Leo D.M.J. Aurini - February 12, 2012


Psychology II - The Psychopath


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

129.62263

Word Count

1,603

Sentence Count

111

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

This is the second video in my reboot of the psychology series, The Psychopath. In this video, I discuss the difference between a psychopath and a monster. The difference between the two is the lack of an Id, which is the part of us that controls our emotions. The Id is not a rational tool, it is a tool to be used by the ego.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is the second video in my reboot of the psychology series, The Psychopath.
00:00:14.000 Now right off the bat, I should probably address the fact that psychopath doesn't really have a meaning.
00:00:21.000 It has about a dozen different meanings.
00:00:25.000 You'll sometimes, if you look it up on Wikipedia, they'll say that the word that, what psycho used to mean, they now use antisocial personality disorder.
00:00:37.000 Except antisocial personality disorder basically just means criminal, so it's really not a very useful or descriptive term.
00:00:46.000 And the colloquial definition of psycho just means any sort of brutal killer, regardless of the reasons that drive them to be a killer.
00:01:00.000 No, the psychopath I'm talking about is far more prevalent and it's going to be far more specific than these definitions.
00:01:12.000 Every definition I've read, sometimes they get a couple of parts right, but they get it right for the wrong reasons.
00:01:18.000 Before we get to the psychopath, let's look a little bit closer at the choleric.
00:01:25.000 You know, the typical leader type personality.
00:01:29.000 Now, the leader, the choleric, is extremely ego-driven in that they're very much a thinker, a tactician, a strategist.
00:01:42.000 They are a task-oriented sort of a person.
00:01:47.000 They want to accomplish some specific thing.
00:01:50.000 They want to organize their resources to get that task accomplished.
00:01:55.000 They're extroverted, of course, so they don't mind going out into the world and organizing people.
00:02:05.000 That's their strengths and weaknesses to get all these people together and accomplish some task.
00:02:11.000 So as the leader type, if you think about the military leader,
00:02:15.000 yes, they will be willing to sacrifice people for the ultimate ends of their task.
00:02:20.000 But remember, they're a human being.
00:02:22.000 They're not going to sacrifice people for no reason.
00:02:25.000 They're not going to use people.
00:02:26.000 They're going to organize people into the most effective force that they can muster.
00:02:32.000 It's very much a male, proactive sort of a personality type.
00:02:39.000 Now, as the superego, because you remember I said the big difference that you get between a normal personality and a monster is that normal people have a superego.
00:02:54.000 And this is where the superego comes in.
00:02:58.000 It makes them acknowledge the id.
00:03:03.000 A leader is going to have some human restraints upon themselves.
00:03:08.000 They are going to limit what they do with compassion, with an understanding of beauty, of love, and, as I mentioned earlier, of honesty.
00:03:21.000 The id is the ultimate honest part of us.
00:03:24.000 Now the choleric, because they are very ego, they will be able to manifest fake confidence.
00:03:33.000 If they need to give a rousing speech to their troops, even if they very much expect the battle to go horribly,
00:03:39.000 they'll be able to give that rousing speech because ultimately it serves the higher purpose of the truth they're trying to communicate.
00:03:47.000 The battle's going to go horribly, but if they don't rouse their troops, it'll go even worse.
00:03:53.000 And so they will be able to lie quite well when it serves a higher purpose of honesty,
00:04:00.000 because their superego will not let them forget that id.
00:04:04.000 That id is a critical factor in them.
00:04:08.000 But what happens when you strip the id away, when there's no superego?
00:04:18.000 What you get is a person whose ego is completely dominant.
00:04:25.000 It completely controls the id.
00:04:28.000 The id becomes nothing but a tool for the ego to use.
00:04:33.000 And you'll quickly see why the logical ego is not fundamentally rational.
00:04:42.000 So the psychopath.
00:04:44.000 The first thing you'll notice about the psychopath is that they're very loquacious.
00:04:49.000 They very much like talking.
00:04:51.000 They've got the gift for gab.
00:04:53.000 They get out there and they, yeah, they are actually very good organizers at first.
00:04:59.000 They convince you to do things.
00:05:01.000 They convince you that they have the perfect plan.
00:05:06.000 The problem is, though, that ultimately, with no id, they can't truly empathize with other people.
00:05:16.000 People are just objects to them.
00:05:20.000 The ego has a goal, a plan it's trying to accomplish.
00:05:24.000 So it slaves the id, the part that emotes to other people, into nothing but a tool.
00:05:30.000 So they emote to other people to talk to them, but they don't actually feel, they don't actually have any real emotions inside of them.
00:05:41.000 Any of their emotions are transitory and goal-seeking.
00:05:46.000 Because of this, and this is one of the warning signs that you're around a psychopath, they are extremely quick to form friendships.
