So my question is,
1) Are you a sociopath?
2) What do you think of society's labeling and marginalization of so-called sociopaths?
Sometimes I think sociopathic individuals will be the next minority to fight for their rights. It's scary how much anti-sociopath rhetoric is prevalent in media today. Nobody is offended if you say sociopaths should be rounded up and killed. According to society, as long as you can sufficiently label someone a sociopath, it becomes within your rights to deny them freedoms and torture or kill them.
No.
2) What do you think of society's labeling and marginalization of so-called sociopaths?
Who cares? This is a non-issue for the following reason: even experts can't positively identify a sociopath, and even the definition/diagnosis isn't widely agreed-upon. A smart sociopath would exhibit mostly pro-social behaviors, even though he has anti-social motivations.
People can't be persecuted as a group if they can't be identified in that group. People can rage about sociopaths all they want, but they can't identify them in order to do anything to them.
> Nobody is offended if you say sociopaths should be rounded up and killed. According to society, as long as you can sufficiently label someone a sociopath, it becomes within your rights to deny them freedoms and torture or kill them.
I don't know what country you live in, but this is not true in the US. If you can show me some examples that aren't random nutjobs on the internet, I'd be very interested to see them.
(You may, of course, be referring to sociopaths who are accused of murder or some other anti-social act, which is not the same as persecuting them just for their personality.)
Classic sociopathy is lumped in with other personality disorders in the DSM, and at the margins there's a large group where there's wide disagreement about classification. But regarding the classic sociopath studied by Hare and others, AFAIU the majority of psychiatrists can spot those a mile away. And DSM or no DSM, most psychiatrists see them as a distinct group. But such people have no reason to seek psychiatric help for their condition, and because it's not susceptible to any kind of treatment in the traditional sense, there's little reason for these people to interact with the medical community the way other categories of "abnormal" people do. So that limits how much scholarship and research that will occur, especially considering that most sociopaths are non-violent. And while a large portion of violent criminals seem to be sociopathic (less or more depending on how you define it, but nonetheless significant), the direct cause of the violence seems related to other mental issues--sociopathy just merely removes one of the natural inhibitors of violent behavior.
You are referring to James Fallon, of TED Talk fame, and his science is not sound: http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/pseud...
> the majority of psychiatrists can spot those a mile away. And DSM or no DSM, most psychiatrists see them as a distinct group
That's impossible to know for sure. If you don't have reliable diagnostic criteria (and the ability to thoroughly examine the subject), these people can't test their belief that someone is a psychopath. It's just not science.
And people with personality disorders of various type are already campaigning for change - your use of outdated stigmatising language is hampering your ability to search.
Mostly around borderline PD and antisocial PD: http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meet...
https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/offenders/mentally-diso...
If you feel some kind of kinship with other sociopaths, you're probably not a sociopath.
There are other phenomenon related to empathy. For example it was recently discovered that some people lack conscious awareness of empathy. In these cases physiological and psychological responses to empathic emotions are clearly present (e.g. various stress responses), but the person doesn't consciously understand why the response is occurring (or even always that it's occurring) or its relation to a social interaction. Some people on the so-called autistic spectrum seem to suffer from this; their mirror neurons are present and functioning, they're just not plugged into everything correctly.
Some people lack episodic memories. They remember the birth of their child, for example, in the same way they remember that 10 * 10 == 100; as a fact, not as a lived experience imbued with an emotional dimension. Arguably this might imply that their experience of the world is more superficial than others, perhaps similar in some respects to a sociopath's experience of the world.
The role of sex in relationships is incredibly rich and complex. Arguably people who are asexual or otherwise less motivated or responsive to sexual passions might feel more disconnected emotionally in some respects than other people.
And just because you _think_ you wouldn't be emotionally stirred by events normatively considered "shocking" (like the injury of a small child, or especially your own child) doesn't mean you wouldn't actually be stirred in reality. We all consciously and unconsciously disassociate from the world, especially when technology intermediates. But you can't compare that to being physically present and involved. It's why it makes little sense to believe that, e.g., playing violent video games would strongly relate to a tendency to real-life violent behavior.
The thing is this: Even if most people are sociopaths, it isn't an issue. What the media labels as a sociopath doesn't match the clinical definition. Even a clinical diagnosis only comes about if the person is having life problems or is hurting other folks, and most won't do that because it would hurt themselves or hamper their goals. The same really goes for hearing voices - it isn't a problem so long as you can deal with it, they are positive and go about life in a fairly normal fashion - but if you can't, you should probably seek help. In addition, a lot of people will self-label if it is a popular thing to be. For reference, suddenly lots of people fall into the autism spectrum, many have ADHD, gluten intolerance, etc without a doctor's actual diagnosis. A "hunch". It is probably normal to feel a bit abnormal because we only see a glimpse of what goes on in other's heads.
... as long as you can sufficiently lavel someone a sociopath, it becomes within your rights to deny them freedoms and torture or kill them.
Not really, nor is this any different from someone schizophrenic or bipolar or any number of diseases. Society is only bothered with those that are violent and outright hurt folks. But it is the same with rapists, child molesters, etc, and there are many contributing factors. So long as we have a society that is generally well-educated and can sort out the difference between reality and fantasy, oddities and normalities, it really doesn't matter much. (whether we have that is debatable and another topic altogether).
http://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/06/06/mizzou-empl...
