What Madness is This?
Our entertainment returns again and again to the trope of the sociopath/psychopath because it serves some psychological need within the collective. And although fictional police procedurals, dramas, and mystery shows can locate sociopaths/psychopaths around every street corner, they actually make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. These men, and yes they are primarily men, make up to 20–30% of U.S. prisoners. The vast majority of these men however, are indistinguishable from regular folks all across the country. Their popularity within fiction begs the question, why do we need these types of characters in particular to tell certain types of stories?
Sociopaths versus Psychopaths
First, let us examine the differences between sociopaths and psychopaths. We can model the differences as a matter of conscience: sociopaths have weak consciences, while psychopaths are thought to have none.
Sociopaths are more likely to be hot headed and to act impulsively, while psychopaths are more cold hearted and plan their every move. Although sociopaths know that their violence is wrong, they still can’t stop themselves. Psychopaths, on the other hand, don’t concern themselves with such “minor” concerns as right and wrong.
Sociopaths differ from psychopaths in that being a sociopath is a mental disorder. The early editions of the DSM blurred the distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy. The diagnostic term for sociopaths was finally set to antisocial personality disorder in 1980, in part to disassociate and differentiate it from psychopathy. Psychopathy was initially identified by ancient physicians, and was the first personality disorder recognized within psychiatry. While there is a Venn diagram overlap between sociopaths and psychopaths, they are not the same disorder generally.
Spot The Other
In movies and weekly TV series however, all of these differences are conveniently blurred. But one thing is emphasized repeatedly in these fictional representations: the psychopath or sociopath exhibits a tell-tale trait that resembles a medieval form of madness. They argue with themselves via mirrors, or exhibit heightened cruelty, or clean excessively, or exhibit deviant sexual practices, or … some other marker that makes them other.
They are not us! We can clearly see their otherness on screen. What is more frightening is the sociopath or psychopath that appears as normal. But via some plot device, they will ultimately be revealed in their madness as the great Other.
We need to experience them as mad, mad, mad, so we can rest assured that they are not at all “one of us.” Why else do we repeatedly return to serial killers, ritualistic killers, thematic killers, and sadistic killers as plot devices?
One area is also repeatedly highlighted; these villains readily rationalize all of their actions as needed and necessary. Every TV profiler worth their measure explains the twisted logic of the sociopath/psychopath i.e., “…it makes sense to them.”
Information from external sources, such as the cries of the victims, the mourning of the families, the devastation to the community and trauma generally affecting everyone around them does not affect them. They can shake it off as unimportant trivia. And I believe that this is a clue to the contribution these fictional characters make to the collective.
Here in the US, we have seen regular folks laugh off children screaming in grief and fear upon being separated from their parents. We have seen everyday people respond callously to folks dying from lack of health care. We have witnessed folks being bullied because they were survivors of a gun massacre. We have witnessed cruel self regard in the face of a global pandemic. We have seen the devastation caused by lone gunmen with military grade weapons being dismissed by some leaders as exercises in freedom. This is happening in real time almost daily.
And yet, none of these episodes are enough to call the perpetrators sociopaths or psychopaths. No, we are told repeatedly: these are just “regular folks,” whose opinions and perspectives need to be taken seriously. The so-called “coastal elites” need to listen to them; we ignore their rage at our own peril.
Instead, I have to ask: what has to happen before we finally recognize these behaviors as antisocial and label these so-called “regular folks” as psychopaths?
Nothing New
A hundred years ago, these same portions of our citizens were lynching black people and selling photos of the atrocities door to door all across the South. Nearly 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were forced out of their homeland in the southwestern U.S., exacerbating the beginning of the Great Depression by “regular folks” claiming it was a move to save jobs. Eighty years ago, West Coast communities rushed to occupy and steal the homes and business of interned Japanese Americans.
During the same period, Mexican Americans were hounded and beaten by U.S. sailors invited to go on rampage by local authorities in Los Angeles. And the savagery of the assaults on First Nations communities in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico is a continental scourge on our shared histories. And I am not even touching the continuing epoch of slavery, Jim Crow, the Tulsa Massacre, etc. or the legacy of their soul-crushing aftereffects.
How can so many people participate in such horrors, while at the same time, not holding themselves or each other accountable? While most Americans point to the past and declare their hands clean, the very “greatness” of this country is drenched in the blood of our shared inheritances. You cannot cleanse the stench from ill-gotten gains by leaving it to your descendants. Eventually, someone must make reparations and amends.
No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it doesn’t make it true. And the truth is that all of these crimes against humanity have continued unabated by regular folks, not television villains. Even now, there are public outcries whenever the truth is told of the U.S.’s bloody, cruel, inhuman, and blemished history. “We are the greatest country on earth!”, they shout.
Calling this gaslighting is an understatement. What we are witnessing are the wholesale rationalizations of a psychopathic mind. And that sick, violent, cold blooded, antisocial psyche is attached to the group soul of the United States of America.
