The Media's Post-Newtown Autism Fail
Dec. 24th, 2012 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyhttp://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/journalism-newtown-autistics
I suppose I must acknowledge that it isn't totally impossible for autistics to kill people, but at it's very worst we are certainly no more prone to this than the general public. But every time something like this happens, some undereducated twerp decides that autistics have a lack of empathy (not so much....) that is totally the same as the lack of empathy experienced by sociopaths (this is where they start making stuff up) and that therefore since all sociopaths are serial killers (pretty sure this isn't true either) so must autistics all be serial killers. It is absolutely nonsense, but equally uneducated people listen to it.
I suppose I must acknowledge that it isn't totally impossible for autistics to kill people, but at it's very worst we are certainly no more prone to this than the general public. But every time something like this happens, some undereducated twerp decides that autistics have a lack of empathy (not so much....) that is totally the same as the lack of empathy experienced by sociopaths (this is where they start making stuff up) and that therefore since all sociopaths are serial killers (pretty sure this isn't true either) so must autistics all be serial killers. It is absolutely nonsense, but equally uneducated people listen to it.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 11:56 pm (UTC)Empathy is a predicate for sadism. If somebody wants to argue that there are no sadistic sociopaths, that those are immiscible categories, well, I'll certainly hear out their case. But it simply isn't possible to enjoy another's suffering if one can't perceive it. I know, I know, I know: empathy is supposed to be all fluffy bunnies and rainbow unicorns, and not -- like absolutely everything else in the entirety of human existence -- have a shadow side or be usable for harm.
Also-also, if[*] one distinguishes between psychopaths and sociopaths, mass-murderers are pretty much exactly what a sociopath isn't. A sociopath is (among other characteristics) someone who is good at not getting caught. Doing something flagrant and unsurvivable in public is not sociopathic, it's psychopathic.
[* Which it is legit not to; these are unstandardized categories not used by mainstream psychiatry. However, I find it useful to do so.]
no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-28 01:34 am (UTC)(Tongue in cheek, mainly, but during my studies for my Master's, it was made pretty clear that a certain amount of Machiavellianism was required to make it into upper management in the standard American business arena, and American politics in general. The more Machiavellian a person is, the better they are at playing the political games, and manipulating people to not only doing what they want, but also taking the credit for it.)