Reply #198: That research itself sounds like the idea, if not entirely the work of psychopaths. "Human rights"

[Joe Chi Minh]

is a widely abused expression, but I don't think even the worst of the worst should be subjected to physical examinations of any such kind without the prisoners' informed consent. Which I doubt occurs. "Human rights" is usually in the UK (and even more notably, perhaps, the EU) a coded expression of atheist politicians, not for human rights, at all, since humans require boundaries and even responsiblities, if they are to enjoy anything approaching true freedom as appreciably fulfilled human beings. Rather it is the limitless, self-gratifying licence they are busy garnering for themselves in their poisonous, Frankenstein-inspired scientific research and its sibling field of right-wing economics.

The author actually stated that the 6% to which he (and you) refer, could never be exact, and would differ to some extend according to the society, its history, etc. Pretty much along those lines. I'm not sure of the history, but it would seem to me to be a significant factor.

Ordinarily, I find the very notion of the human psyche being the subject of any empirical scientific studies beyond laughable, but it does seem to me that statistical patterns could be another matter all together.

If by the word, "intuition", you mean anecdotal observation, on the other hand, that, to me, would also essentially seem to afford a quite reliable assessment, where such extreme behaviours are concerned. Powerful people who originate policies which cause immense and gratuitous suffering to others, in peace as well as war (in the former case, with regard to the general public, almost invariably on specious economic grounds), seems to me to be a good starting point for suspecting psychopathy.

But it was the identification of that other 12% within that context which I found so fascinating. How it could take a grip of virtually a whole nation. It's interesting to think that General Smedley Butler would have started off as a member of this group, but found that as the years passed, he saw more and more clearly the viciouness of US imperial policy in S. America, the Phillipines, all over the world, and tried to atone for it.

The wonderful former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, who is a fierce critic of the same kinds of monstrous behaviour by his former employers, speaking at different venues around the country, I believe, mentioned that he believed a close colleague of his, engaged in the same kind of work, had committed suicide because he couldn't bear to think of what he had been complicit in fomenting in S. America. So, it seems that some individuals may essentially be engaged in some essentially psychopathic activity, while demonstrating other mitigating characteristics. I believe the author had this in mind, too, when seeking to categorise individuals.

In short, I'm not sure that the author would have believed that any understanding of the human psyche would possibly be accessible to empirical science, although perhaps he does, since he appears to be an atheist or at least, an agnostic. But it seems to me that a combination of anecdotal observation, intuition and statistical studies can be of priceless value in this particular subject area, and I think this was his theme.

I believe in Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, he settled for somatotomic endomorphs (the athletically built types) as being the seminal trouble-makers in society, according to the classification of a psychologsist called Sheldon (you will presumably be familiar with), though he admitted that dictators tend by and large to be short and tubby mesomorphs.

I have found that increasingly UK politicians and their friends in the business world say the most outrageously crazy things, notably in a programme called Question Time. The studio audience in the last one I saw seemed pretty worldly and sharp, yet they let this character off when he peddled the most utterly laughable nonsense - as if they were too stunned. Or was it because he was ultimately perceived as "monied and respectable" like themseves, caught up, in spite of themselves, in this "respectable, monied" cultural mindset. The spokesman of another politician, who had been found to have failed to declare donations he had received from lobbysists - it turned out to be endemic among all of them - and appeared to have tried to launder them through an inoperative "think-tank", intoned in the most unctuous and lordly manner, almost as if touting for his boss to be nominated for a Nobel prize, "I can tell you that Mr bla bla has fully cooperated with the investigation."!!!! You had to hear it to get the humour. You could almost smell burning incense and see the whisps of perfumed smoke rising. This humour, too, made the article fascinating. The man who'd killed both his parents and pleaded for sympathy because he was an orphan! I don't know if your politicians are as barmy as ours, but I'm looking forward keenly to the next Question Time.

I've mentioned a few times on here that most politicians in the UK appear to be either extreme sociopaths or outright psychopaths, both at the national level and the local level, and the reason for that is very simple, but imo, totally incontrovertible. The utter turpitude into which this country has sunk and continues to sink, unabated. A highly accelerated decline, I might add, since Thatcher put an end to the right-left consensus on maintaining the welfare state and Christianity as the official State religion, of the Labour party and the one-nation Tories.