Some people are of the opinion that “sociopaths” and ‘narcissists” own cruelty. In fact the most cruel people I’ve known were perfectly normal.
Most kids who pick on other kids are perfectly normal. Most men who beat their wives are perfectly normal. Most people who join gangs or commit war crimes are perfectly normal.
The same is the case with bullies on the Internet.
Cruelty therefore stands not to be reduced by getting rid of narcissists and sociopaths. Instead in so doing is perpetrated a cruelty of its own. These people get damned, claimed that they are evil and can only be evil whatever they do. I have news for the people who believe such things. Evil is not a matter of brain chemistry or childhood conditioning. Evil is a matter of choice. Most people who do evil are perfectly normal. They do not have a problem of neurology or psychology. They have a problem of beliefs and values.
Evil being a matter of choice, anyone is capable of doing it. Anyone is also capable of doing good. This includes “sociopaths” and “narcissists.” With narcissistic disorder in particular, the world owes vastly to people who have it. If it is narcissistic to have original ideas or to seek great success, then everyone who’s had either is a narcissist, which means that we owe greatly to people with this disorder. And if it is narcissistic to dislike social authority, then the ancestors of all white people in America and most white people in the rest of the New World – immigrants – were all narcissists, as they disliked social authority in their countries enough to go searching for freedom on the other side of the world.
I’ve known people who have – rightly or wrongly - been described as such things, and they didn’t strike me as worse than an average person. Some were actually more compassionate than most people. Either they were wrongly described, or the disorders of which they’ve been accused are invalid. In either case, pursuant these descriptions, they were subjected to far greater cruelty than anything they’ve ever done themselves.
How do you actually get rid of cruelty? Given that most cruelty is committed by normal people, doing away with “sociopaths” and “narcissists” will not begin to solve the problem. The reason why most people do evil are wrong beliefs. If the beliefs are such as that only the strong survive, or that people are separated into winners and losers, or that “narcissists” and “sociopaths” are damned for life, then the person will be doing cruel things in pursuant of such beliefs. The correct solution is to confront bad ideas with better ones. Refute the lies that get normal people acting in terrible ways, and in so doing actually do away with cruelty.
I’ve had to confront a lot of wrong cognitions that are out there, and I hope that other people do so as well. Then we can get rid of cruelty for real instead of running witch hunts and committing far greater cruelties than are committed by “sociopaths” and “narcissists.”