I love this piece and am one of those people who believe that love can overcome hate. But I have to say the capitulation of those with wealth who can “afford” to do the right and moral thing and weather the storm but chose to bend the knee has me gobsmacked.
MAGA would like us to believe they have beliefs, but you had it right the first time: these people are psychologically damaged. They were stressed out in childhood by neglect and abuse, emotionally incapable of enough self-composure or control to have beliefs -- they are "other"-driven, paranoid and insecure. Just as "conservatism" is a psychological state rather than a political stance, MAGA is simply pathological. Notice they are completely incapable of governing -- there's no there there. As normal people, do we really need a "moral awakening", or an awakening to the corruption of our attention? Get off the clickbait, divest ourselves of so much addled consumerism in preference for responsible citizenship -- not a terrible burden, but one that flows naturally from real maturity -- you can see it as well as I. We would like to see the victims of "obedience training" (we're not dogs) brought more fully into humanity, and extending opportunity is a nice gesture. But they are destroying the possibility of a future with their nihilism and incompetence, having seized power through shockingly shameless lying, cheating, and threatening (check the numbers of uncounted ballots!). We know we have to reform mass media to finally end the "freedom" to intentionally and unintentionally undermine public mental health, well exposed in advertising and propaganda -- nothing new. We have to recognize the marks of Cain in our midst, to sequester them from positions of advantage or privilege. We must be thorough, or they will come back to haunt us yet again. By their "beliefs" shall you know their emotional retardation.
Entirely correct. Yet it leaves the psychological question: What makes a sociopath? "Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything," from someone who has embraced the Trumpist culture of lying about everything, is mad enough. These people are intelligent when it comes to certain sorts of reasoning; but how are they so entirely blind to the virtues and beauties of compassion?
You've said in our earlier exchange about Rorty's pragmatism that perceiving virtue is "inter-subjective." Rorty agrees, but also takes what he calls the anti-realist stance that all of science is inter-subjective. Meanwhile you're a realist; I mostly am too. So, is sociopathy an inter-subjective virus? Or a product of physical brain damage? Is it built of bad reasoning? Or is it the result of a blinded moral sense, a failure to see virtue in better human behavior, despite that even infants, prior to learning to reason as such, have moral sense?
I'm leaning towards this stance: sociopaths are blinded to what is usually obvious to consciously aware human beings by birth: the beauty of virtue. Virtue is as fundamental to existence as consciousness -- which the sociopaths are equally blind to the nature of. Witness their impossible dream of uploading theirs into computational devices. The sociopaths would turn themselves into pure calculating machines, divorced from awareness of beauty, of goodness, of life itself -- and the degree to which these are beyond calculation.
But again, how did they get there? What is the etiology of sociopathy?
You've asked a really good question here. And answering it is going to take a whole post. So I am going to write my response to your comment as a longform post. You've inspired me to go a bit deeper here. Stay tuned.
Thank you. As bad as things are, I do feel that people are waking up and seeing that there is a choice between sociopathy and humanity. For most of my adult life I’ve watched American society literally promoting the slide into sociopathy, which made no sense to me. Have you read Bruce Cannon Gibney’s book A Generation of Sociopaths? It was very interesting to see how his exhaustive research tracked with so many of the changes in society that I’d been scratching my head over for so long. I felt that his own VC/Silicon Valley background put blinders on his analysis of how we as a society could extricate ourselves from this mess, but it was still an insightful book.
In examining the behaviors of social paths, they include deceit, lying, manipulation, disregard for norms and boundaries, and prioritizing personal gain over virtue. People in Russia who have fought against Putin and his regime could not be seen as sociopaths, especially if they are directly involved in undermining Putin's autocratic rule. I believe that some people have sociopathic traits and therefore can selectively choose when to act or not act on these traits for either good or bad. Survivability and sociopathy might need to co-exist in certain situations. I got pulled over for speeding. "Officer, I thought the speed limit was 70, not 55." The officer smiled and said, "Right."
I am not trying to defend sociopathy, but Nietzsche also said: He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you".
You’re describing sociopathic traits—deceit, manipulation, disregard for rules—that can appear situationally and, in extreme environments, may even serve adaptive purposes. That’s the clinical-behavioral sense: a set of antisocial behaviors that might occasionally overlap with survival strategies or justified rebellion (as in resistance to tyranny).
But in my essay I’m using sociopathy in a moral-philosophical sense: as the cultivated incapacity to perceive or care about virtue, empathy, or human dignity. It’s not a behavioral toolbox one can choose to deploy “for good or evil,” but a collapse of moral coherence itself. A true sociopath doesn’t selectively use manipulation; they’ve lost the capacity to recognize why manipulation is wrong or destructive in the first place.
That’s why, for example, Russian dissidents resisting Putin can’t meaningfully be called sociopathic—even if they use cunning or deception. They’re acting in defense of moral order, not in indifference to it. Their tactics may resemble certain sociopathic behaviors, but their orientation toward truth, justice, or solidarity is the opposite of sociopathy’s moral blindness.
Nietzsche’s warning absolutely applies—anyone fighting monsters risks becoming one—but the sociopath in my framing is someone who’s already crossed that line, who’s no longer capable of seeing the “monster” at all. The rest of us, if we’re to fight effectively without becoming like them, have to stay anchored in the very virtues they’ve forgotten.
The insanity makes more sense after reading this. I see a path forward, and a new way to talk to people in my own community. Appeal to people’s sense of humanity by focusing on the basic things that are important in their lives. Family, simple conversation and friendships. The courtesy of saying thank you. Doing your work well and solving problems as a team. Those values transcend politics if kept simple. It’s a beginning.
I am so grateful that you wrote this. It deserves to be required reading and I for one will endeavor to make it so.
