Comments on NYCGA (Occupy Wall Street) meeting on Psychopathy in Banking/Finance

My post at http://www.nycga.net/groups/alternative-banking/forum/topic/minutes-from-sunday-march-11-2012-subgroup-topic-psychopathy-in-bankingfinance/:

I totally agree that the “Wall Street financial services sector attracts psychopaths” far beyond the norm in the general population. I have worked, at least a year, for some seven investment banks over the last 25 years, including 11 years at UBS, so I claim to speak with personal knowledge. Deceitful ruthless cutthroats rise to the top.

Part of this is due to corporations having the freedom to act sociopathically (as someone else pointed out, they can be sued if they don’t). Sociopaths naturally will rise to the top — they have no ‘friction’ or ‘drag’ from consciences holding them back from going for the greatest profit. And part is due to the nature of capitalism itself and the profit drive.

My suggestion is simply to keep corporations relatively small, so sociopathic or not, the damage they can inflict is limited. Taking an example from nature, infants do indeed get murderously angry, but being small it doesn’t matter (unless they grow up with unmollified, unresolved infantile rage). As an added bonus, smallish corporations couldn’t overpower democracy.

There were suggestions that Wall St. employees be given psychological tests for sociopathy. I don’t think that is necessary (or would be effective, see below). I don’t mean to be flip, but we don’t want millions of sociopaths on welfare. There is nothing rare about sociopathy.

Just as sociopaths very often make rule abiding prison inmates they can also be rule abiding investment professionals. The rules just have to be very clear and punishment sure and swift. Unfortunately the financial services sector has been set up by and for sociopaths. So we have a problem.

Regarding tests, I don’t believe there is a psychological test in the world that advanced sociopaths wouldn’t simply laugh at. However, research has shown that there are now detectable brain structure differences in sociopaths. All regulators need to be tested for and filtered out by these structures. (See links at bottom.)

These advanced sociopaths are called SAPs — socially adept psychopaths, who can be unbelievably skillful at both manipulation and avoiding detection.

In terms of unionization, it’d be great if it could work. Though to my experience Wall St. support staff are incredibly loyal to and proud to work for Wall St. Of course the loyalty is only in one direction. I was at Drexel at the end, I recall a meeting to explain the firm’s demise and many of my co-workers went (I was freelance so I couldn’t go), seeking to find out what had happened to their livelihoods — only to be told the meeting was for professionals only. The support staff were clearly only ‘so many truck o’ dog’ to the bankers.

“Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes” is one of the great books of history. It is a scientific study of the development of pathocracies (governments under the control of evil individuals and movements).

Selections and commentary on “Political Ponerology”: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm, http://www.sott.net/articles/show/159686-In-Memoriam-Andrzej-M-obaczewski . To purchase the book: http://www.ponerology.com/ .

It is discussed further here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/ponerology-101-snakes-in-suits/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-book-everyone-needs-to-read-and-its-free-dr-andr/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/democide-when-your-government-kills-you

If interested here are some links to my own blog:

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/pathwhisperer-postscomments-on-occupywallst-org/

On SAPs:
http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/post-redux-are-saps-socially-adept-psychopaths-real/

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/sociopathic-through-lines/

On sociopathic brain structures:
http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/criminal-minds-will-testing-the-brain-even-before-birth-separate-the-good-seeds-from-the-bad/

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/the-tucson-tragedy-reopen-the-mental-hospitals-require-candidates-to-submit-brain-scans/

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/psychopaths-caused-the-financial-crisis-and-they-will-do-it-again-and-again-unless-they-are-removed-from-power/

Wall St./General:
http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/welcome-to-our-sociopaths-gone-wild-economy/

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/commonalities-between-wall-street-speculators-andor-fed-bankers-and-sociopaths/

http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/sociopathy-and-the-nypd/

From Country of Liars: Character Assassination

http://country-of-liars.com/6667/character-assassination-2/

From the comments:

Becca:

I am so sad that my world of associates continues to dwindle because of the subtle words, set ups and comparisons to unlikable TV/Movie characters that my soon to be ex husband continues to make about me when around others.

He trashed my reputation to such lengths that I don’t even know where to even begin to try and 1) show these people that I am not the person he is making me out to be.  . . .

I would appreciate something that may work. His behaviors and tall tales are also having an effect on my son’s social life too. I am an attractive person, a caring nice person, have always been popular and well liked. People that don’t have any idea who I am hate me because of my ex husband. He has done this to me even before we were divorcing. But now it has begun and taken hold in my new town and school district. What can I do? Something please !