00:05:58.000 If you work closely with a psychopath for a month or two, they are very, very likely to tell you that you're their best friend in the world.
00:06:10.000 Because this id that's completely enslaved, you are a best friend to them.
00:06:15.000 Because every emotion that you can feel, that id is feeling, because the ego dominates it.
00:06:29.000 And they go from, they go from seeing you as an object at that point, to feeling entitled to you.
00:06:41.000 Now, a friend of mine, I was talking with a friend of mine about this.
00:06:46.000 And a great example, is let's say you turn on your computer one day, and it says that this is not a valid version of Windows,
00:06:56.000 so you're not allowed to use your computer anymore, even though it is a valid version of Windows.
00:07:02.000 And imagine the annoyance that you'd feel.
00:07:07.000 Not rage, but you'd be pissed off that this object suddenly has the gall to tell you that you're not allowed to use it.
00:07:16.000 It's your computer, isn't it?
00:07:19.000 Well, that's exactly how the psychopath feels about the people in their lives.
00:07:25.000 They feel completely entitled to these people.
00:07:30.000 That you are an object in their environment that they have a right to.
00:07:41.000 What else?
00:07:42.000 What you'll often hear, and this kind of stems from this, that they feel no guilt.
00:07:48.000 They feel no obligation to you.
00:07:51.000 And this is one of the clinical definitions, is that the psychopath, the sociopath, has absolutely no guilt.
00:07:58.000 And this isn't exactly true.
00:08:02.000 They do have the mechanism for guilt, except once again, guilt is part of the id.
00:08:08.000 Their guilt is entirely slave to the ego.
00:08:12.000 So they will feel guilty if there is a tactical advantage in it.
00:08:16.000 But they won't feel guilt as a permanent emotion.
00:08:22.000 The instant that guilt stops being useful, they'll stop feeling it.
00:08:26.000 The other big thing is that you hear they're master manipulators and they're incredible liars.
00:08:32.000 Well, the reason is because, yes, honesty comes from the id.
00:08:39.000 The id compels you to be honest with yourself and how you feel.
00:08:44.000 And when the id has no independence, they can lie about anything.
00:08:49.000 And they will frequently lie for absolutely no reason, because they're just stupid.
00:08:52.000 The smarter ones will only tell intelligent lies.
00:08:56.000 But once again, they look at it purely as a tactical standpoint.
00:09:00.000 There's no higher strategy to their life.
00:09:04.000 There's always just the immediate goal, the immediate objective that they're trying to achieve.
00:09:10.000 They're driven to control their environments, and they will use every single tool that they possibly can to do this.
00:09:17.000 They will fake friendship, they will fake love, they will make up stories, they will tell you what great experts they are at things,
00:09:26.000 about how they have the perfect plan to sort out this business, to make us all rich.
00:09:32.000 And then they'll expect you to be an object in their environment.
00:09:38.000 And they feel no obligation to you.
00:09:41.000 If you lend them a hundred dollars, they'll only pay it back to you if there is something in it for them.
00:09:49.000 So, as long as you still offer something to them, they'll pay you back.
00:09:55.000 The day that there's no advantage to it, they won't.
00:09:59.000 The psychopath uses violence instrumentally.
00:10:08.000 They will initiate violence, but only if there's something in it for them.
00:10:15.000 Because they don't really feel anger, they don't really feel anything.
00:10:19.000 They just have the goals they're trying to accomplish.
00:10:25.000 Nothing but a constant tactician with no strategy.
00:10:32.000 So, watch out for them.
00:10:34.000 They will probably know how to say exactly what you want to hear.
00:10:39.000 They'll try and rush into friendship.
00:10:42.000 They'll have an answer for everything.
00:10:43.000 That's one of the big giveaways with the psychopath, is they have an answer for everything.
00:10:49.000 The only time they'll apologize is if they're trying to win you over.
00:10:54.000 But, ultimately, the worst a psychopath will do is steal your money, steal your girlfriend,
00:11:03.000 maybe lie about you to somebody else because it gives them an advantage.
00:11:08.000 But, ultimately, they're rather petty.
00:11:10.000 Some of the more intelligent ones do rise to positions of power.
00:11:15.000 And if you have a psychopath running a corporation, then that guy will drive the corporation into the ground if there's a profit in it for him.
00:11:23.000 He doesn't care, he has no internal metric of value or honesty.
00:11:28.000 And it's actually a very unfortunate part of our system that the way things are designed right now, psychopaths do easily rise to the top.
00:11:35.000 Ultimately, though, not particularly dangerous, as long as you have some strength in your corner.
00:11:45.000 They won't start a fight that they can't finish, so if you have any sort of stability, they can't do that much damage to you.
00:11:50.000 The best way to make yourself immune from the psychopath is just to have a stable footing in life.
00:12:00.000 The people most at risk from these people are those on the fringe of society who can be used and abused and tossed aside and have absolutely no recourse.
00:12:13.000 Because the psychopath will do that at the drop of a hat.
00:12:15.000 Next time, the histrionic. We get a little bit more dangerous.