I'm a big Aaron Sorkin fan and I just rewatched The Social Network, of which he wrote the screenplay. I've been thinking about the opening line, "Did you know there are more people with genius IQ's living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?" It is a fantastic opening and does a lot of work signaling the themes of the movie--Zuckerberg's intelligence, a drive to both stand out and yet fit in, a lack of mindfulness and yet global ambition.

The question itself regarding the amount of genius IQ's is incredible and it made me think of other potentially staggering statistics that would fall in line with China's population of 1.3 billion and growing. Meanwhile, I've wanted to write about a topic and a book that has greatly influenced me over the last few years entitled The Sociopath Next Door by clinical psychologist and former Harvard Medical School instructor Dr. Martha Stout.

There are a few bullet points from Stout's book that I will never forget, information that I have tucked in the far recesses of my mind.  First, one out of 25 people in North America is a sociopath (4%). And when I write sociopath, I'm not using the term as a broad pejorative one often hears of ex-lovers, bad drivers, or politicians. Sociopathy is related to psychopathy and is a subset of "Antisocial Personality Disorder."

Second: What do you think is more common, anorexia or sociopathy? Sociopathy is more widespread than schizophrenia or anorexia. When was the last time you saw a public service announcement for sociopathy? So what is meant by sociopathy? Stout puts it clearly:

 

[T]he central trait of sociopathy is a complete lack of conscience, which is very difficult for most people to get their heads around, because those of us who do have a conscience can't really imagine what it would be like if we didn't. Most people think that deep down everybody has a conscience and it turns out that's just not true. So if you don't have a conscience, what is your behavior like? Apparently, if you don't have a conscience, if you don't really . . . love, then the only thing that's left for you is the game-it's about controlling things. [interview]

So going back to China, statistically there are about 53 million sociopaths in the country! For comparison, the total population of California only has close to 40 million. Can you imagine if everyone on the west coast was a sociopath? (Are you asking yourself if the Zuckerberg character is a sociopath?)

One challenge for philosophy is trying to incorporate this information about the prevalence of this condition. Philosophers have framed humans as the "rational animal" and strive for ethical codes that can be implemented universally as "golden rules" or categorical imperatives.  But what about the 4% of people without a conscience and who lack empathy? (What about Dexter?)

How is sociopathy different from plain old evil? Does having a clinical diagnosis change things?

It should be understood that suffering from this condition does not necessarily entail doing anything illegal or immoral, though the consequence of those kinds of action would point to the diagnosis. While doing some research I found an amazing website apparently run by a sociopath, including fascinating comments by other people with the same self-reported condition: sociopathworld.com.

I was surprised that I was surprised that there was a website like this. It seemed obvious after the fact-of course there would be a website. As I started reading some of the posts and was entranced by the topic of whether or not sociopaths are aware of their condition. It made me realize the extent to which sociopaths are foreign and an "other" (and also made me nervous that the whole sociopath diagnosis will later be deconstructed by some Derridean replacing the term with another, e.g., homosexual, and explode the discussion wide open).

We want to believe that "deep down" everyone has a moral conscience and the capacity to be empathetic; but since this is not the case, how should this influence our behavior and decision making?

Check out The Sociopath Next Door