More and more, I'm seeing the theme that "they" are psychopaths and sociopaths. Whoever the current "they" is. You know, politicians, bankers, the 1%, the militias, bullies in general, rapists, anyone on the Right Wing, anyone who disagrees with me... it goes on and on.
And if we'd just diagnose the mental conditions better/faster/more easily and prescribe treatment for those who have these problems, well then, we would be better people, and our institutions would no longer be a dominated by those behaviors.
IT'S A TRAP! (Insert your favorite Star Wars image here.) Worse, it's an oversimplification of both the psychological definitions of the terms and the behaviors of the people so described. Not to mention that it leaves the burden of fixing the country in the hands of psychologists and psychiatrists (shudder!), where it surely doesn't belong.
It's also one more way of telling ourselves that the problem is too big and complicated to be solved by us "normal" people. And, of course, it's a way to pin the word "evil" on people in a non-religious context.
It's time again to remind everyone about one basic human trait:
Behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated.
This is the key to building human structures of all types. It's necessary to the process of socialization, and, like it or not, is a sane and competent way of dealing with any society, no matter how much we may dislike some of the side effects when the rewards are skewed.
One of the problems with so bald an assertion is that it's not always easy to see what the rewards for some behaviors are. Part of the process of maturation is generally the internalization of what are considered rewarding behaviors, to the point that the brain will provide its own pleasurable sensations when certain behaviors occur, establishing internal feedback loops for those behaviors. It's generally when that internal feedback/affirmation is badly out of whack with societal or group approval/affirmation that psychologists tend to be called in.
~ eliding over an additional 5 or 10 paragraphs on nuances of perceived rewards, addictive behavior, etc. ~
Now, I'm not too thrilled with a lot of the behavior that's currently getting slammed with instant psychiatric diagnoses, and I don't want this to be one more diary that only talks about what shouldn't be said. But if you want real change, find a way to change the reward structures that produce the behavior, rather than assuming that sane people simply wouldn't do those things.
Warning: the following paragraph contains free-form self-analysis. If you keep going, on your own head be it.
I'm open to suggestions on how it might be done. (That's one way of saying I don't have a clue as to how to make it work.) Personally, I find it easier to critique than to praise, and to simply pass by when I have no argument with what someone is doing, unless I find it so new or unique that it stops me in my tracks. Or unless I can come up with something that adds to the conversation. Because my own internal structures, now that I'm looking at them, have a large blank spot when it comes to giving rewards for the sake of changing behavior. I immediately start thinking of training dogs, and shy away from the whole subject. I have now done this at least six times while trying to write this paragraph. Because that's manipulating people, and that's
wrong. Because people shouldn't manipulate other people. Oops... shoulds are glitch markers. Quitting here for the moment, because I've run into an internal contradiction. Your turn...