Reading Jon Ronson's latest book led me to conclude, with some relief and also a whiff of sadness, that I am not a psychopath. If I learnt one thing from his investigation it's that psychopaths don't care what other people think and don't suffer any remorse over the way their actions impact the lives of others. While there's a part of me that always says "I don't give a monkey's", I know deep down that the opinions of others matter greatly... that's why criticism just kills me. And despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that other people spend the majority of their time pissing me off... I also spend far too much of my own time worrying that I might be pissing other people off. Frankly, it can be exhausting. That's where the whiff of sadness comes in... there are times, I think I'd be better off a psychopath. Perhaps we all would.
Putting aside the incarcerated psychopaths whose lack of empathy has led to crimes the police can't ignore, Ronson argues that many more have actually gone on to positions of great power and wealth... exactly because they don't give a monkey's. So he meets a notorious CEO and hatchet man who shows no remorse over the many lives he's affected through ruthless business decisions. Well, why should he? Look to anyone in power and see the bodies they've climbed over to get where they are today, Ronson discovers, and chances are they'll score highly on Canadian psychologist Bob Hare's infamous Psychopath Test which identifies factors such as superficial charm, grandiose sense of self worth, proneness to boredom, callousness and impulsivity as classic traits that make up the average psychopathic personality. That's all you need to be a success... which I guess explains how I got where I am today.
However, Ronson's book offers little to reassure us about the psychiatric profession itself. From the "thud experiments" in which a group of researchers tricked their way into getting committed to various psychiatric hospitals across the US simply by telling doctors they heard a voice saying the word "thud" (my own diagnosis would have been: you read too many comics) to the many dissenting views and extreme research methods shared by mental health professionals over the years, there's a real suggestion that the lunatics are running the asylum wherever you look.
By turns hilarious and horrifying, Ronson's book ultimately left me profoundly depressed. At last I can see where I've been going wrong all these years. Forget the anti-psychotic medication - where do I get me some anti-empathy tablets?
