that effect (no more "he said, she said") or be ordered, by a judge, to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
It well known that half or more allegations of "rape" are completely bogus. Let us face facts. What men do with their fists, knives and firearms, women do with their tongues. The one should suffer as much opprobrium as the other.
When I was a baby (ages ago) marriage was easy (because families were encouraged) and divorce was hard (because we didn't want broken homes). This needs to happen again.
This is a fair point I think, and well made. However, I don’t think divorce is the primary cause of single parenting in the US. Note that statistic of 70% of black children being born out of wedlock. Their parents were almost certainly never married. Note further what demographics commit the majority of crimes.
The reference to the Irish in the pre 20th century was appropriate, as Thomas Sowell noted the bad culture of those immigrants was adopted by many blacks and has had the same results.
"As you noted, the big factor in the increase of crime is FATHERLESSNESS. It isn't just children out of wedlock, either".
That seems, on the face of it, to make sense. Problem is, there doesn't seem to be a strong worldwide correlation between crime and murder rates and single parenthood.
https://spacedoutscientist.com/2017/07/18/single-parents-worldwide-statistics-and-trends/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country
And whilst I think a return to a more familial-based culture in the West is a good idea, it has to be said there are countries that have very strong family cultures and very high crime rates
Some speculation: the reason Lykken focuses on fatherlessness (aside from American stats) is its effect on socialization. Not all fatherless kids become sociopaths, so there are mitigating factors. Looking at Denmark would be good to see if those can be identified. At the same time, a family in and of itself isn't a guarantee against producing sociopaths. Having one or both parents be sociopaths will also have negative effects (for the most part - some kids are immune).
Well let's face it, crime families have always been a thing, be it Rothschildes, Bushes, Gambinos or Genoveses. Obviously it's better for kids to be brought up within a secure Mummy and Daddy situation, but for objectivity's sake you'd also have to factor in the effects on socialisation of the zillions of kids who are the products of bad marriages. These are quite complex issues. Family culture, how much is too much? Sicily, where it's so all encompassing, there is no concept of 'personal space'. How much is not enough? England probably, where it's all about the personal space. I thought Oswald Spengler had a lot right about that....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiZvgUHdED0
You left out the Biden Crime Family.
Did it really need saying?
Always worth saying.
Excellent points.
Looks like essential reading for all of us. The more we know anything related to psychopaths - and that includes knowing how people get ensnared, etc - the better.
OMG, you hit this out of the park in my perspective, especially the last couple of paragraphs... i light-heartedly refer to myself as one of those little wolf-kids, some orphaned child that was raised by animal-like creatures (single mom prone to x-type of traits identified in previous essay)... i've felt like a kid trying to make sense of a world inhabited by sophisticated folks that didn't share the same concerns or priorities... great essay Harrison, keep doing what you do.
I don't think you could enforce a parental licensure without some pretty ruthless and heavy handed measures. You're talking mass forced sterilization or forced abortions. The mechanisms of the past were social ostracization, and the fear of it. We aren't remotely close to having such a mechanism now, so it would require the heavy hand of the state.
Good points. Lykken doesn't think forced abortion would be necessary (that's where parental guidance and alternative rearing environments come into play), but is open to sterilization for repeat offenders who show no capacity for self-control.
I was responding to commenters above discussion of children growing up with single parents(mothers) and how that might impact children’s lives & everyone else. If people share a value system based on some faith and connected to community there can be more internal self monitoring of behavior and intent and more community/social norms that provide feedback. In its absence, the state steps in (where church synagogue & related spiritual beliefs used to exist)and issues a license. Based on what belief system?
Religious faith is an old fashioned idea, I know. But then, I am old and remember when it wasn’t all so politicized.
Thanks for the clarification, Cat. This is a good point.
This reminds me of experiences I have with these blind trusting types. They invite horrible people into their lives which ruin their lives, but also those around them. Generally, because the conscientious part of them is still there, they try to minimize damage caused by their mentally ill/psychopathic partners, but it is never perfect.
As much as I have love for these women (and sometimes men), and the amount of love they give everyone else, they can also cause a lot of problems. And for people like me, and others who are conscientiousness and agreeable, but not as blindly, it is painful because we become the enemies for trying to separate them for their parasitic relationships. I also can't really respect these types too much, despite their conscientiousness, because they are not making the hard choice of actually cutting themselves off. They are not doing the hard work of thinking through the situation.
I'd recommend reading Sandra's book. I think there's a lot more to it than just not doing the hard work. Once you've engaged with a psychopath, they have a kind of hold and mental control over you that can be very difficult to escape, not to mention the damage they do to one's common sense and thinking capacity.
Great interview. I specified Sandra Brown’s advocacy of neuroscience. It’s still distressing to me that psychopathy is talked about as some made-up or imaginary condition and that, among those who accept that psychopathy is real, psychopaths are not born that way.
