For further study on psychopaths, I recommend the book

“The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout , PH.D. Broadway Books New York 2005.

“1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty. Who is the devil you know?” A person with sociopathic personality disorder (AKA a psychopath) is a person who has no “conscience” and no empathy for other people.

Sociopaths frequently come across as charming and socially adept; nevertheless, other people are just “things” to them. Sociopaths are estimated to be about 4% of the population; nobody knows what causes this disorder except that most of them are born that way and they cannot be fixed. They don’t want to be fixed. If you have a problem with their behavior, that’s what it is to them, your problem.

Sociopaths learn very young in life that they are the “one eyed man in the land of the blind” when it comes to ruthlessness; that other people are restrained by their morals, feelings and fears, but that THEY are not. We tend to think of sociopaths as all being serial murderers; however, most are not violent criminals. Instead most sociopaths are the ordinary liars, cheats, frauds, bullies, serial sexual harassers, baby daddies, baby mommas, embezzlers, slackers and shameless moochers that we meet and work with in everyday life. They just experience no guilt or embarrassment about what they do and they enjoy manipulating and using others.

The sociopath’s need for constant stimulation (risk-taking) is what usually gets them in trouble and exposes them, often when they finally push a scam too far. Drug and alcohol abuse are also common symptoms of the sociopath, given their constant need for stimulation that they don’t get from normal relationships. Sociopaths/psychopaths tend to get bored easily, lack focus and don’t like to work very hard, which is why they frequently find it necessary to cheat and lie to get ahead. This is good news for the rest of us since nowadays it is much easier to check into someone’s background than it was in years past.

The author of this book is obviously a Liberal who “got mugged by reality”. She wastes a lot of the book enjoining the reader to not emulate the conscienceless behavior of the sociopath and in pointing out how important it is to have a conscience. But that is a pointless preaching to the choir, as a normal person can no more act completely devoid of conscience than he can breathe underwater. The warning to normal people is that if you try to act like a sociopath you will be shunned by others (something which wouldn’t bother a born sociopath) AND you will be psychologically haunted and tortured by your sins until the end of your life. So don’t do it! Nevertheless the case histories in the book are very interesting and serve to help one identify common sociopathic behavior in everyday life and thereby avoid becoming victimized by sociopaths.

The original psychology tome that first identified psychopathy or sociopathy is “The Mask of Sanity” by Hervey Milton Cleckley, 1941.