Larry:

@ Becca …

I know the sadness all too well. I only know a fraction of what has been said about my life and character, but those who do know the lies will never tell. I came to the conclusion after believing I could spread the truth about me that it was all too late. Those people, even family members, didn’t want to listen to me. In the eyes of many, I am an true outcast.

I eventually came to terms with what I was faced with, and instead of taking the route of continually being so depressed and not achieving anything positive, I accepted I had to let go, and erase them from my life. That included my two daughters.

In my experience, I’ve never heard a victim turn things around, though I would hope it’s happened. That has the effect of taking you down, but do not let it. Come to peace with your life and future, and the new people you will meet.

Well that’s depressing.  Why are these character assassinations so believed, that the victim himself is never told the accusations?  Amazing.  The effects are not small, the victim’s life is absolutely devastated.

From another comment, David:

Believe me moving away does not help to much, because I believe what people go through you still live with it. I to have the same problem. The whole thing of just turning off. When I wake up everything that has happened to me starts all over again. I think about it every moment. I make bad decisions because of what’s on my mind. There are times, when I too can’t get a breath in.

It not only extends through every moment of the victim’s life, but extends outward.  The victim’s stress is brought home to their family.  Divorces result.  The victim’s preoccupation (or spreading cancer of anxiety) distorts the victim’s judgement, and causes the victim to miss cues from others, sometimes important ones.  Sleep is hard, activated anxiety centers never go to sleep.

Imagine what Becca must have felt in her new town as she felt it all happening again.  Her silent screams as though she were on thin ice watching the cracks seek her out, following her from her past locations, powerless to affect or stop them.  Or perhaps she felt she was being pursued by ghosts that could strike her at will, but that she could neither see nor defend against.

We are all social animals.  We need secure communities of friends and believe we have them.  Victims of psychopathic character assassination know that is not true.  For them, what was once solid ground becomes a thin crust over a sea of acid.  They never know when a footfall will break through.

It should be pointed out that the psychopath’s aim is murder, murder by suicide.

The daisy chain of evil has to be broken.  Or perhaps a better metaphor would be the paper cutout doll chain needs to be broken lest it unfold into infinity, damaging all it touches.

But no one helps.  The psychopath’s whispering campaign is absolutely and totally believed.  The victim is almost never even told, ‘the word on the street about you is . . . ., thought you should know.’  Sad.

Dharun Ravi, sociopath — Post Redux

From Oct. 4, 2010:  http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/that-flavor-of-sociopathy-%E2%80%94-current-stories-in-the%C2%A0news/

Rutgers freshman is presumed dead in suicide after roommate broadcast gay sexual encounter online

A Rutgers University freshman [Tyler Clementi] appears to have killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate broadcast live images of the 18-year-old having a sexual encounter with another man on the internet, according to campus and law enforcement sources.  . .  .

Dharun Ravi, 18, of Plainsboro, and Molly Wei, 18, of Princeton, were charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy for setting up a camera in a dorm room on Sept. 19 and using it to view and transmit a live sex scene, said Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/hold_new_rutgers_post.html

It seems likely that Dharun Ravi is a sociopath who thought he was just pulling off a “goof.”  I doubt he comprehended the violation of what he was doing.  I also doubt that he would have felt violated if that had been done to him as sociopathic sexuality is so primitive no privacy is needed.

It is also possible that he was a “good guy sociopath”, not meaning any harm, just seeking a few laughs.  However, this would not be true if he doesn’t accept his fault and error here.  “Good guy sociopaths” do exist, who actually aren’t evil — though obviously the result of his choices was evil.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, sociopaths no longer feel constrained.  In addition to the widespread depiction of sociopathic behavior in popular culture which sociopaths seem to feel licenses their own behavior, there is also the example of modern technological invasions of privacy and surveillance (ISPs keeping track of clients, Google databases, Facebook, etc.).  I believe sociopaths pay attention to all of this in determining what is acceptable behavior.

Frequent search: Newt Gingrich sociopath? — fer shure, fer shure

For years I have heard and read that Newt Gingrich was a sociopath and I agreed intellectually.