Well done. 👍
I love this piece and am one of those people who believe that love can overcome hate. But I have to say the capitulation of those with wealth who can “afford” to do the right and moral thing and weather the storm but chose to bend the knee has me gobsmacked.
MAGA would like us to believe they have beliefs, but you had it right the first time: these people are psychologically damaged. They were stressed out in childhood by neglect and abuse, emotionally incapable of enough self-composure or control to have beliefs -- they are "other"-driven, paranoid and insecure. Just as "conservatism" is a psychological state rather than a political stance, MAGA is simply pathological. Notice they are completely incapable of governing -- there's no there there. As normal people, do we really need a "moral awakening", or an awakening to the corruption of our attention? Get off the clickbait, divest ourselves of so much addled consumerism in preference for responsible citizenship -- not a terrible burden, but one that flows naturally from real maturity -- you can see it as well as I. We would like to see the victims of "obedience training" (we're not dogs) brought more fully into humanity, and extending opportunity is a nice gesture. But they are destroying the possibility of a future with their nihilism and incompetence, having seized power through shockingly shameless lying, cheating, and threatening (check the numbers of uncounted ballots!). We know we have to reform mass media to finally end the "freedom" to intentionally and unintentionally undermine public mental health, well exposed in advertising and propaganda -- nothing new. We have to recognize the marks of Cain in our midst, to sequester them from positions of advantage or privilege. We must be thorough, or they will come back to haunt us yet again. By their "beliefs" shall you know their emotional retardation.
Entirely correct. Yet it leaves the psychological question: What makes a sociopath? "Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything," from someone who has embraced the Trumpist culture of lying about everything, is mad enough. These people are intelligent when it comes to certain sorts of reasoning; but how are they so entirely blind to the virtues and beauties of compassion?
You've said in our earlier exchange about Rorty's pragmatism that perceiving virtue is "inter-subjective." Rorty agrees, but also takes what he calls the anti-realist stance that all of science is inter-subjective. Meanwhile you're a realist; I mostly am too. So, is sociopathy an inter-subjective virus? Or a product of physical brain damage? Is it built of bad reasoning? Or is it the result of a blinded moral sense, a failure to see virtue in better human behavior, despite that even infants, prior to learning to reason as such, have moral sense?
I'm leaning towards this stance: sociopaths are blinded to what is usually obvious to consciously aware human beings by birth: the beauty of virtue. Virtue is as fundamental to existence as consciousness -- which the sociopaths are equally blind to the nature of. Witness their impossible dream of uploading theirs into computational devices. The sociopaths would turn themselves into pure calculating machines, divorced from awareness of beauty, of goodness, of life itself -- and the degree to which these are beyond calculation.
But again, how did they get there? What is the etiology of sociopathy?
You've asked a really good question here. And answering it is going to take a whole post. So I am going to write my response to your comment as a longform post. You've inspired me to go a bit deeper here. Stay tuned.
This was excellent, Mike. Thank you!
My trust has been broken beyond repair across the board.
Thank you. As bad as things are, I do feel that people are waking up and seeing that there is a choice between sociopathy and humanity. For most of my adult life I’ve watched American society literally promoting the slide into sociopathy, which made no sense to me. Have you read Bruce Cannon Gibney’s book A Generation of Sociopaths? It was very interesting to see how his exhaustive research tracked with so many of the changes in society that I’d been scratching my head over for so long. I felt that his own VC/Silicon Valley background put blinders on his analysis of how we as a society could extricate ourselves from this mess, but it was still an insightful book.
In examining the behaviors of social paths, they include deceit, lying, manipulation, disregard for norms and boundaries, and prioritizing personal gain over virtue. People in Russia who have fought against Putin and his regime could not be seen as sociopaths, especially if they are directly involved in undermining Putin's autocratic rule. I believe that some people have sociopathic traits and therefore can selectively choose when to act or not act on these traits for either good or bad. Survivability and sociopathy might need to co-exist in certain situations. I got pulled over for speeding. "Officer, I thought the speed limit was 70, not 55." The officer smiled and said, "Right."
I am not trying to defend sociopathy, but Nietzsche also said: He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you".
You’re describing sociopathic traits—deceit, manipulation, disregard for rules—that can appear situationally and, in extreme environments, may even serve adaptive purposes. That’s the clinical-behavioral sense: a set of antisocial behaviors that might occasionally overlap with survival strategies or justified rebellion (as in resistance to tyranny).
But in my essay I’m using sociopathy in a moral-philosophical sense: as the cultivated incapacity to perceive or care about virtue, empathy, or human dignity. It’s not a behavioral toolbox one can choose to deploy “for good or evil,” but a collapse of moral coherence itself. A true sociopath doesn’t selectively use manipulation; they’ve lost the capacity to recognize why manipulation is wrong or destructive in the first place.
That’s why, for example, Russian dissidents resisting Putin can’t meaningfully be called sociopathic—even if they use cunning or deception. They’re acting in defense of moral order, not in indifference to it. Their tactics may resemble certain sociopathic behaviors, but their orientation toward truth, justice, or solidarity is the opposite of sociopathy’s moral blindness.
Nietzsche’s warning absolutely applies—anyone fighting monsters risks becoming one—but the sociopath in my framing is someone who’s already crossed that line, who’s no longer capable of seeing the “monster” at all. The rest of us, if we’re to fight effectively without becoming like them, have to stay anchored in the very virtues they’ve forgotten.
The insanity makes more sense after reading this. I see a path forward, and a new way to talk to people in my own community. Appeal to people’s sense of humanity by focusing on the basic things that are important in their lives. Family, simple conversation and friendships. The courtesy of saying thank you. Doing your work well and solving problems as a team. Those values transcend politics if kept simple. It’s a beginning.