Oh well. Ponerology is a new science. It’s going to meet plethora obstacles.
The underdog how vulnerable we all can be to the intolerable serial abuse by psychopaths is critical. We as an entire world are experiencing this right now. It is far from just being part of bad personal relationships. Please see this post on the subject.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kwnorton/p/why-we-choose-the-wrong-leaders?r=boqs0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
While I do not agree that psychopathy is genetic, you (and those you refer to) make a good point regarding sociopathy (common criminality) and broken (mother-only) families. I have seen the results of this with my own eyes.
Yet in my experience, women hooking up with psychopathic men is not the only problem. Though it is likely the bigger problem, men hooking up with damaged or dysfunctional women is also a problem. And the woman has a stronger argument to retain her partner than the man does. If he leaves, her children will be challenged. She might no longer be able to afford the rent. Etc.
I also note a statistic I read stating that 70-80% of divorces are initiated by women. There is a sort of "selfishness" in women (that may be motivated to the devotion they see to taking care of their children, not shared by men) that seems to result in an increased willingness to reject a mate in hopes they can find a better one or make do by themselves.
So there are a lot of interesting dynamics forcing marriages apart. For reasonably sane parents, this is not good for the kids. There seems to be a decreased caring for the lives and futures of children in society today which is quite disturbing to me.
Larry,
In re: "I also note a statistic I read stating that 70-80% of divorces are initiated by women. There is a sort of "selfishness" in women (that may be motivated to the devotion they see to taking care of their children, not shared by men) that seems to result in an increased willingness to reject a mate in hopes they can find a better one or make do by themselves."
Josh Slocum just posted something today that I think is relevant here:
https://disaffectedpod.substack.com/p/dont-play-tower-of-babel
He identifies the following emotional triggers among "recovering" leftists:
"Some common emotional hangover triggers in our set:
-Instant emotional identification with the female party in any conflict
-A deeply rooted, still-held belief that we live in a patriarchy and that any expression of male anger or defiance is a danger. And that it’s right and proper to react to it that way without listening to the man or allowing him room to be or to talk without defending himself against this feminist orientation."
As for me, I tend toward the opposite reaction. I have seen so much of the "Face of Medusa" in my lifetime, that I tend to assume that a woman who accuses a man of "abuse" or "harassment" is making things up. The fact that I have been twice the victim of such false accusations does not sweeten my temper in this regard.
I recognise that my own "trigger" is just as suspect as the other.
I see this discussion exists mostly in the realm of the emotions. This in itself I see as a carryover from our "woke" upbringing. I walked away in 1981 and started studying Scientology. Though I highly recommend doing this, these days it is a difficult thing to convince many people to do.
From my point of view, the campaign against rational thought and real science has been going on at least my whole lifetime. It started with Roswell, if not earlier, when certain persons in the military realized that those "crazy stories" about "little green men" were real. Since then we have had a number of prominent groups continuously pushing us away from realizing the truth about who we are, where we have been and what is going on here on Earth.
Today, then, we have "carryover" belief systems that include such basic assumptions as: Humans evolved from Apes; You only live once; Psychopathy is untreatable, to mention just a few. Our most basic emotional triggers may be much more primordial. Almost all of us, both males and females, were raised - often suckled - by a (usually) pretty young woman. That has got to result in an emotional response, especially after experiencing it for many lifetimes.
I believe that Hubbard has managed to unravel most of this. But most people have only recently dipped their toes in these waters. Who knows how long it will take them to just see the information I have seen, much less make up their minds about it?
As for "woke" ideologies and teachings, the major problem I see with them is that there is some truth in them. Beyond that, one of the oldest con games of this universe is to make someone feel bad about themselves by convincing them that they have done something wrong. I hate being subjected to this type of manipulation, and it is very common these days.
Not All Women ..
Admit it..
All ❤️ Psychopaths.
That’s All Women.
You researchers don’t get out much do you?
Low-IQ take right here.
Harrison:
1. You don’t know any women do you?
2. I’ll take low IQ reality and common sense over paper test lunatic sociopaths and their schemes for mandatory abortions or whatever... a woman who falls for a charmer or aggressive charmer or any man fell for that man, end of story.
3. Women like assholes Harrison, that some of them are abusive psychopaths never seems to change their minds. They’ll find another one after calling the cops on the one they’re with now, because they’re mad at him... for something else.
4. Perhaps instead of the next ratchet of the Feminist 4th Reich (which isn’t working either) we can go back to arranged marriages? Fathers defending but also deciding for daughters?
5. Or the Taliban, which works too. Why mandate abortions when you have stones?
Cheaper too.
I stand by my initial reply.
I’ll stick with mine, VR..
I have a strict no-psycho-puppet policy. You are banned for one month.