I have mentioned him in this blog twice:

The sociopath will have a child’s emotional hypersensitivity corresponding to that age. Recall Clinton’s takedown of Newt Gingrich.  http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/quadruple-search-today-how-to-cross-examine-a-sociopath/

and

Also how can you blackmail someone who doesn’t understand cause and effect or is stuck in a four year old’s thinking patterns (Newt Gingrich says there is a four year old inside of him (paraphrasing) — ‘everyday I wake up and know that there is a cookie waiting for me somewhere, my job is to find it’).  http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/more-searches/

Traits or actions of his consistent with sociopathy (in no particular order):

1)  Arrogance — I recall some of his advise/tips to his fellow Republican congressmen, at the end he would almost always say of course they wouldn’t be as good as it as he was.
2)  Pathological optimism.  This is part of the entire arrested development package.  Evolution has given young people biological optimism to help them confront the difficulties of life.
3)  His reported asking for a divorce at his soon-to-be ex’s cancer hospital bed — when consideration serves no purpose, there is utterly no consideration.  It’s a waste of acting effort.
4)  His support of extreme wealth distribution on the grounds that then more people could get jobs as servants.  Sociopaths, not being self-referential, don’t know they are doing well unless they see others doing badly.  Not only must they win, but everyone else must lose.
5)  His breathtaking hypocrisy of criticizing Clinton and calling for Clinton’s impeachment over Monica Lewinsky while carrying on an affair with a staffer.  Quoting his second wife, Marianne Gingrich:

“He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connected“
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/newt-gingrich-0910?page=all

There you have it, a perfectly phrased description of the code of the sociopath, of the high level SAP (socially adept psychopath).  As I’ve written elsewhere criticizing a sociopath for hypocrisy is analogous to criticizing a fish for having fins, it is their primary life tool.

Despite all of this, I had never quite ‘felt sure in my gut’ that he was a sociopath, I had never gotten that ‘click’ of recognition — until watching some of his talks in 2010/2011.

Elsewhere I have discussed the need to ‘recognize’ sociopaths at the ‘soul level’.  My personal aim and wish for my readers is the attainment of that ‘sensing’ or ‘seeing’ sociopaths capability, http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/as-time-passed-i-learned-how-to-see-psychopaths-it-was-as-if-a-sixth-sense-had-been-awakened/

I understand that many people are uneasy over (or dismissive of ) this stated need.  I’m sorry, I don’t design reality, I merely try to understand it and then try to communicate my understanding.  If one is dealing with a ‘soul defect’, which sociopathy is, then naturally the soul plays a role in recognizing the condition.

I would describe the psychological soul as that part of the psyche that houses the deepest needs, wants and instincts; that dreams and never lies.  It is the part that comes to the fore while the conscious mind sleeps.

Over at the Lovefraud blog the devastated hearts (and I am not being sarcastic, they are truly devastated) are forever drawing up routines and tests of the mind to protect themselves from future romantic entanglements with sociopaths.  Unfortunately these tests can never work.  Advanced sociopaths will simply laugh at their puny defenses and real possibilities of love will have the door slammed in their faces.  It’s ‘soul level’ antenna that they need to work on.

Back to Newt Gingrich, my soul level recognition (which is really just opinion of course) took place while watching him discuss outlawing Sharia law in the U.S. in 2010 or 2011.  Now I realize it is not good advertising for myself that this took place some fifteen years after his arrival on the national stage.  However I could never stand to watch or listen to him for long, his smug arrogance simply puts me off.  However this reaction to sociopathic type arrogance is a flag of possible sociopathy itself.  I’m sure I could have reached this state earlier if I had forced myself to directly witness his words and behavior earlier.

A fear of imposition of Shariah Law in the United States is absolutely looney tunes.  Sociopathic groupthink will often veer off into such bizarre avenues, due to their arrested development childlike thinking.  Like children, nothing (and everything) makes sense to them.

I once watched a father and son sitting on a bench with a lifelike bronze statue of a man posed at the end.  The man was trying to get his son to sit inbetween himself and the statue.  But the boy was having none of it.  Wide eyed, he had no idea what to make of the statue.  Another example is the circus clown.  ‘Is that a person in a clown suit, OR . . . A CLOWN MONSTER!!!!!  AAAAAHH!!’  (If I have used this example more than once, which I don’t recall doing, my status as an ‘oldish’ person licenses me to repeat myself.)

This preoccupation with the threat of imposition of Shariah Law in the U.S. is such a childlike confusion.  I suggest paying attention to any groupthink beliefs that are so bizarre that they only make sense ‘if the believers had been locked in the echo chamber of a clown car on the planet Xatar’ — they are a flag of possible sociopathy.

The truth doesn’t matter at all to sociopathic demagogues, no more than it matters to sociopathic prosecutors.  The issue is simply what can they sell as the truth.  In times of social stress and disorientation, such as today, such demagogues are extremely dangerous.  Newt Gingrich should not be allowed to run for any public office.

Perhaps he could disprove these assertions by having a brain and DNA scan, and then submitting the results publicly.  I wish he would.