Called a "sociopath" in a community?

[Spinning Compass]

To put things into perspective, Mlive.com, the online news service that I use, has been running a series of articles about the number of people who get murdered each year in cities like Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw, and Detroit. Some of these cities sound like virtual war zones. Bet you didn't hear about the Saginaw child who was celebrating his birthday in his own home surrounded by family and friends when a drive-by shooter shot and killed him. Nope. No teddy bears for him. No bracelets, no national outpouring of grief.

The violence I speak of has been a normal part of life in these cities for years if not decades yet unless you live in Michigan you are likely not to be aware of it. Yet aren't the loss of these lives just as tragic as the lives lost at Sandy Hook? Sandy Hook was an anomaly. As I write this, someone (most likely a young person) is probably losing his or her life right now in one of these cities. Ah, but the people who are dying are poor and black for the most part, we don't really need any more of those. "Natural" selection at work, right?

 

[Madame Catfish]

I have also frequently been accused of being a sociopath. I quit arguing with my classmates a while ago, now I just let them roll with it.
I can see where they get the idea, though. I confess that I usually fake most emotions and can be pretty manipulative. I don't lie though, I just can't, I find it hard to be sarcastic when joking around.

About not feeling bad about school shootings, I am the same way. It's a shame that it happened, but why do I have to spend the next month publicly displaying sadness when there are better things to do? I understand that the parents of those children are going through huge amounts of emotional turmoil and that children were deprived of their lives and that is a very bad thing, but why do I have to sit around and cry about it? Feeling sorry for those people won't solve the problem. Action just might.

Besides, after the initial shock has worn off, the people who were NOT directly involved will go back to their daily lives, oblivious to the daily horrors that surround them. Caring so deeply for a few weeks with tears and head-shaking, and then forgetting about the entire incident while the parents of those children are haunted daily and still show up to water the graves. Is that more righteous? Making a huge emotional circus about the incident until the media storm subsides and then not thinking about it until the next shooting hits the television news? It sounds shallow and hypocritical to me. The saddened families are still out there, mourning, but the general population has already gone back to work.

 

[wyverary]

I've never been called a "sociopath," probably because I do display emotion and am very bad at manipulating people.

Interesting that Aspergers was initially called "autistic psychopathy"...if we were truly psychopaths, wouldn't we have much better people skills?

 

[Ste11aeres]

I've never been called a "sociopath," probably because I do display emotion and am very bad at manipulating people.

Interesting that Aspergers was initially called "autistic psychopathy"...if we were truly psychopaths, wouldn't we have much better people skills?

I read something about that term. I don't remember exactly what I read, but the word "psychopath", used for autistics, didn't have the same meaning that people give to it nowadays.

 

[Madame Catfish]

Indeed. Psychopath was a general term referring to any "disorder" of the mind. In literal translation we get Psychos, relating to the psyche and Pathos, or disease. So Psychopath meant someone with a diseased mind, without being any specific disorder.