You're wrong, The Long Warred is right.
You should get out more and see how women operate and what they respond to on a visceral, primordial level in the real world.
Chicks dig jerks and have gone "feral" in western society now that they've been "liberated from the patriarchy" and are free to act upon their primordial instincts.
OK, Chucky.
Oh boy...
😀
All women love psychopaths because all women love power.
This reads like psychopathic propaganda. Why might that be? Oh, it's Chucky, the psycho puppet.
Professional foster homes and boarding schools are both fertile ground for abuse or all kinds. They have produced at least as many abuse survivors as they have functional adults in the past century. Take residential schools as an example. Why on earth would anyone believe institutionalized care is any kind of answer to raising well adjusted human beings? That one sentence renders Lykken's work in this area ridiculous.
Our culture has been intentionally, gradually degraded over at least the past century. What we're seeing now is the result of that. There is no one answer because there's no one cause ... other than to take responsibility for our own communities and rid ourselves of the powers that shouldn't be.
Note the caveat, "when done right". In the paper he points out the problem with foster homes, even citing personal communications that children are sometimes knowingly sent to live with convicted criminals. It's not a black and white issue, but unfortunately on the internet everything becomes that. As for boarding schools, he cites Richard McKenzie's works on 1950s era orphanages in North Carolina: "Although most of [the kids] were brought into this world by unfit or unfortunate parents--hence their consignment to "The Home"--he and many of his fellow "orphans" have achieved greater worldly success and better psychological adjustment than many of their more fortunate contemporaries who were reared by their birth parents."
Sadly though, it's rarely done right. History bears this out. In a perfect world type scenarios aren't my thing, I guess. Perhaps I've seen too much reality. But I appreciated reading a well written perspective that's different from mine if slightly terrifying. (As are a lot of the comments. Wow!)
No disagreement from me there. I'll only add that when you read about the home environments of some the kids in question, even a relatively bad boarding school seems like paradise...
Wow, what a complex topic and what a mess we are in (this second part comes to me after reading all the comments above): so much pain and despair, so much hatred and distrust... so little dialogue, so little healing. I get it, all, abuse is so common, pervasive and elusive at once, and the same goes for neglect!
I cannot imagine a path I’d endorse to force licensure. I’d love to see real budgets and incentives for developing awareness of all these issues, for learning dialogue skills, for developing real supportive and healthy communities around each and every child, as well as their parents; for trauma healing and life skills development. I want to see us collectively support one another growing up, maturing, and provide communal holding of children. The nuclear family was a big concrete, lawful step away from strong communities and I don’t believe that it is an end goal worth investing into.
Reminds me of "White Knight Syndrome" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-white-knight-syndrome/200905/white-knight-commonalities
Also the Fawning and Appeasement stress responses will feature large in these relationships https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/the-fawning-and-appeasement-survival
I did not listen to the interview-just quickly reading here. You stated “perceived psychopathy” -perceived by the partner? Just asking? Does anyone recognize that females have psychopathy too? Manifests differently, perhaps, but they do (I’m female so my statement is not a gripe, but is an observation)
Parental license -yikes -not in current US administration. Or ever.
Why is there no recognition of lowered religious belief affiliation & attendance on sociopathy?
Whether psychopathy is inherited or not, I would not rule out mothers. The (lack of) modeling of moral reasoning from mothers could be an influential variable.
Yes, it was based on an informant report of symptoms, i.e. partner's perception of traits.
Also yes, re: female psychopathy, but this study wasn't about that.
"Why is there no recognition of lowered religious belief affiliation & attendance on sociopathy?"
Could you clarify this? I'm not following.
I wrote my first comment before hearing the interview...
What is the proper approach in therapy? I am mostly aware of how auditors (Hubbard's spiritual counselors) are trained. They absolutely don't allow long narratives of victimhood (we call it "inflow") in session. As this is what many patients WANT to talk about, one of the first challenges in therapy is getting the person willing to go into session. One approach (which is very effective when it is possible) is to train the person to receive therapy on how therapy works. Though this allows a psychopath to fake it better, it turns most people who really want therapy more cooperative.
Hubbard's approach to "getting the brain working again" is called Objective Processing. For an outside observer, this looks like a drill, where the therapist gives commands and the patient follows them to the best of their ability. The subjective distress of the individual is not addressed, but it may come up as they go along. Of course, we don't consider this "working with the brain." We work with mental machines, which are energetic constructs.
Of course, I can't agree with using neuroscience to train patients. For me, this gives them just a new set of false data. But the concept of the mental machine is analogous, and learning about it probably accomplishes a similar goal as teaching neuroscience, which treats the brain as a mental machine.
Spirituality is often equated with "prayer and religion." For me it is so much more than that! As the personality IS a spiritual (non-physical) being, Spirit is at the core of all human experience.